Fundamentals of mindful practice

[Gem]

What we now call 'mindfulness' in modern meditation and psychotherapy are variations on the Buddhist meditation called 'insight' or 'vipassana'. The basic outline of this modality can be found in the satipatthana sutta.

However, one can't simply leap forth into the practice without establishing some foundations, so I want to talk about the foundations first, before discussing the underlying aspects of the meditation itself.

There is a primary fundamental and a secondary fundamental, and these are morality and organisation. Morality (sila) is crudely outlined in the 'precepts' which are simplistic rules concerning lying, stealing, killing and so forth, but of course, apart from simple abeyance, there are deeper aspects of nature from which these rules transpire. The second foundation, organisation, pertains to simple organisation of life, because if a person is scatty and erratic, living without any structure, so run off their feet they are beside themselves, or intoxicated/hungover, or otherwise disheveled, they are very likely to be highly distracted and won't be able to 'chillax'. One of the moral precepts actually regards intoxication directly, so in this we see an example of how morality interrelates with organisation.

In short, one needs to 'clean up their act' and 'get their house in order' to prepare the foundation of practice.

That will do for an OP, and perhaps we might talk about these points generally and lead into a more in depth discussion on mindfulness from there.

P.S. In view of frequent and recent moderator intervention in this forum section, I suggest that a disposition of kindness would best reflect discourses we regard as 'Buddhist'.