The Five Wonderful Mindfulness Trainings are Thây’s interpretation of the five basic precepts as taught by the Buddha who offered them to both his ordained and lay followers so that they could have clear guidelines to lead mindful and joyful lives on the path to awakening. They are not commandments. In his book entitled “For a Future to be Possible”, Thây describes in detail how the Five Mindfulness Trainings can be used by anyone in today’s world to create a more harmonious and peaceful life. However, with the help of the monastic community and the lay Sanghas, he has recently (2009) updated these precepts so that they are beautifully appropriate and relevant in today’s society.

The Five Mindfulness Trainings represent the Buddhist vision for a global spirituality and ethic. They are a concrete expression of the Buddha’s teachings on the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, the path of right understanding and true love, leading to healing, transformation, and happiness for ourselves and for the world. To practice the Five Mindfulness Trainings is to cultivate the insight of interbeing, or Right View, which can remove all discrimination, intolerance, anger, fear, and despair. If we live according to the Five Mindfulness Trainings, we are already on the path of a bodhisattva. Knowing we are on that path, we are not lost in confusion about our life in the present or in fears about the future.

The Five Mindfulness Trainings are:

1. Reverence For Life
2. True Happiness
3. True Love
4. Loving Speech and Deep Listening
5. Nourishment and Healing

Mindfulness Trainings Study Service

A member of our Sangha has set up an experimental service that will email you one of the Mindfulness Trainings each week to help you study them and keep them in the front of your mind. You can sign up for the service here.