An early Buddhist Mindfulness Song

One thing that brings me constant delight and fascination is finding modern adaptations of ancient Buddhist wisdom and practice. Something that is often lost in modern forms of Buddhism is sutta (or sutra) chanting. It can seem too ritualistic (something often rejected by modern Buddhists), and suttas are often rendered in technical vocabularies or dated English that makes reading stunted, halting, and distant.

So when the heart of the Buddha’s teaching can be translated into modern idiom in an attractive way, I’m impressed.

Here, Josh Brown renders the Satipatthana Sutta into chant, quite beautifully, in my humble opinion:

What do you think? Does this sort of modernizing help you connect with the meaning and practice of the early suttas? Would you like to see more? Make some yourself? Comment/share below and I might feature one of your recordings in an upcoming post.

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