Poster - Mahasi Sayadaw - was a Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk - Buddhism.

Now one hears a lot words like mindfulness etc. Where did they came from?
And far more important - what do they mean?

Buddhism, based on Gautama Buddha
experiences, is based on actual realization
and experience. Therefore the issue
is how to realize what Buddha did
thousands of years ago. Well he left
plenty of scriptures, and several are
very precise methods for developing
ones capacity of concentration of
mind and deep attention.

The author Raul recommends these
deep very sharp teaching of the
Buddha himself:

The Maha Satipatthana Sutta
http://nrcvee.iitd.ac.in/files/sutta-study/mahasatipatthana-english.pdf

Note: deep and persistent 'mindfulness of breathing' will lead on to transcend
the thinking mind and labeling - remember - the Buddha used this as his last
step before Enlightenment! It's all how far you take it...

Mahasi Sayadaw:

Mahasi Sayadaw U Sobhana
(29 July 1904 – 14 August 1982)
was a Burmese Theravada Buddhist
monk and meditation master who
had a significant impact on the teaching
of vipassana (insight) meditation in
the West and throughout Asia.

In his style of practice, derived from
the so-called New Burmese Method
of U Nārada, the meditator lives according
to Buddhist morality as a prerequisite
for meditation practice.

Meditation itself entails the practice
of satipatthana, mindfulness of breathing,
anchoring the attention on the sensations
of the rising and falling of the abdomen
during breathing, observing carefully
any other sensations or thoughts.

This is coupled to reflection on the
Buddhist teachings on causality,
gaining insight into:

dukkha - sufffering,
anatta - impersonality,
anicca - impermanence.


Biography

Mahāsi Sayādaw was born in 1904
in Seikkhun village in Upper Burma.
He became a novice at age twelve,
and was ordained at the age of twenty
with the name Sobhana.
Over the course of decades of study,
he passed the rigorous series of
government examinations
in the Theravāda Buddhist texts,
gaining the newly introduced
Dhammācariya (dhamma teacher)
degree in 1941.

In 1931, U Sobhana took leave from
teaching scriptural studies in Moulmein,
South Burma, and went to nearby
Thaton to practice intensive Vipassana
meditation under Mingun Jetawun
Sayādaw (also rendered Mingun
Jetavana Sayādaw), also known
as U Nārada. This teacher had
practiced in the remote Sagaing
Hills of Upper Burma, under the
guidance of Aletawya Sayādaw,
a student of the forest meditation
master Thelon Sayādaw.

U Sobhāna first taught Vipassana
meditation in his home village in
1938, at a monastery named for its
massive drum 'Mahāsi'. He became
known in the region as Mahāsi Sayādaw.
In 1947, the Prime Minister of Burma,
U Nu, invited Mahāsi Sayādaw to be
resident teacher at a
newly established meditation center
in Yangon, which came to be called
he Mahāsi Sāsana Yeiktha.

Mahāsi Sayādaw was a questioner
and final editor at the Sixth Buddhist
Council on May 17, 1954. He helped
establish meditation centers all over
Burma as well as in Sri Lanka, Indonesia,
Thailand, and by 1972 the centers under
his guidance had trained more than
700,000 meditators. In 1979, he
travelled to the West, holding retreats
at newly founded centers such as the
Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre,
Massachusetts, U.S. In addition, meditators
came from all over the world to practice
at his center in Yangon. When the
Mahāsi Sayādaw died on 14 August
1982 following a massive stroke,
thousands of devotees braved the
torrential monsoon rains to pay their
last respects.

Practice
Mahāsi's method is based on the
Satipatthana Sutta, which describes
how one focusses attention on the
breath, noticing how one breaths in
and out. Practice begins with the
preparatory stage, the practice of
sila, morality, giving up wordly
thoughts and desires.

The practitioner then engages in
satipatthana by mindfulness of breathing.

One pays attention to any arising
mental or physical phenomenon,
engaging in vitaka, noting or naming
physical and mental phenomena
("breathing, breathing"), without
engaging the phenomenon
with further conceptual thinking.
By noticing the arising of physical
and mental phenomena,
the meditator becomes aware
how sense impressions arise
from the contact between the
senses and physical and mental
phenomena, as described in the
five skandhas and paṭiccasamuppāda.

This noticing is accompanied by
reflections on causation and other
Buddhist teachings, leading to
insight into dukkha, anatta, and
anicca. When the three characteristics
have been comprehended,
reflection subdues, and the
process of noticing accelerates,
noting phenomena in general,
without necessarily naming them.