What is the connection between meditation and Buddhism? What is mindfulness meditation?

Meditation is a very old method of mental training in India, which was practiced by the Buddha himself and taught in two sutras, that of the Establishment of Attention (Satipatthana in Pali) and that of mindfulness of the breath (Anapanasati).

The key to meditation is mindfulness (sati in Pali; niêm in Vietnamese), and mindfulness (samma-sati in Pali) is part of the Eightfold Path to be followed to achieve deliverance. Attention is said in English “mindfulness”, which can also be translated as “full awareness”.

Meditation is a very old method of mental training in India, which was practiced by the Buddha himself and taught in two sutras, that of the Establishment of Attention And the one of mindfulness of the breath.

For forty years, this term or mindfulness, introduced by Master Thich Nhât Hanh and Professor of Biology Jon Kabat-Zinn, is commonly used across the Atlantic; it is defined as “the act of paying attention to what is happening in the mind at the present moment, without judgment”. The MBSR method (mindfulness-based stress reduction), developed by the latter as a treatment for various stress-related illnesses, has given very good, scientifically validated results. It is today taught in the United States in about thirty medical universities and practiced in more than 250 hospitals, and continues to spread widely throughout the world.