The Buddha described Satipaṭṭhāna, the Four Establishments of Mindfulness, as the “direct path to realization.” The teaching proposes four timeless frameworks—of the body, feelings, mind, and dhamma-categories—that can lead beings to true freedom of heart.
On May 18, 2025, the BGR community joined together in Dharma learning and practice focusing on the first establishment of mindfulness—the body. Led by Thai Forest monastics and BGR Sangha Council members Ajahn Kovilo and Ajahn Nisabho, this beautiful event offered practitioners both theory and practical guidance in how to use the body as a framework for cultivating clarity of mind and concentration.
Ajahn Kovilo and Ajahn Nisabho manifest the Paramita of dāna, or generosity, through their Clear Mountain community, which they hope in time to grow into a permanent monastery. The two monks carry out their daily alms rounds at Pike Place Market in Seattle; on Saturdays they offer meditation and Dharma teaching. “Buddhist monastics in our tradition don’t touch money, and we can’t ask for things,” Ajahn Kovilo said during the BGR event. “Coming to Seattle was a complete act of faith, where we just showed up in Pike Place near the Starbucks, and people actually gave, and supported us. And for four years, we haven’t gone hungry.”
BGR’s work, Ajahn Kovilo explained, reflects and amplifies this “ethos of generosity surrounding the Buddhist faith.”
To begin the event, the teachers led participants in a recitation of the Three Refuges and Five Precepts, a communal experience of faith and “a gift of fearlessness to those around us,” Ajahn Nisabho said. The mahādāna, or great giving, of the precepts is reflected in BGR’s mission “to bring our interior practice of Buddhism, our interior practice of the Dhamma—of purification of our own body, speech, and mind—into the world,” he said.
The contemplation of the body, Ajahn Kovilo explained, is a practice of witnessing all of existence without preference for the pleasant over the unpleasant, the easy over the difficult. “All of the internals and externals are aspects which exist in the world, and what we’re doing in Buddhist practice is opening our eyes,” he said. “We practice closing our eyes in order to better see, in order to better open our eyes. We’re seeing not just the limits of the skin that we like to see, all the beauty that’s external, but also that which is not beautiful internally. And similarly with the world.”
The Mindfulness of the Body event was the first of a planned three-part Satipaṭṭhāna series. The second event, focusing on Mindfulness of Feelings and of the Mind, will be held in August. The third part, Mindfulness of Dhamma, will be held in December. The finalized dates will be announced via email and social media when they are confirmed.
To view a video of the event, and to learn more about Ajahn Kovilo, Ajahn Nisabho, and the Clear Mountain Monastery project, please visit our event page, here.
