Mindfulness and introspective awareness
88 Following in the Buddha's Footsteps
Venerable Thubten Chodron 
Volume 4 Following in the Buddha's Footsteps 
Mar 13, 2026 Part of an ongoing series of teachings based on the book Following in the Buddha's Footsteps, the fourth volume in The Library of Wisdom and Compassion series by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Venerable Thubten Chodron.
- Thirty-seven harmonies with awakening
- Fundamental vehicle teachings and Mahayana teachings
- Definition of mindfulness
- How mindfulness funcions
- Body, feeling, mind, phenomena
- Impermanent, duhkha, no self
- Benefits of cultivating mindfulness
- Analogy of mindfulness as a gatekeeper
88 Mindfulness and Introspective Awareness (download)
Contemplation points
- Describe how each step of hearing, thinking, and meditating on the Dharma helps us to learn it more deeply and integrate it into our lives.
- The Thirty-seven Harmonies with Awakening are factors that we have to learn and practice as part of the foundation of Buddhist practice. Why is it so important that we focus on foundational practices first?
- What does mindfulness mean in Buddhism? What are its three features?
- What does it mean to contemplate the body as a body, feelings as feelings, mind as mind, and phenomena as phenomena? How does thinking in this way bring about insight?
- What sense objects and daydreams do you get most engrossed in? What anxious thoughts do you often have? How does mindfulness protect us from these?
- Consider how the Buddha compares mindfulness to a gatekeeper: “Just as the royal frontier fortress has a gatekeeper – wise, experienced, intelligent – to keep out those he doesn’t know and to let in those he does, for the protection of those within and to ward off those without; in the same way an ariya disciple is mindful, highly meticulous, remembering and able to call to mind even things that were done and said long ago. With mindfulness as his gatekeeper, the ariya disciple abandons what is unskillful, develops what is skillful, abandons what is blameworthy, develops what is blameless, and looks after himself with purity.” How does this inspire your mind to practice mindfulness? How might your experience of the world be different if you cultivated this practice?
- Spend some time watching your mind. What are you thinking? What are you noticing? What are some ways to use mindfulness in your own meditation and daily life to keep your mind in virtue?
Venerable Thubten Chodron
Venerable Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings. She was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. Read her full bio.
