What is Mindfulness

In the days of the historical Buddha, many references to mind were to “awareness”, not the thinking mind. The Buddha is credited for saying, for example, that all things are made of mind. He meant that all that exists, is awareness. Hence the term “mindfulness" arose to refer to “awareness”, which is not any activity of the mind as thought, intention, motivation, choice and volition.

The old Buddhist texts suggest that mindfulness can be developed, as if though awareness, the fact that we exist, is not by itself adequate for enlightenment: to be freed from all suffering.

Whereas all that is actually “developed" is the ability to distinguish between thoughts and awareness: recognition. For example: You think you live in certain circumstances. “Circumstances” are an example of a set of thoughts that are confused with awareness (reality). Your “circumstances” are an interpretation of your reality, awareness. All interpretations are no other and no more than thoughts. When your “circumstances” disappear, it means you have seen through a set of thoughts that you formerly confused for reality. Then there is only here, now, beyond all circumstances. Now, since no circumstances exist, you cannot suffer from your circumstances.

This growth of insight, flowing from the increasing capacity to recognize thoughts as only thoughts, not facts, comprises a loss of everything you know. By losing so many useless ideas over so many years of quietly sitting without seeking, you arrive at not-knowing. And so you can't say what truth is. You have merely acquired the capacity to identify and and drop falsehood. Then you cannot say what mindfulness is, bearing in mind that the fairly accurate term “awareness” is just another thought.

You then only know that choice is thought. To choose mentally therefore demonstrates confusion, because you are choosing your thoughts and beliefs over awareness/ reality. To choose reality, you must desist totally from all choice, realizing there is no choice. There aren't different realities to choose from. There is only one reality: whatever you are experiencing right now. There is no choice here.

So, you must simply learn to recognize that to choose one thought over another, one feeling over another, is a mistake. To arrive at this absolute freedom from all choice, all you need is awareness of yourself as subject. When you bring attention back to you, to see what you are going to do with your current challenging thoughts and feelings, you will notice you don't know what to do with them. Therefore, not knowing what to do, you don't do anything. This is awareness: mental inaction. There is no choosing here, only the experiencing of whatever happens to be.