As mindfulness is increasingly embraced in the contemporary world as a practice that brings peace and self-awareness, Bhikkhu Analayo casts fresh light on the earliest sources of mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition.

The Satipatthana Sutta is well known as the main source for Buddhist teachings on mindfulness and its place in the Buddhist path. Ten years after Analayo's acclaimed study of the Sutta, Perspectives on Satipatthana brings a new dimension to our understanding by comparing the Pali text with versions that have survived in Chinese and, until now, been unknown to English speakers. Analayo also draws on the presentation of mindfulness in a number of other discourses as they survive in Chinese and Tibetan translations as well as in Pali.

The result is a wide-ranging exploration of what mindfulness meant in early Buddhism. Informed by Analayo's outstanding scholarship, depth of understanding and experience as a practitioner, this book sheds fresh light on material that is central to our understanding of Buddhist practice, bringing us as close as we can come to the mindfulness teachings of the Buddha himself.

Perspectives on Satipatthana, Bhikkhu Analayo, Windhorse Publications, Paperback, 336 pages, $24.95

Bhikkhu Analayo completed a PhD on the Satipatthana Sutta at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka in 2000, published in 2003 by Windhorse Publications under the title Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization. At present Analayo is a professor of Buddhist studies at the Sri Lanka International Academy in Pallekele, Sri Lanka.