Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa Honor to the Blessed One, the Noble One, the Self Awakened One
| Buddham saranam gacchami I go to the Buddha as my refuge |
| Dhammam saranam gacchami I go to the Dhamma as my refuge |
| Sangham saranam gacchami I go to the Sangha as my refuge |
The Satipatthana Sutta is one of the most revered texts in the Theravada Pali Canon of Buddha’s discourses. It is the teaching on the application and practice of Mindfulness. Mindfulness is the capacity to see ever changing impermanent and self-less circumstances with wisdom, insight, and non-reactivity.
Perhaps a short description of some qualities of Mindfulness is appropriate before you begin exploring this Sutta.
Mindfulness has the quality of not forgetting what is in front of the mind. It creates a stability of awareness and keeps bringing us back to the present moment (an aspect of remembering is a key part of mindfulness). It keeps us safe from being carried away by the various sense impressions that enter the six sense doors.
Mindfulness prevents us from being controlled by our habitual mind states that may arise based upon greed, hatred, or delusion. It is a key factor in helping us abandon what is unskillful and in supporting the arising of all that is wholesome and beneficial.
Mindfulness is paying attention to what is occurring within us and to us during every waking moment of experience. It is a kind of attention that is bare of judgment, decision, and commentary.
We do not judge what is occurring in the mind. If we did, we would grasp those experiences that we judged as being positive or fortunate. We would resist those experiences that we judged as being negative or unfortunate. This kind of judgment, and the consequent reaction to that judgment, would prevent us from seeing things as they are.
We do not make decisions about what occurs in the mind. We do not try to analyze why we are thinking in a particular way, try to understand why certain patterns recur in the mind, or try to manipulate our thoughts according to what we would prefer to think about. That is not the purpose of mindfulness. We are also not doing psychotherapy on ourselves to resolve our psychological issues.
We do not focus on the commentary that incessantly arises in the mind. These comments are always related to the past or are concerned with what may occur in the future.
If judgment, decision, or commentary does arise in the mind, we mindfully observe them without identifying with any of these experiences.
Additional thoughts about Mindfulness
Mindfulness is “mirror-thought” – it reflects only what is presently happening with no biases. It is impartial and does not take sides.
Mindfulness is full acceptance of what is before the mind without attachment or resistance.
Mindfulness is always in the present moment.
Mindfulness is non-egoistic awareness – it occurs without reference to a self.
Mindfulness is the awareness of change as it occurs within our own internal experience.
Mindfulness is associated with memory and it reminds you to maintain your attention on what is unfolding in the present moment.
So our practice is to develop these qualities. Are you ready?
The following 60 exercises are best followed sequentially although you may find some more pertinent to your present situation. So feel free to jump around if you wish. These teachings were given to me by my teacher, Sumati, who requested that his English given name be omitted. I honored this request. The teachings were given to me orally, in document form and over a series of residential retreats during a three-year period. He recommended that I teach the Sutta but before doing so I asked permission to make some changes that I thought would make it easier for me to teach and others to understand. I do not pretend to have improved his teachings. I received his permission to change as much or as little as I felt necessary. The majority of these teachings are unchanged.
I offer my deepest and life-long gratitude to my teacher, Sumati; his teacher, the Venerable Henepola Gunaratana; and all those teachers for the past 25 millennia who have kept these teachings alive. All honor and respect to Buddha, the self awakened one who shared these teachings after his awakening.
If you would like to read the original versions of the Sutta you can find them referenced immediately below.
The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Majima Nikaya MN 10: The Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness) and the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta] (DN 22: The Great Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness)
The following is a brief descrition of the Sutta given by Bikkhu Bodhi the revered Thervadan monk, teacher and translator.
“The Satipatthana Sutta, the Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness, is generally regarded as the canonical Buddhist text with the fullest instructions on the system of meditation unique to the Buddha’s own dispensation. The practice of Satipatthana meditation centers on the methodical cultivation of one simple mental faculty readily available to all of us at any moment. This is the faculty of mindfulness, the capacity for attending to the content of our experience as it becomes manifest in the immediate present. What the Buddha shows in the sutta is the tremendous, but generally hidden, power inherent in this simple mental function, a power that can unfold all the mind’s potentials culminating in final deliverance from suffering.
To exercise this power, however, mindfulness must be systematically cultivated, and the sutta shows exactly how this is to be done. The key to the practice is to combine energy, mindfulness, and clear comprehension in attending to the phenomena of mind and body summed up in the “four arousings (foundations) of mindfulness”: body, feelings, consciousness, and mental objects.
Most contemporary meditation teachers explain Satipatthana meditation as a means for generating insight (vipassana). While this is certainly a valid claim, we should also recognize that satipatthana meditation also generates concentration (samadhi). Unlike the forms of meditation which cultivate concentration and insight sequentially, Satipatthana brings both these faculties into being together, though naturally, in the actual process of development, concentration will have to gain a certain degree of stability before insight can exercise its penetrating function.
In Satipatthana, the act of attending to each occasion of experience as it occurs in the moment fixes the mind firmly on the object. The continuous attention to the object, even when the object itself is constantly changing, stabilizes the mind in concentration, while the observation of the object in terms of its qualities and characteristics brings into being the insight knowledges.
To practice Satipatthana successfully a student will generally require a sound theoretical knowledge of the practice along with actual training preferably under the guidance of a qualified teacher. The best source of theoretical knowledge, indeed the indispensable source, is the Satipatthana Sutta itself. However, though the sutta is clear and comprehensible enough as it stands, the instructions it offers are extremely concise, often squeezing into a few simple guidelines directions that might need several pages to explain in a way adequate for successful practice. For this reason, from an early period, the ancient masters of Buddhist meditation began to supply more detailed instructions based on their own practical experience.
These instructions eventually evolved into a lengthy commentary on the Satipatthana Sutta, which was then incorporated into the complete commentaries on the two collections in which the sutta appears, namely, the Digha Nikaya and the Majjhima Nikaya. The two commentaries that have come down to us today, based on the older Sinhala commentaries, are called the Sumangala-vilasini (on the Digha Nikaya) and the Papañca-sudani (on the Majjhima Nikaya). These commentaries are ascribed to Acariya Buddhaghosa, an Indian thera who worked in Sri Lanka in the 5th century A.C., but are securely based on the old commentaries which record the explanations devised by the ancient masters of the Dhamma.” Bhikkhu Bodhi
It is my firm belief and hope that all beings will benefit as you put forth the effort and determination to read, study and embody this Sutta in your life. This Sutta is not only meant to be studied, it is meant to be lived. May you be well, happy and peaceful. Sonam Dorje
