Kenshou wrote: The practice of the satipatthanas and anapanasati do certainly aim for the abandonment of vitakka and vicara, but I would question whether this means that these practices are only really being practiced when those factors aren't present, or if it's that their abandonment is a result of that practice, with that abandonment specifically occurring with entrance to the 2nd jhana where it is explicitly stated that they cease. Which I believe removes some of the difficulty in determining whether vitakka and vicara in the context of the 1st jhana must refer to something a little different.
Yes, I agree. The borders of the samadhikkhandha are not clearly staked out. But, I suspect, that to the extent that kusalasankappa are present when one is meditating, that would fall within the Sammavayama factor, rather than the Sammasati factor.
One just oscillates between the 2, until the mind is truly settled.
And certainly, as Retro posts, SN 22.59 does seem to lay out a practice that contains a fair bit of "mental chatter" as it were. However, my objection to his reliance on that sutta is two-fold -
1. this practice was outlined in that sutta as pertaining to the ariyasavaka, ie Stream Enterer and above;
2. the outcome of this practice is Nibbida, a very advanced stage of practice that again is limited to ariyasavakas.
This is not vanilla Sammasati. I do not see a single reference to Nibbida or nibbindati in the Satipatthanasamyutta.