Sati, which is usually translated as “mindfulness” lies at the core of meditation.
Without sati, no meditative progress will ever be made.
Larry Rosenberg, author of Breath by Breath, puts it this way:
We human beings have an extraordinary capacity, which we sometimes take for granted until it is called to our attention: unlike other beings in the world who are living out their lives, we have the ability to be conscious of that process as we do so.
Mindfulness is often likened to a mirror; it simply reflects what is there. It is not a process of thinking; it is preconceptual, before thought. One can be mindful of thought. There is all the difference in the world between thinking and knowing that though it happening, as thoughts chase each other through the mind and the process is mirrored back to us.
The only time that mindfulness can happen is in the present moment; if you are thinking of the past, that is memory. [And if you are thinking of the future, you are planning of dreaming—AW]. It is possible to be mindful of memory, of course, but such mindfulness can only happen in the present.
Mindfulness is unbiased. It is not for or against anything, just like a mirror, which does not judge what it reflects. Mindfulness has no goal other than the seeing itself. It doesn’t try to add to what’s happening or subtract from it, to improve it in any way.
It isn’t detached, like a person standing on a hill far away from an experience, observing it with binoculars. It is a form of participation—you are fully living out your life, but you are awake in the midst of it—and it is not limited to the meditation hall. It can be used on a simple process like the breathing, or on highly charged and unpleasant emotions like fear or loneliness. It can also follow us into the ordinary life situations that make up our day. Eventually, it becomes more of a way of living than a technique.
I have also seen mindfulness been defined as being aware, which, in my view, also hits the mark quite well; for awareness can be defined as that knowing that can only occur in the present moment. You cannot not, now, be aware in the past, or be aware in the future. You can be aware of the past or of the future but only in the present.
A cornerstone to meditation is this amazing awareness we call mindfulness, or to use the Buddha’s word: Sati. Learn it, befriend it, use it, be it.
Ulf Wolf