Method
Buddhist Mindfulness Meditation
Classification
- Method family
- contemplative
- Domains
- Ethics
Overview
Buddhist mindfulness meditation systematically attends to body, feeling, mental states, and phenomena as part of a path toward insight and release.
Purpose. The practice develops continuous, discerning awareness of experience and the conditions of suffering. This entity names the four foundations of mindfulness taught in the Satipaṭṭhāna discourse; it is not a generic family for every Buddhist or non-Buddhist meditation, and it is broader in object than vipassanā as insight into the characteristics of processes.
Characteristic operations
- Attend to the body: Observe breathing, posture, activity, and bodily processes as bodily processes.
- Attend to feeling: Notice pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feeling without immediately grasping or resisting it.
- Attend to mind: Recognize the presence or absence of states such as desire, aversion, distraction, and concentration.
- Attend to phenomena: Examine recurring patterns and teachings that organize experience and liberation.
Used by traditions
Applied to questions
References
- Bhikkhu Anālayo, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization (Windhorse, 2003)
- Majjhima Nikaya 10, Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta