The Power of Mindfulness – Ven Nyanaponika Thera

powerThe Power of Mindfulness An Inquiry into the Scope of Bare Attention And the Principal Sources of its Strength

The Buddha spoke of the power of mindfulness in a very emphatic way: “Mindfulness, I declare, is all-helpful” (Samyutta, 46:59). “All things can be mastered by mindfulness” (Anguttara, 8:83). Further, there is that solemn and weighty utterance opening and concluding the Satipatthana Sutta, the Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness:

In ordinary life, if mindfulness, or attention, is directed to any object, it is rarely sustained long enough for the purpose of careful and factual observation. Generally, it is followed immediately by emotional reaction, discriminative thought, reflection, or purposeful action.

Tidying Up the Mental Household If anyone whose mind is not harmonized and controlled through methodical meditative training should take a close look at his own everyday thoughts and activities, he will meet with a rather disconcerting sight. Apart from the few main channels of his purposeful thoughts and activities, he will everywhere be faced with a tangled mass of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and casual bodily movements showing a disorderliness and confusion which he would certainly not tolerate in his living-room.

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