The next stage of practice, then, combines awareness of the effective tone of experience with mindfulness directed to its ethical context expressed in terms of the distinction between worldly and unworldly feelings.

A brief overview of “the mindfulness of feelings” from the Early Buddhist perspective.

Our review uncovers a convergence toward identifying higher complexity during the meditative state when compared to waking, rest, or mind-wandering and decreased baseline complexity as a trait following regular meditation practice.

To sum up: the ‘sign’ ‘signals’ what is ‘significant’ enough to merit closer attention.

An excellent summary of what “nimitta” meant in the suttas and their commentaries.

Bhante Analayo was, however, mistaken in saying that:

With full awakening, all misleading notions and ‘signs’ of permanency are forever left behind.

The mistaken notion of permanency is overcome at Stream Entry. With full awakening, the illusion of a subject who does the perceiving is left behind.

Where our individual perception meets the external world: that point of focus is the juncture between inner and outer space. It’s where we and nature find union. It’s the home of the muse, of inspiration, even of what have been called ‘angels’ which the visionaries saw shining in that meeting place between the eye of the observer and the light of the observed.

Results indicate smartphone involvement (a compulsive pattern of use and cognitive preoccupation with one’s smartphone) to be significantly associated with lower trait mindfulness.

Interestingly, time spent on the phone did not correlate with decreased mindfulness when controlling for compulsion.

In Buddhist traditions, mindfulness is not limited to meditation; it applies to the entire path. Moreover, mindfulness cannot be regarded as something purely instrumental…

Mindfulness functions as a foundational ethical practice in Patrul Rinpoche’s Words of My Perfect Teacher. Sustained mindfulness, meta-awareness, and self-examination are essential to cultivating moral agency and embodying the ethos of the Great Perfection, ultimately leading to the realization of Dzogchen’s “instantaneous awareness.”

A monk disjoined from the fetter of delight is said to be a person who is living alone.

The Buddha defines “living alone” as living detached from relishing the six senses and their objects.

Bhikkhus, when the mind becomes excited, it is timely to develop the enlightenment factor of tranquillity…

…the sign of the beautiful: frequently giving careless attention to it is the nutriment for the arising of unarisen sensual desire…

Just as the body depends on food, the hindrances and the awakening factors feed on specific nutriments. In this sutta, the Buddha gives the specific condition for each of these mental qualities.

Reverends, what is the vital condition for the development of the awakening factors?

A mendicant grounded on these five things should develop four further things.

How spiritual friendship forms the foundation of the holy life.

… that wise, competent, skilful bhikkhu picks up the sign of his own mind.

Like a cook, a meditator must attend to the signs of their success.

It’s a mendicant who, when they see a sight with their eyes, is neither happy nor sad. They remain equanimous, mindful and aware.

Once a person understands the rise and fall of all phenomena, then experiencing the worst that human life can give does not make one tremble.

Ajahn Brahm explains the meaning of emptiness, or nothingness, as he puts it, as the self-less and impermenant nature of all phenomena. After this detailed explanation, the Ajahn points out that not realizing this emptiness causes most people’s suffering; therefore, one should strive “to still the mind and see the most beautiful jewel there could ever be—nothingness.”

The same scanning procedure can be employed for the next body contemplation, which instead takes up the four elements as basic constituents of matter in general and the human body in particular. These four are earth, water, fi re, and wind, which represent the qualities of solidity or hardness, cohesion or wetness, temperature, and motion.

A brief introduction to the Four Satipaṭṭhānas.

Look down. Look at your body,
how it falls from your head…

I wandered here and there,
jealous…

So if Americans are to understand Buddhist forms of meditation and if Buddhism is to be transferred successfully to America, Americans must understand sati development correctly. Unfortunately, such understanding is difficult to attain because of the great differences in language, philosophy and “worldview”

An introduction to the Theravāda view of the mind.

The modern appetite for bingeing on box sets and multi-episode podcasts makes it clear that we are not losing the ability to concentrate, merely directing it towards different media. We concentrate when we want to.

In the past my mind wandered how it wished…

The process by which money value has displaced other languages of value is one of the enormous trends over the last 200 years…

During the second World War, radar created unprecedented opportunities for defense. Nevertheless, no matter how good your radar is, if the person looking at the radar screen isn’t paying attention you’re totally screwed. So an intense set of classified experiments took place to assess this new problem: how long could people pay attention to screens and what could you do to optimize their ability to keep paying attention to screens for long periods of time. […] We see the legacy of that work to this day in the way we think about attention.

From The Twelve Theses on Attention: ‘Sanctuaries for true attention already exist. They are among us now but they are endangered and many are in hiding: operating in self-sustaining, inclusive, generous, and fugitive forms.’

Someone who had not established mindfulness of the body might well attack one of their spiritual companions and leave without saying sorry.

When another monk falsely accuses Sāriputta of hitting him, the Buddha calls Sāriputta to respond to the allegation.

While mindfulness is a growing field of research, divergent and conflated meanings are limiting deeper interdisciplinary research. Interventions designed in one practice context may not be useful in other contexts because meaning is not transferred between settings. This review clarifies the various research domains that study mindfulness and the conceptual and operational definitions in each domain.

The results from the scoping review show three shared domains in mindfulness classifications: short-term effects of mindfulness, long-term effects of mindfulness, and mindfulness practices. The results from the content mapping show four domains of mindfulness research: mental health, behavioural change, cognitive neuroscience, and ethical mindfulness. Operational definitions of mindfulness are not articulated clearly in these domains.

Scholars in the ethical mindfulness domain will need solid conceptual and operational definitions to support their research efforts.

Human horrors
are not inevitable. Some people stop
themselves, before they cross moral divides.

Such absence can be specific, in the sense of the absence of a particular mental condition. It can also take on a general sense, in that certain meditation practices that involve mindfulness can take as their object the notion that there is nothing at all. Besides being the standard approach for cultivating one of the immaterial spheres, a pre-Buddhist form of practice, the same notion that there is nothing can also be related to insight.

Mindfulness is well established in oneself: ‘In this way I’ll experience through freedom the teaching that I haven’t yet experienced, or support with wisdom in every situation the teaching I’ve already experienced.’ That’s how mindfulness is its ruler.

How training benefits, wisdom oversees, freedom is the heartwoos, and mindfulness is in charge.

Now a great producer of happiness is the making of good kamma. What is good about it? It is rooted in non-greed (generosity, renunciation), or in non-hate (loving kindness, compassion) or finally in non-delusion (wisdom, understanding).

In this booklet, Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli Thera offers a translation of Majjhima Nikāya 57, 135, 136, and 41 with a brief introduction to each sutta, highlighting the importance of wholesome states of mind, right intention, and right mindfulness in generating good kamma. There is also a short but humorous and insightful preface.

When mindfulness of breathing is well-established internally in front of you, there will be no distressing external thoughts or wishes. When you meditate observing the impermanence of all conditions, ignorance is given up and knowledge arises.

A pithy summary of the path.

To wake when all is possible
before the agitations of the day
have gripped you

To come to the kitchen
and peel a little basketball
for breakfast…

However, if you simply practice with the mind, neglecting body and speech, that won’t work either. They are inseparable.

The seer of the destruction of birth,
Compassionate, knows the one-way path

Brahma Sahampati praises the Buddha’s reflections on the power of Satipaṭṭhāna Meditation.

Bhikkhus, I will teach you the origination and the passing away of the four establishments of mindfulness. Listen…

A profound sutta helping us understand what the Buddha meant by the four satipaṭṭhāna.

Where will stops, there is freedom.

Ajahn Brahm explains his belief in “Free Won’t.”

This standpoint, which the author calls a mode of being, is aware of itself as such (i.e. as a standpoint), and it is this awareness itself that leads to transformation.

These results suggest a fundamental neural dissociation between two distinct forms of self-awareness that are habitually integrated but can be dissociated through attentional training: the self across time and in the present moment.

Bhikkhus, it is good for a bhikkhu from time to time to review his own failings. It is good for him from time to time to review the failings of others. It is good for him from time to time to review his own achievements. It is good for him from time to time to review the achievements of others.

Devadatta’s downfall was from not overcoming the eight worldly winds.

When a noble disciple has wisdom, the faith, energy, mindfulness, and immersion that follow along with that become stabilized.

Having developed wisdom a mendicant is awakened.

[He dwells] by night as by day, and by day as by night. By means of an awareness thus open & unhampered, he develops a brightened mind.

The Buddha teaches the bases for psychic power and analyzes them in detail.

[He] who is released through right gnosis often dwells with a mind well-established in these four establishings of mindfulness.

Sāriputta asks why Anuruddha looks so bright, and he replies that it is due to developing the four kinds of mindfulness meditation, explaining that (and demonstrating why) even Arahants continue to practice the Four Satipaṭṭhāna.

Pray to your master and to the Three Jewels,
and strive to be wholesome – physically, verbally and mentally.

In this brief poem, the great Tulku and Yogini, Sera Khandro, exhorts readers to wholeheartedly practice the Dharma. Khandro points out the importance of impermanence and karma to help practitioners overcome attachments and develop wholesome behavior. Other pieces of advice are to remain in solitude, establish mindfulness, and develop bodhicitta.

Mara the Evil One manifested himself in the form of an ox and approached those almsbowls.

Which is more valuable? An almsbowl, or a teaching from the Buddha?

This meaning, the author holds, might best be characterized as “lucid awareness.” He questions the common explanation of mindfulness as “bare attention,” pointing out problems that lurk behind both words in this expression.

You can also listen to Jonathan Nelson read the paper aloud on YouTube if you prefer.

What is the cause, Reverend Sāriputta, what is the reason why some sentient beings aren’t fully extinguished in the present life?

For the Buddha’s answer to this question, see SN 35.131.

Progress in meditation is about giving up and letting go, not becoming and taking on new constructs.

A list of common questions on vipassanā practice along with Ajahn Yuttadhammo’s insightful and practical answers.

Therefore it is very important to learn to shape the mind, and when you learn to shape the mind then you can achieve a mind that is free. So the importance of meditation is learning to achieve a mind that is free, a mind that is happy, a mind that is peaceful, a mind that has loving-kindness.

This is a representation of Goodwin Samararatne’s talks given in Hong Kong in 1997.

In these talks, Samararatne explains a variety of topics related to meditation on loving-kindness and mindfulness, especially in daily life.

Currently, mindfulness is most often assessed [by psychologists] with self-report questionnaires. Although additional work is required, mindfulness questionnaires have reasonable psychometric properties and are making important contributions …

Measurement of mindfulness as a multidimensional construct shows that present-moment awareness can be unhelpful unless accompanied by a nonjudgmental, nonreactive stance; moreover, nonjudgment and nonreactivity may be only weakly related to present-moment awareness in people with no meditation experience.

If you’re peaceful, learn from peace. If you’re not peaceful, learn from not-peace.

Ajahn Jayasaro offers a talk covering a wide variety of themes on Buddhist practice during and outside formal meditation practice, such staying mindful and cultivating wholesome thoughts.

When a bhikkhu dwells thus, he overwhelms forms; forms do not overwhelm him. He overwhelms sounds; sounds do not overwhelm him…

The Buddha is invited to teach in a new hall in Kapilavatthu. Late at night, after teaching the Sakyans, the Buddha invites Moggallāna to teach the monks, so he explains how to conquer Māra.

One who has fully realized the truth of not-self thereby goes beyond the fear of death.

Surveying various suttas and agamas on the topic of death and translating a discourse that outlines the practice of the recollection of death, Bhikkhu Analyo brings out the importance of death in early Buddhism and contributes to modern research concerning how the thought of death affects human behavior.

Mindfulness provides a breathing space to take stock and re-energize our actions from a place of care, awareness and creativity.

A look at how mindfulness can reduce burnout and increase resilience, particularly for those working with non-governmental organizations in areas of extreme conflict.

The findings reveal that self-reported awareness was mildly correlated with momentary mindfulness but was not significantly correlated with [self-reported trait] mindfulness. Self-reported un-clinging was moderately correlated with [trait] mindfulness but was not significantly correlated with momentary mindfulness.

A study attempting to disentangle the effects of awareness versus letting go.

The Ganges river slants, slopes, and inclines to the east. It’s not easy to make it slant, slope, and incline to the west.

Even if kings beg them to disrobe, a mendicant who has developed the four kinds of mindfulness meditation is unmoved. Their mind flows to Nibbāna.

So too, all wholesome qualities are rooted in heedfulness and converge upon heedfulness

Diligence is the foremost of all good qualities.

We are all backlit by completeness.

To practice meditation is to look deeply in order to see into the essence of things.

A translation and commentary on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta by the renowned Vietnamese reformer.

With the present book I return to the Pāli version of the Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta. My exploration is entirely dedicated to the actual practice of satipaṭṭhāna, informed by the previously gathered details and overall picture as it emerges from a study of relevant material in the early discourses.

Building on his early work, Bhikkhu Analayo details a mindfulness practise that incorporates all aspects of Buddhist psychology.

When your heart is not overcome and mired in ill will … even hymns that are long-unpracticed spring to mind, let alone those that are practiced.

On how the Five Hindrances cloud our judgement and fog our memory.

The deep silence that is underneath all things is always present, always available.

Throughout, mindfulness has the task of establishing and maintaining the kind of mental presence that enables a precise appraisal of the current condition of the body and the mind.

A mendicant should collect their thoughts
as a tortoise draws its limbs into its shell.

A jackal who fails to eat a turtle.

Thinking, ‘I will free both hands,’ he seizes it with his foot; he gets caught there.

The parable of the foolish monkey who gets trapped in tar when it ventures outside its ancestral territory. And what is a mendicant’s ancestral territory? The four kinds of mindfulness meditation.

Nandā, see this bag of bones…

To better understand how meditation influences the sensory experience, we used arterial spin labeling functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess the neural mechanisms by which mindfulness meditation influences pain in healthy human participants. After 4 d of mindfulness meditation training, meditating in the presence of noxious stimulation significantly reduced pain unpleasantness by 57% and pain intensity ratings by 40% when compared to rest.

… an integrative theoretical framework and systems-based neurobiological model that explains the mechanisms by which mindfulness reduces biases related to self-processing and creates a sustainable healthy mind.

Mindfulness is described through systematic mental training that develops meta-awareness (self-awareness), an ability to effectively modulate one’s behavior (self-regulation), and a positive relationship between self and other that transcends self-focused needs and increases prosocial characteristics (self-transcendence). This framework of self-awareness, -regulation, and -transcendence (S-ART) illustrates a method for becoming aware of the conditions that cause (and remove) distortions or biases.

… mindfulness and sati have [relationships] to particular conceptions of Temporality, Affect, Power, Ethics, and Selfhood.

Based on ethnographic data gathered from over 700 psychiatrists, Buddhist monks, lay practitioners, and others in Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and the United States, the article suggests some key mental associations in mindfulness and sati that converge and diverge across different cultural contexts.

It was during this fertile period—[the seventh and eighth centuries, or] “early Chan”—that the lineage myths, doctrinal innovations, and distinctive rhetorical voice of the Chan, Zen, Son, and Thien schools first emerged. Although hundreds of books and articles have appeared on the textual and doctrinal developments associated with Chan, relatively little has been written on the distinctive meditation practices, if any, of this movement. This essay emerged from an attempt to answer a seemingly straightforward question: what kinds of meditation techniques were promulgated in early Chan circles? The answer, it turned out, involved historical and philosophical forays into the notion of “mindfulness”

… mindfulness of postures served as a way of facing fear

This article argues that the word sati incorporates the meaning of “memory” and “remembrance” in much of its usage in both the suttas and the commentary, and suggests that without the memory component, the notion of mindfulness cannot be properly understood or applied, as mindfulness requires memory for its effectiveness.

When it comes to mindfulness cultivated on its own, that is, when prominence is given to mindfulness itself during formal meditation or daily life practice, then this can be expected to result in a broad state of mind that enables an open monitoring of what is taking place.

The more convincing position taken in Sarvāstivāda exegesis sees the three types of wisdom as interrelated activities that can rely on mindfulness, thereby testifying to the flexibility and broad compass of mindfulness in Buddhist thought as something not limited to a rigid division between theory and practice.

… what fuels and what starves the five hindrances and the seven awakening factors

Tuning in, meditatively, all these things can loosen up. And it’s the loosening that’s the main thing.

Should one rein in the mind from everything…

Or only from what is unwholesome?

When we guard our mind, the thinking is unable to continue, unable to proliferate.

… mendicants, live as your own island, your own refuge, with no other refuge. Let the teaching be your island and your refuge

After the passing of Sāriputta and Moggallāna (whose actual death is unrecorded in the canon), the Buddha says the Saṅgha looks empty; yet he is not sad.

give up sense pleasures even if it’s painful:
they call this person “one who goes against the stream.”

This sutta defines a person who goes with the stream; a person who goes against the stream; a stable person; and one who has crossed over.

the fool shut in on every side,
gets carried away by a voice.

The mindful one grows better each day
but isn’t totally freed from animosity.

The spirit Maṇibhadda speaks in praise of mindfulness, opining that a mindful one is free of hate. The Buddha responds that yes, mindfulness is wonderful, but only through developing love is one free of hate.

… what is the good life? What does that mean? Can it be experienced? And how do we go about building that?

A wide ranging conversation on embodied philosophy.

… mindfulness is being used to reinforce the capitalist system

When you get angry at an angry person
you just make things worse for yourself.

Hey, mind! Now I will stop you

Don’t think that seeing the Dhamma means to see colours, lights, crystal balls or ghosts, angels, heaven and hell. That is just fantasy. It’s not the Dhamma. To see the Dhamma, we have to see ourselves acting, speaking and thinking.

The life and teachings of a Thai maverick.

… it is necessary to work for the total removal within oneself of sakkāya-diṭṭhi, which is the root cause of rebirth in the miserable states of existence. Sakkāya-diṭṭhi can only be destroyed completely by the noble path and fruit: the three supramundane virtues of morality, concentration, and wisdom. It is therefore imperative to work for the development of these virtues. How should one do the work? By means of noting

When we say you have to endure, you really have to endure. Don’t be willing to surrender. Craving is going to keep coming up and whispering but don’t you listen to it! You have to listen to the Buddha—the Buddha who tells you to let go of craving.

A collection of teachings from one of 20th-century Thailand’s preeminent nuns.

Allowing inner awareness to be unrestricted…

Three verses to inspire the development of undistracted awareness.

In meditation one lets go of the complex world outside in order to reach the serene world inside. In all types of mysticism and in many traditions, this is known as the path to the pure and powerful mind.

The anger, the aversion is something we’ve carried around and developed for a long time. It’s something that has causes in the way we’ve lived our lives. It’s something that we can’t remove from our minds simply by wishing for it. It’s something we can only be free from by understanding and retraining our minds out of this bad habit.

An explanation of the four satipaṭṭhāna and how meditating on them creates liberating understanding.

Yet it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception & intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos.

The god Rohitassa tells how he tried to go to the end of the world, and the Buddha explains how to do it successfully.

For Venerable Ānanda’s own exegesis of this sutta, see SN 35.116.

Restraint of the sense faculties, Kuṇḍaliya, when developed and cultivated, fulfils the three kinds of good conduct.

On the pivotal role of sense restraint in establishing both virtuous conduct and mindfulness.

For one reducing suffering like this nibbāna is said to be near.

Venerable Māluṅkyaputta asks for a teaching to take on retreat. The Buddha wonders how to teach an old monk like him, then questions him on his desire for sense experiences that have been or might be, and encourages him to simply let sense experiences be. Māluṅkyaputta says he understands, and expands on the Buddha’s teaching in a series of verses.

[We have to have] that sense of social responsibility and the phenomena of mind.

I shall keep reciting the Way to the Beyond

Perhaps the last sutta of the early Pāli Canon, the Pārāyanānugītigāthā extols the virtues of the Buddha and of those who preserve, and realize, his teachings.

As a result of seeing the truth of how craving leads to suffering, we have a moment where our minds cease all craving and release us from the incessant arising of experience

A clear and concise description of what enlightenment is, is not, and how it arises.

A highly orthodox presentation of kāyānupassanā in Theravāda Buddhism.

… if you’re present, but not too present—available, but not intrusive—if you can create an environment for somebody where you’re available and interested, then this stuff will come up when it’s ready.

A fascinating take on meditation and facing the “trauma of everyday life.”

To deal with social dukkha, habitual tendencies rooted in the Three Poisons have to be identified and redressed in the constitutive social, cultural, and political environments too. In other words, Buddhist social theory recognizes that the manifestations of the Three Poisons are as much a matter of institutionalized, normative knowledge-practices as they are private, personal tendencies.

… it’s easy to get out of balance

Young Brahmins would already begin memorizing the sacred texts by rote when they were about eight years old, and some began the training still earlier. Only after having completed this task successfully, following years of memorization, would they study the meaning of what they had memorized.

… too many people live life as if they’re in a fast car: looking through the window, always going on to the next thing

Ajahn Brahm explains how going slow allows us to see the beauty in life and ourselves.

… slender citrine lip onto which I place, gently, this first handful of hair

One should not neglect wisdom, should preserve truth, should cultivate relinquishment, and should train for peace.

A monk spends the evening in a barn with the Buddha, who rewards the well-mannered disciple with an elaborate and profound discourse on the path and its fruit.

… extract the essence of leisure and fortune. To do this you must reflect upon impermanence.

A kind and playful letter to a student on how to meditate in the right direction.

… there is a place for “bare awareness” or “bare attention” within the early Buddhist scheme of meditation

If you’ve ever heard a Theravāda monk talk about the “forty kammaṭṭhānas” this is the list they are referring to.

Transcribed from a series of YouTube videos, this short booklet concisely describes the practice as it’s taught in the Mahasi vipassana tradition.

For those practicing intensively according to this booklet, I encourage you to sign up for one-on-one instruction here.

There is also a sequel to this booklet.

Meditation can be seen as the ultimate in “[restructuring the] lower-level components” of the mind. We abandon all the higher-level cognition built upon words and concepts and return, as much as possible, to the preverbal experience in order to “re-engage and reshape” our way of being in the world.

Protecting oneself, bhikkhus, one protects others; protecting others, one protects oneself.

A reading of SN 47.19.

What is the cause, what is the reason why, of the two persons without a blemish, one is said to be worse and one better?

On the importance of mindfulness in our cultivation of virtue.

The heart which is not controlled by a kammaṭṭhāna is liable to the arising of “outgoing exuberance” throughout life […which] has been the enemy of all beings for countless ages, and a person who wants to subdue the “outgoing exuberance” of his own heart will need to compel his heart to take the medicine – which is the kammaṭṭhāna.

While the book’s title goes against the usual presentation of “sila, samādhi, [then] paññā,” the idea that “wisdom develops samādhi” is supported by such suttas as SN 48.45.

Reverend Sāriputta, what things should an ethical mendicant properly attend to?

Mahākoṭṭhita asks and Sāriputta replies that if they focus on the aggregates as impermanent, etc. they may become a stream-enterer.

One should rein in the mind thus

One should restrain the senses like a farmer watching over a field. The Buddha gives the parable of a man bewitched when he first hears a lute. He takes apart the instrument in search of the sound, but is disillusioned when no sound is found.

You must carry around this bowl of oil filled to the brim between the crowd and the most beautiful girl of the land. A man with a drawn sword will be following right behind you, and wherever you spill even a little of it, right there he will fell your head.

Now that’s mindfulness!

Suppose a person was to catch six animals, with diverse territories and feeding grounds, and tie them up with a strong rope…

The senses are like a snake, a crocodile, a bird, a dog, a jackal, and a monkey all tied up together, pulling this way and that. Mindfulness is like a post that keeps them grounded.