Analysis of the Ways of Attending to Mindfulness

The Satipatthanavibhanga, Analysis of the Ways of Attending to Mindfulness, is an essential text from the Pali Canons Abhidhamma section. It describes the practice of meditation and mindfulness from the earliest Buddhist tradition. The text lies hidden away as the seventh analysis in the Vibhanga, the second book of the Pali Abhidhammapitaka. This has left it rather buried in the midst of the extremely dense work. The Analysis is divided into three main sections: The first elaborates on what is meant by doing the practices ajjhatta and bahiddh?. The second, the Section Derived from the Abstract Teaching (Abhidhammabh?jan?ya) examines the subject at the time of the attainment of path and fruit (maggaphala), and shows which mental factors are present at that time. The third, the Questionnaire (Pa?h?pucchaka) consists of a standard questionnaire, that is asked many times during the early books of the Abhidhamma, which classifies the states of mind that may, or must, be present during the supermundane ways of attending to mindfulness (lokuttara satipatth?na).