Four foundations of mindfulness (satipatthana) with examples

The four foundations of mindfulness: every practice in the Satipatthana Sutta, the refrain that runs through them, and everyday examples of each.

The four foundations of mindfulness are four bases on which mindfulness is established: the body, feelings, the mind and dhammas, the mental qualities and patterns of experience the Buddha taught. The Pali word satipaṭṭhāna is usually explained as sati, mindfulness, plus upaṭṭhāna, setting up or being present; some read it as sati plus paṭṭhāna, foundation, which comes to much the same thing. The Buddha taught them in detail in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Middle Discourses 10) and the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Long Discourses 22), which expands the section on the noble truths. The sutta opens by saying what this path is for.

Ekāyano ayaṁ, bhikkhave, maggo sattānaṁ visuddhiyā,
sokaparidevānaṁ samatikkamāya,
dukkhadomanassānaṁ atthaṅgamāya,
ñāyassa adhigamāya,
nibbānassa sacchikiriyāya,
yadidaṁ cattāro satipaṭṭhānā.

Mendicants, this path goes one way only: to the purification of beings, to getting past sorrow and lamenting, to the ending of pain and distress, to finding the true method, to the realisation of nibbāna. It is the four foundations of mindfulness.

MN 10

The four foundations of mindfulness at a glance

The Buddha sums up all four in a single repeated sentence; only the object changes.

Idha, bhikkhave, bhikkhu kāye kāyānupassī viharati ātāpī sampajāno satimā, vineyya loke abhijjhādomanassaṁ;
vedanāsu vedanānupassī viharati ātāpī sampajāno satimā, vineyya loke abhijjhādomanassaṁ;
citte cittānupassī viharati ātāpī sampajāno satimā, vineyya loke abhijjhādomanassaṁ;
dhammesu dhammānupassī viharati ātāpī sampajāno satimā, vineyya loke abhijjhādomanassaṁ.

Here, mendicants, a mendicant lives observing the body as body, ardent, fully aware and mindful, having put away wanting and discontent for the world. They live observing feelings as feelings, the mind as mind, and dhammas as dhammas in the same way: ardent, fully aware and mindful, having put away wanting and discontent for the world.

MN 10

1. Kāyānupassanā, observing the body: breathing, postures, movements, the parts and elements of the body, and death.
2. Vedanānupassanā, observing feelings: pleasant, painful and neutral.
3. Cittānupassanā, observing the mind: its state at the moment, for example with or without greed.
4. Dhammānupassanā, observing dhammas: the hindrances, aggregates, sense fields, awakening factors and noble truths.

The refrain that runs through every practice

Three words in that sentence describe the attitude of practice. Ātāpī, ardent: energy that burns away defilements rather than giving in to laziness. Sampajāno, fully aware: clearly knowing what you are doing and what you are knowing. Satimā, mindful: remembering, not losing track. Putting away wanting and discontent means not letting liking and disliking take over the knowing. After every practice the sutta repeats a refrain that shows how the practice deepens.

Iti ajjhattaṁ vā kāye kāyānupassī viharati,
bahiddhā vā kāye kāyānupassī viharati,
ajjhattabahiddhā vā kāye kāyānupassī viharati;
samudayadhammānupassī vā kāyasmiṁ viharati,
vayadhammānupassī vā kāyasmiṁ viharati,
samudayavayadhammānupassī vā kāyasmiṁ viharati.
Atthi kāyoti vā panassa sati paccupaṭṭhitā hoti,
yāvadeva ñāṇamattāya paṭissatimattāya,
anissito ca viharati, na ca kiñci loke upādiyati.

In this way they live observing the body as body internally, externally, or both. They live observing the body's nature to arise, its nature to vanish, or both. Or mindfulness that 'there is a body' is simply present, just enough for knowing and remembering. They live independent, not clinging to anything in the world.

MN 10

Internally means your own body; externally, according to the commentary, means the bodies of others. Seeing both shows that your body and other people's share the same nature. Seeing arising and vanishing is where mindfulness becomes insight, and its result is not clinging to anything in the world. The same refrain follows every section, with 'body' replaced by feelings, mind and dhammas.

1. Observing the body

The body section is the longest in the sutta, with six practices.

1. Breathing: in a quiet place, sitting cross-legged with the body straight and mindfulness to the fore, knowing a long breath as long and a short breath as short, experiencing the whole body and calming the bodily process, like a lathe-turner who knows a long pull from a short one. See breath meditation in 16 steps.
2. Postures: when walking, knowing 'I am walking', and the same for standing, sitting and lying down.
3. Full awareness: acting with clear knowing when going and returning, looking, bending and stretching, eating and drinking, using the toilet, speaking and keeping silent.
4. Parts of the body: reviewing the body from the soles up and the hair down as head hair, body hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones and so on down to urine; this sutta names 31 parts (other texts add the brain to make 32). It is like opening a bag of mixed grains and seeing: this is rice, these are beans, this is sesame.
5. The four elements: reviewing the body as just earth, water, fire and air, like a butcher who has cut up a cow and sits with the portions at a crossroads.
6. Nine charnel-ground stages: comparing your own body to a corpse at each stage, from a bloated body, through one being eaten by animals and a skeleton, to bones crumbled to dust, and knowing: this body is of the same nature and cannot escape it.

2. Observing feelings

Feeling here is not a complex emotion like love or hurt, but the basic tone of every moment of experience: pleasant, painful or neither. The sutta asks us to know all three, and then whether each is of the flesh (sāmisa), tied to sense pleasures and worldly matters, like the pleasure of good food, or not of the flesh (nirāmisa), born of practice and letting go, like the happiness of a calm mind. That makes nine kinds. Feeling matters because craving grows from it; when feeling is known in time, craving need not follow. This is a key link in dependent origination.

3. Observing the mind

The mind section asks us to know the state of the mind in eight pairs.

• Mind with greed, or without greed.
• Mind with hate, or without hate.
• Mind with delusion, or without delusion.
• Mind contracted, or scattered.
• Mind expanded in deep meditation, or not expanded.
• Mind that can still go higher, or mind with nothing higher.
• Mind in samādhi, or not in samādhi.
• Mind freed, or not freed.

Notice that the sutta does not say to get rid of an angry mind at once. It says first to know truthfully that the mind is that way. That honest knowing is what reveals every state of mind as coming and going, not a self.

4. Observing dhammas

Dhammas here are the frameworks the Buddha gave for viewing experience. There are five, in this order.

1. The five hindrances: knowing whether sensual desire, ill will, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness and remorse, or doubt is present, how it arises, how it is given up, and how it does not return. See the five hindrances.
2. The five aggregates: knowing 'such is form, such is its origin, such is its ending', and the same for feeling, perception, choices and consciousness.
3. The six sense fields: knowing the eye and sights, ear and sounds, nose and smells, tongue and tastes, body and touches, mind and ideas, and the fetter that arises from each pair: how it arises, how it is given up, and how it does not return.
4. The seven awakening factors: knowing whether mindfulness, investigation, energy, rapture, tranquillity, immersion and equanimity are present, how they arise and how they are brought to fulfilment.
5. The four noble truths: truly knowing 'this is suffering, this is its origin, this is its cessation, this is the way to its cessation'. See the four noble truths.

Everyday examples of the four foundations of mindfulness

The four foundations of mindfulness are not only for the meditation cushion. Here is how each shows up on an ordinary day.

• Body, washing the dishes: know the hands holding each plate, the coolness of the water, the pressure of scrubbing, the reach to the rack. When the mind goes to tomorrow's work, know it, and come back to the hands.
• Feeling, an unpleasant moment at work: an email criticises your work, and a heaviness comes in the chest before any reply forms. Know it as painful feeling: where it is, how heavy, how it changes. Feeling that is known in time need not turn into anger.
• Mind, noticing anger: someone cuts in while you drive and heat rises at once. Instead of fixing on the other car, know: 'the mind has anger now.' When it fades, know: 'the mind is without anger now.'
• Dhammas, noticing a hindrance: at your desk after lunch, drowsiness takes over. Know that dullness is present, see what fed it, a heavy meal, too little sleep, boredom, and do what helps, such as walking or washing your face. When it has gone, know that it has gone.

These examples look small, but they are the practice the sutta describes: knowing what is happening as it is, without liking or disliking, and seeing it arise and pass.

How satipatthana leads to insight

Satipaṭṭhāna is both the basis and the method of vipassana. As body, feelings, mind and dhammas are known as they are, and their arising and vanishing is seen again and again, the wisdom that sees them as impermanent, unsatisfactory and not-self slowly grows. That is what vipassana means, clear seeing, and every systematic form of vipassana meditation, whether it starts from the breath, the abdomen or walking, rests on these four. Calm is not left out: breathing in the body section is a fine way to steady the mind, and immersion is one of the awakening factors in the dhamma section. In the eightfold path, satipaṭṭhāna is right mindfulness.

Seven days of satipatthana

At the end of the sutta the Buddha says that whoever develops the four foundations of mindfulness in this way for seven years may expect one of two fruits, final knowledge in this life or non-return, and then shortens the time down to seven days. The condition lies in the words 'in this way': developing them fully as taught, not merely putting in the hours. This passage is behind the popular idea of a seven-day vipassana retreat; that page explains what the text says and what it does not.

How to begin

One foundation is enough to start. Most people begin with the body, such as the breath, the abdomen or walking, because the body is coarse and easy to know. When a clearer feeling or state of mind comes up, know that instead, then return. Over time the four join up by themselves, since any moment holds body, feeling and a state of mind together. A step-by-step home guide with a plan for the first week is at how to do vipassana, and the full discourse is in our translation of the Satipatthana Sutta.

Based on: Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (MN 10) · Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta (DN 22)