The Four Noble Truths Retreat, Part 5

This is the public evening talk of the retreat, aimed at a general audience. Ajahn Sumedho separates the Western sense of mindfulness, attention to outer objects, from the Buddha’s turning of awareness inward. He recounts the four heavenly messengers of the Buddha’s story, and his early years with Luang Por Chah in Northeast Thailand, where he had to sit through long talks he could not follow and learned to witness boredom and aversion. He then describes the body as the first foundation of mindfulness through the four postures of sitting, standing, walking and lying down, and returns to the Four Noble Truths.