Satipaṭṭhāna Rethought, now in print

Satipaṭṭhāna Rethought: a meditation manual based on earliest Buddhist  texts.  Satipaṭṭhāna (often translated as “Foundations of mindfulness”) is the Buddha’s method of wisdom contemplation, best known through the ancient practice tutorial The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta. It is recognized as the basis of modern vipassanā or insight meditation and of many other modern and historical practices. Unfortunately, the complexities of Buddhist intellectual history have not been kind to this early teaching.

Satipaṭṭhāna Rethought is a short meditation manual for the modern student that covers the same exercises found in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, and is based entirely on a critical rereading of the earliest Buddhist texts, undertaken to recover a doctrinally coherent, cognitively realistic and etymologically sound interpretation of this ancient wisdom practice. Satipaṭṭhāna as taught here extends Dhamma study to investigation in terms of direct experience, actualizing the Buddha’s instruction to “come and see.” It integrates samādhi or jhāna as a necessary and critical factor in this practice. Its fruit is “knowledge and vision of things as they are,” declared by the Buddha as close to awakening. Widely neglected aspects of the ancient practice are highlighted in this manual, including its sophisticated exploration of non-self and of the mental constructedness (emptiness) of the “objective world.”

The book may be ordered in hard copy for the cost of printing HERE. It may be downloaded as a pdf HERE.

Tags: insight meditation, satipatthana, vipassana