Right Mindfulness: Insight

We now run through the first three ‘Foundations of Mindfulness’ with some simple exercises. (We shall return to the fourth foundation in Chapter 17). By a ‘foundation’ of mindfulness is meant a category of those things we can be mindful of. In this chapter there is a quick description of the four: 1. the bodily experience (e.g. skin sensations), 2. the pleasure/pain experience (e.g. an insect bite, a delicious morsel), 3. the meditational quality of the mind (e.g. whether it is concentrated or not), 4. a reflexive evaluation of one’s meditational journey and its landmarks (e.g. the struggle with hindrances and the cultivation of good will). Instructions are hen given for Walking Meditation, Standing Meditation and for the keeping of ‘states of mind’ diary. These lead to a recognition of the crucial breakthrough to ‘three marks of existence’: anxiety or suffering, impermanence, and not-self (insubstantiality).