ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses three key areas of Buddhist understanding and methodology which contribute to the various frameworks underpinning Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)- the four establishments of mindfulness, the four truths, and the three marks of existence. The establishments of mindfulness are mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of feelings, mindfulness of states of mind, and mindfulness of the processes and contents of the human mind. The truths offer a framework for experientially investigating first person experience. First, recognising that unsatisfactoriness and suffering are an inherent aspect of one's experience. Second, seeing how habitual reactive patterns of craving are the cause of suffering. Third, seeing the potential for freedom from reactivity, and fourth, developing wise discernment through cultivating mindfulness and through engaging in helpful actions in everyday life. The three Marks of Existence are: experience is constantly in flux; things are inherently unsatisfactory; and one's sense of 'self' is constantly shifting and is interdependent with ever-changing conditions.
