Lesson 1: The Four Foundations of Mindfulness

What this lesson is about

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness (Satipatthana) are presented as a direct path for the purification of beings: to overcome sorrow and lamentation, to see the disappearance of pain and grief, and to attain the true way.

At a glance

• Mindfulness of body: breathing, postures, daily actions, elements, and reflections on the body.
• Mindfulness of feelings: pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings.
• Mindfulness of mind: recognizing states of mind as they arise and pass.
• Mindfulness of Dharma (mental objects): hindrances, aggregates, sense bases, awakening factors, truths, and path.

1) Mindfulness of the body

• Breath (in-breath / out-breath)
• Four postures: walking, standing, sitting, and lying down
• Clear comprehension in daily life
• Reflection on the 32 parts of the body
• Four elements: earth, water, heat, air
• 9 corpses in decay (reflection on impermanence)

2) Mindfulness of feelings

• Pleasant, painful, and neither painful-nor-pleasant (neutral)
• Worldly and spiritual feelings
• Awareness of their manifestation, arising, and disappearance

3) Mindfulness of mind

Understanding the mind as:

• Greedy or not greedy
• Hateful or not hateful
• Deluded or not deluded
• Contracted or not contracted
• Not developed or developed
• Not supreme or supreme
• Not concentrated or concentrated
• Not liberated or liberated

Awareness of its manifestation, arising, and disappearance.

4) Mindfulness of Dharma (mental objects)

5 mental hindrances

Sense desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, doubt.

Awareness of their manifestation, origin, and disappearance.

5 aggregates of clinging

Form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, consciousness.

Awareness of their manifestation, arising, and disappearance.

Sense bases

6 internal and 6 external sense bases: eye/visible objects, ear/sounds, nose/smells, tongue/tastes, body/intangible objects, mind/mental objects.

Knowledge of them, the arising, and the abandoning.

7 factors of enlightenment

Mindfulness, investigation of Dharma, energy, joy, tranquility, concentration, equanimity.

Knowledge of their presence, their arising, and their development.

4 Noble Truths

Suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path that leads to the cessation of suffering.

Noble Eightfold Path

Skillful understanding, thinking, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration.