The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is the most influential scripture in Buddhist meditation. It is the foundation text for the modern schools of ‘vipassanā’ or ‘insight’ meditation. The well-known Pali discourse is, however, only one of many early Buddhist texts that deal with mindfulness. This is the first full-scale study to encompass all extant versions of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, taking into account the dynamic evolution of the Buddhist scriptures and the broader Indian meditative culture. A new vision emerges from this groundbreaking study: mindfulness is not a system of ‘dry insight’ but is the ‘way to convergence’ leading the mind to deep states of peace....

THE GIST: THE HIDDEN STRUCTURE OF THE DHAMMA Foreword: The Vipassananāvādā 1 The Meaning of ‘Buddha’ 1.1 The Ambiguity of Tradition 1.2 The Death of Myth 2 The GIST 1​—​Three Strata of Early Texts 2.1 Before the Buddha 2.2 The First Discourses 2.3 The Gāthā Theory 2.4 The Earliest Collection 2.5 The First Abhidhamma 2.6 Some Problems 3 The GIST 2​—​The Agreement of the Three Strata 3.1 The Seeds of the Saṁyutta 3.2 The Two Saṁyuttas 3.3 The Root Abhidhamma Topics 3.4 The Three Strata Compared 3.5 The Saṁyutta-Mātikā in the Mahāyāna 4 The GIST 3​—​The Aṅgas 4.1 The Nine and the Twelve 4.2 Sutta, Geyya, Vyākaraṇa 4.3 The Three Aṅgas and the First Discourses 4.4 The Aṅgas and the Vedas 5 Aṅgas in the Nikāyas & Āgamas 5.1 Saṁyutta 5.2 Majjhima 5.3 Dīgha 5.4 Aṅguttara 6 The Evolution of the Truths 6.1 Sanskrit Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta 6.2 Spirals of Elaboration 7 What Happened in the Sattapaṇṇi Cave? 7.1 Conclusion A HISTORY OF MINDFULNESS 8 Introduction to Mindfulness 8.1 Samatha & vipassanā 9 Previous Studies 9.1 Von Hinüber 9.2 Anālayo 9.3 Thích Nhất Hạnh 9.4 Ṭhānissaro 9.5 Thích Minh Châu ...