The Foundations of Mindfulness

True or false: mindful eating offers two advantages that allow the practice to be easily woven into everyday life: the activity is immediately relatable for everyone, and there is no need for creating a special place and time for practice.

True or false: mindful monitoring is required to know the measure with our food, to know at what point we have had enough to nourish the body. The discourse directly ties mindfulness practice to health benefits.

Please choose the correct answers below to fill in the blanks:

The account of King ___ documents successful implementation of a ___ mindfulness instructor for the purpose of mundane ___ benefit in ancient India. This passage is somewhat unique because the overall concern of mindfulness in early Buddhism is about the path to liberation. However, this passage provides a very clear precedent for current employment of mindfulness in health care and related areas.

True or false: wisely exploring the matter of eating is a way of helping to confront what is in the mind. When there is penetrative understanding of food, one becomes free of the fettering force of food and also of sensuality. The problem is not in the type of food; the problem is in the mental reactivity. The Buddha’s own distinct way of eating was to take his food experiencing the taste, but not experiencing greed for the taste.

Choose the correct answer from below to fill in the blanks: the Buddha’s teaching of ________ avoids the two extremes of sensuality and asceticism. When cultivated, it is the path leading to awakening.

True or false: dukkha can be translated as unsatisfactory, in that everything that is conditioned is changing, and because it is changing it can never give lasting satisfaction. The understanding of that is what prevents suffering. We need to tease apart dukkha as a quality of conditioned things in general, and, the reaction of suffering. Even pain need not lead to suffering.

Choose the correct set of words below to fill in the blanks:

Judson Brewer’s research investigated benefits of applying mindfulness to the (3-part) mechanism of ___, ___, and ___, in this sequence.