Right Mindfulness: Practical Benefits and Its Relationship with Concentration
Practicing mindfulness has become a popular practice in the West with many organisations jumping on board the mindfulness train in the hope that teaching it to their employees will reduce stress levels and increase productivity. The Buddha also taught mindfulness to his followers with the aim of achieving peace in their minds; however, his goal was to help them reach an everlasting peace and freedom sustained by a mind full of compassion and wisdom.
In this video I briefly explain how the Four Foundations of Mindfulness makes up the practice of Right Mindfulness. In particular, I explore the practical benefits of practicing Right Mindfulness and how it helps us to develop freedom from our thoughts and feelings, to perceive reality with a more open and observant mind and how it is invaluable for increasing meditative concentration which leads to ultimate freedom and liberation.
Further reading:
How to practice the Four Foundations of Mindfulness is explained by the Buddha in the Satipatthana Sutta. This is a very popular sutra that is widely studied and practiced in the Theravada tradition. You can read this sutra here, Satipatthana Sutta: the Foundations of Mindfulness translated from the Pali by Nyanasatta Thera.
An alternate translation and great commentary is available here, The Way of Mindfulness: The Satipatthana Sutta and Its Commentary by Soma Thera.
For a wonderful explanation and commentary of Right Mindfulness by Bhikkhu Bodhi read,
The Noble Eightfold Path: The Way to the End of Suffering.
And here’s a nice motivation article on mindfulness by Ajahn Brahm: The Quality of Mindfulness.
More videos:
You can find a complete collection of my videos on Buddhism and meditation at The Enthusiastic Buddhist Society.
For more wonderful teachings on mindfulness and a very clear explanation of the difference between mindfulness and concentration, check out Bhante Henepola Gunaratana’s book, Mindfulness in Plain English.
Suttas used in this video:
From The Dhammapada: The Buddha’s Path of Wisdom, translated from the Pali by Acharya Buddharakkhita, with an Introduction by Bhikkhu Bodhi (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1985). Transcribed from the print edition in 1996 by a volunteer under the auspices of the DharmaNet Transcription Project, with the kind permission of the BPS. Last revised for Access to Insight on 30 November 2013.
©2010 Thanissaro Bhikkhu. The text of this page (“Vesali Sutta: At Vesali”, by Thanissaro Bhikkhu) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of the license, visithttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. Documents linked from this page may be subject to other restrictions. Transcribed from a file provided by the translator. Last revised for Access to Insight on 30 November 2013.
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