Satipatthana Sutta

MN 10.2 — The Opening Declaration

This is the direct path, monks, for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of pain and grief, for the attainment of the true way, for the realisation of Nibbāna — namely, the four foundations of mindfulness.

MN 10.3 — The Standard Formula

Here a monk abides contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly comprehending, and mindful, having put aside longing and dejection for the world.

MN 10.4 — Mindfulness of Breathing

Breathing in long, he understands: 'I breathe in long'; or breathing out long, he understands: 'I breathe out long.' He trains thus: 'I shall breathe in experiencing the whole body.'

MN 10.6 — The Four Postures

When walking, he understands: 'I am walking'; when standing, he understands: 'I am standing'; when sitting, he understands: 'I am sitting'; when lying down, he understands: 'I am lying down.'

MN 10.32 — Contemplation of Feeling

When feeling a pleasant feeling, he understands: 'I feel a pleasant feeling'; when feeling a painful feeling, he understands: 'I feel a painful feeling'; when feeling a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, he understands: 'I feel a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling.'

MN 10.5 — The Insight Refrain

He abides contemplating the nature of arising, or the nature of passing away, or the nature of both arising and passing away. Mindfulness is established in him simply to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness. And he abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world.

MN 10.46 — The Closing Assurance

If anyone should develop these four foundations of mindfulness in such a way for seven years, one of two fruits could be expected: either final knowledge here and now, or, if there is a trace of clinging left, non-return.

What is the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta?

It is the Buddha's principal discourse on meditation, appearing as the tenth text of the Majjhima Nikāya (MN 10) and in expanded form as the twenty-second of the Dīgha Nikāya (DN 22). It sets out four foundations of mindfulness — body, feeling-tone, mind-states, and mental patterns — divided into twenty-one exercises. It is the source text for virtually all Buddhist insight meditation and, by descent, for modern secular mindfulness.

What are the four foundations of mindfulness?

Kāyānupassanā — contemplation of the body, comprising fourteen exercises including breathing, postures, body parts, elements, and the charnel-ground contemplations. Vedanānupassanā — contemplation of feeling-tone as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Cittānupassanā — contemplation of mind-states. Dhammānupassanā — contemplation of mental patterns: the hindrances, aggregates, sense bases, awakening factors, and four noble truths.

What is the difference between MN 10 and DN 22?

They are nearly identical, except that the Dīgha version (DN 22, the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna) contains a long expansion of the four noble truths within the fourth foundation. Comparison with the Chinese Āgama parallels suggests the shorter MN 10 is closer to the earliest layer, and that the expansion was added later.

Why does it say 'contemplating the body in the body'?

The doubled phrasing is deliberate and excludes a specific mistake. You contemplate the body as directly experienced, from within — not the idea of a body, not a mental image, not thoughts about it. The commentaries also read it as instructing you to stay with one aspect of the body rather than drifting between the body and other objects.

What is the refrain and why does it matter?

After every exercise the same passage appears: contemplate internally and externally, contemplate arising and passing away, establish mindfulness merely to the extent needed for bare knowledge, and abide independent, clinging to nothing. Anālayo argues that this is where the insight actually resides — the exercises supply objects, the refrain supplies the mode. Practising the exercises without the refrain gives you concentration but not liberation.

What are the charnel-ground contemplations?

Nine contemplations of a corpse in successive stages of decomposition — bloated and discoloured, being eaten by animals, reduced to a skeleton with sinews, then scattered bones, then bones turned to dust. Each ends with the practitioner reflecting: 'this body too is of the same nature, it will be like that, it is not exempt from that fate.' They are almost always omitted from modern presentations.

Does the sutta really promise enlightenment in seven days?

It closes by stating that one who practises the four foundations in the way described for seven years may expect final knowledge or non-return — then repeats the claim for six years, five, and so on down to seven days. Traditions read this variously as literal, as encouragement, or as describing an ideal practitioner under ideal conditions. It is nonetheless why intensive retreats built on this text are so demanding.

What does sati actually mean?

The Pali word derives from a root meaning 'to remember', and in the canon it carries the sense of holding something in view — not forgetting the object of practice. The modern rendering as 'bare attention' or 'present-moment awareness' captures part of it but loses the remembering. This is why the text always pairs sati with sampajañña, clear comprehension: knowing what is present, and knowing what you are doing with it.

How should a modern practitioner actually use this text?

Read it once straight through — it takes about forty minutes — to see the architecture. Then work one exercise at a time for a week or more, rather than attempting the whole sequence. Most people find the first body exercises and the feeling-tone contemplation the most immediately useful. Anālayo's study is the best companion for understanding what each instruction is asking.

Is this the text that modern mindfulness comes from?

Yes, by a traceable route. Twentieth-century Burmese teachers, particularly Ledi Sayadaw and Mahasi Sayadaw, built lay meditation methods directly on it. Their Western students founded the Insight Meditation Society in 1975, and the secular mindfulness programmes of the 1980s drew on those teachers. What survived the transition was mostly the first foundation, with the refrain and the fourth foundation largely dropped.

What is the fourth foundation actually about?

Dhammānupassanā is contemplation of the mind's structural patterns, not of individual thoughts. It comprises five subjects: the five hindrances, the five aggregates, the six sense bases, the seven factors of awakening, and the four noble truths. Rendering it as 'mindfulness of thoughts' is a persistent mistranslation that reduces a structural analysis to a technique.

Do I need to read it in Pali?

No. Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation in The Middle Length Discourses is the scholarly standard in English, and SuttaCentral offers several free translations side by side. Reading two different renderings of the same passage is genuinely useful, because the disagreements between translators mark exactly the places where the meaning is contested.

Why is so much of the text about the body?

Fourteen of the twenty-one exercises concern the body, against one each for feeling-tone and mind-states and five for mental patterns. The weighting reflects a conviction that insight is grounded in direct physical experience rather than in introspection about mental content. Modern practice, which tends toward watching thoughts, inverts the emphasis the text actually gives.