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BOOK REVIEW | EASTERN HORIZON 41

BOOK REVIEW

The Four

Foundations of

Mindfulness

By Venerable Dr H Gunaratana Maha Thera

In this excerpt from
Bhante Gunaratana’s
book Four Foundations
of Mindfulness in

Plain English, the
great Theravada
teacher explains
My life is very different now. I have met with world
why all practitioners
leaders and given a keynote address in the General
should meditate on the
Assembly Hall at the United Nations. My disciples
Four Foundations of
include high-level officials in Taiwan. I was received
Mindfulness, at every
as a VIP in motorcades in mainland China and
stage on the Buddhist
Thailand. I am venerated by my followers. People
path.
feel that if they don’t treat me this way, it’s not right,
but it does not make any difference to me whether
Mindfulness practice has deep roots in Buddhist
they treat me this way or not. I am famous today but
tradition. More than 2,600 years ago, the Buddha
tomorrow, when I can no longer do what I do now,
exhorted his senior bhikkhus, monks with the
I will be forgotten. How many people have their
responsibility of passing his teachings on to others,
names remembered in history? Fame, like wealth
to train their students in the Four Foundations of
and power, is illusionary. So a mind of equanimity is
Mindfulness.
necessary in all circumstances.
“What four?” he was asked.
There is a Chinese saying that goes: “After
experiencing wealth and property, it is hard to
“Come, friends,” the Buddha answered. “Dwell
return to poverty.” This is true if you don’t have a
contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly
mind of equanimity. If you can maintain a mind
comprehending, unified, with concentrated one-pointed
of equanimity, you are free, no matter what the
mind, in order to know the body as it really is. Dwell
conditions.
contemplating feeling in feelings… in order to know
feelings as they really are. Dwell contemplating mind
Master Sheng-Yen (1931-2009) was the resident
in mind… in order to know mind as it really is. Dwell
teacher at the Chan Meditation Center in Elmhurst,
contemplating dhamma in dhammas… in order to know
New York, founder of Dharma Drum Mountain, and
dhammas as they really are.”
author of many books. EH
The practice of contemplating (or as we might say,
meditating on) the Four Foundations—mindfulness
of the body, feelings, mind, and dhammas (or