Practising the four foundations of mindfulness

Why is it called “the direct path”?

The commentaries explain the word “ekāyana” in several ways, each of which shows something about the attitude of practice:

• A single path, not forking into two; followed, it surely reaches the goal.
• A path that must be walked by oneself, alone; no one can walk it for us.
• The path of the One, the Buddha, who discovered and taught it.
• A path leading to one place: Nibbāna.

Four qualities of the practitioner — through the Abhidhamma lens

Every foundation in the sutta begins with the same phrase: “ātāpī sampajāno satimā vineyya loke abhijjhādomanassaṃ”. Each element corresponds to mental factors from Lessons 4–6:

• Ātāpī (ardent, burning up defilement) — the mental factor of energy: effort that is neither slack nor too tight.
• Sampajāno (clearly comprehending) — the mental factor of wisdom: knowing clearly what one is knowing, and knowing it as it is.
• Satimā (mindful) — the mental factor of mindfulness: remembering, not losing the object being known.
• Vineyya abhijjhādomanassaṃ (having put away longing and discontent for the world) — while mindfulness is present, greed and hatred have no place to arise, because consciousness arises one at a time (Lesson 3).

A map of the 21 sections

An overview of every section in the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta.

1) Contemplation of the body

The body is the coarsest and easiest foundation to see, so it suits beginners. It has six sections:

• Breathing (ānāpāna) — knowing the breath: breathing in long, one knows it is long; short, one knows it is short; experiencing the whole breath; calming the breath. The sutta compares this to a skilled turner who knows when he makes a long turn and when a short one.
• Postures (iriyāpatha) — walking, standing, sitting or lying down, one clearly knows the body's posture.
• Clear comprehension (sampajañña) — knowing oneself in every movement: going forward and back, looking around, bending and stretching, dressing, eating, drinking, relieving oneself, speaking and keeping silent.
• Repulsiveness (paṭikūla-manasikāra) — contemplating the body as 32 parts, such as head hair, body hair, nails, teeth and skin, like opening a bag of grain and sorting out: this is rice, this is beans, this is sesame.
• Elements (dhātu-manasikāra) — contemplating the body as earth, water, fire and air, like the butcher who has cut up a cow and sits at a crossroads (Lesson 7).
• Nine charnel-ground contemplations (nava sivathikā) — contemplating a corpse in nine stages, from bloated to bones crumbled to dust, then applying it to oneself: this body too will become like that.
• Abhidhamma lens: the commentary says a fox walking also knows it is walking, but that is not satipaṭṭhāna. Satipaṭṭhāna is seeing that walking is matter moving through the air element produced by mind — there is no “one” who walks.

2) Contemplation of feeling

There are nine kinds of feeling: pleasant, painful and neither-painful-nor-pleasant, each further divided into “worldly” (sāmisa, connected with sense pleasures, such as the pleasure of tasty food) and “unworldly” (nirāmisa, not connected with sense pleasures, such as the happiness of concentration).

Feeling is a key connection in dependent origination (Lesson 13). Knowing feeling plainly as “this is pleasant”, “this is painful”, “this is neutral” helps keep craving from following.

• When your knee aches while sitting, try knowing the pain not as “my knee hurts” but as “painful feeling is present”. Notice it grow stronger, weaker, shift position. If it becomes intense, change posture mindfully; there is no need to endure it to the point of injury.
• When you enjoy tasty food, know “worldly pleasant feeling has arisen”, then notice how quickly the wish for another mouthful follows.
• Neutral feeling is the hardest to notice, because the mind tends to ignore it, yet it is when delusion arises easily. Knowing “right now it's neutral” is already practising mindfulness.

3) Contemplation of mind

Knowing the state of mind as it is, in 16 ways: mind with lust or without, with hatred or without, with delusion or without, contracted or scattered, exalted (at the level of jhāna) or not, surpassable or unsurpassable, concentrated or unconcentrated, liberated (temporarily) or not liberated.

The key principle is “knowing”, not “fixing”. When the mind has hatred, know that it has hatred, without rushing to suppress it or blaming yourself. At the moment of knowing, the knowing mind is already wholesome, and the moment of hatred that was known has already ceased (Lessons 3 and 5).

4) Contemplation of dhammas

The subtlest foundation: observing phenomena in five groups.

• The five hindrances — sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, doubt. The sutta teaches knowing them in five ways: whether present or not, how they arise, how they are abandoned, and how they will not arise again.
• The five aggregates — knowing: this is form, this feeling, this perception, these formations, this consciousness; such is its arising, such its passing away (Lesson 2).
• The six sense bases — knowing the eye and forms, the ear and sounds, through to the mind and mental objects, and the fetter that arises dependent on each pair (Lessons 8 and 9).
• The seven factors of awakening — mindfulness, investigation of dhammas, energy, rapture, tranquillity, concentration, equanimity: knowing whether each is present or not, and how it is brought to fulfilment.
• The Four Noble Truths — knowing as it really is: this is suffering, this its origin, this its cessation, this the way to its cessation.

The refrain repeated in every section

Whichever foundation one practises, the sutta closes with the same words. They are the heart of the shift from ordinary mindfulness to vipassanā.

Choosing a foundation to suit your disposition

The commentary to the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta advises that the four foundations suit different people, but all lead to the same goal:

• Those inclined to craving (taṇhā-carita), mildly — start with the body, which is coarse and easy to see.
• Those inclined to craving, strongly — feeling, which is subtler and shows the source of craving.
• Those inclined to views (diṭṭhi-carita), mildly — mind.
• Those inclined to views, strongly — dhammas, which are analysed most finely.
• In practice most beginners start with the body, such as the breath or the postures, and the other foundations appear by themselves.

Four kinds of clear comprehension in daily life

The commentary divides clear comprehension in action into four levels — a checklist you can use before doing anything:

• Clear comprehension of purpose (sātthaka) — is what I'm about to do beneficial?
• Clear comprehension of suitability (sappāya) — is it suitable for the time, the place and for me?
• Clear comprehension of the domain (gocara) — while doing it, have I kept to my meditation object, still knowing myself?
• Clear comprehension of non-delusion (asammoha) — not deluded that there is a self doing it; seeing mind and matter working by conditions.

Starting to practise: sitting, walking and daily life

In Thailand many schools teach satipaṭṭhāna with different techniques, such as noting the rising and falling of the abdomen, repeating “Buddho”, or rhythmic hand movements. All are ways of bringing the mind to one of the foundations. Below are basic guidelines common to all.

• Sitting (10–20 minutes) — sit in a stable, comfortable posture, back straight but not stiff, eyes closed or lowered. Know the breath at the nostrils or the abdomen. When the mind wanders off into thought, know “thinking” and gently return to the breath. Knowing that the mind wandered is mindfulness returning, not a failure.
• Walking meditation (10–20 minutes) — choose a straight path about ten steps long. Walk more slowly than usual, knowing the lifting, moving and placing of the foot. At the end, stop, know standing, then know turning around.
• Noting (naming silently) — some schools use short words such as “lifting, moving, placing” or “rising, falling” to help mindfulness stay continuous. Note lightly, like a touch, so that the word doesn't drown out what is being known.
• In daily life — choose one routine activity, such as brushing your teeth, washing dishes or walking to the car, and resolve to know the body throughout it. When that works, add another.
• Regularity matters more than length. Ten minutes every day is better than two hours once a week.

What to do when the hindrances come

The hindrances are not enemies of practice; they are direct objects of contemplating dhammas. The first step is to know that they have arisen. If they are still strong, the suttas and commentaries suggest these aids:

The faculties must be balanced

The Visuddhimagga explains that the five faculties must be balanced in pairs: faith with wisdom, energy with concentration. Mindfulness, however, the more the better, because it keeps the whole balance — like salt, which is needed in every curry.

Fruits of practice, and points of caution

At the end of the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta the Buddha says that one who develops the four foundations in earnest for seven years can expect one of two fruits: arahantship or, if some clinging remains, non-return — and then he reduces the time step by step to seven days. This is not a guaranteed timetable, but it shows that this path truly bears fruit for those who truly practise.

• Don't strain until you're tense — effort that is too tight leads to restlessness, and effort too slack to drowsiness. Be like tuning a lute string, neither too tight nor too loose.
• Don't set targets for what you must see — targets let craving slip in, and lead to mistaking lights or rapture for progress (Lesson 15).
• Don't compare yourself with others — “I practise better” and “I'm worse” are both conceit (Lesson 5).
• If strong emotions or painful memories arise and become too much to handle, take a break, shift attention to something steady such as the soles of the feet on the floor, and consult an experienced teacher or a mental-health professional. Looking after yourself is part of practice.
• Satipaṭṭhāna is not emptying the mind or stopping thought. Thoughts can arise; what we train is knowing that we are thinking.