(The meaning and first aspects of mindfulness as sati)
is. As mentioned earlier, mindfulness is the translation of the Pali word sati, a word profoundly rich in meaning and application. Sati is derived from the root meaning “to remember,” but its meaning goes far beyond our usual notion of memory.
The first application of mindfulness is the quality of not forgetting, not losing what is before the mind in the present moment.
When the momentum of mindfulness is well developed, it works like a boomerang; even if we want to distract ourselves, the mind naturally rebounds to a state of awareness.
The second aspect of mindfulness is its quality of standing near the mind, which manifests as being face-to-face with whatever is arising, rather than
giving it only sidelong glances.
(Moral discrimination, hiri and ottappa, and unwholesome action)
Here, mindfulness calls to mind, or remembers, what is skillful and what is not, what is inferior and what is refined, what is beneficial and what is harmful. It is
In Pali, they are called hiri and ottappa, often respectively translated as “moral shame” and “fear of wrongdoing,” or sometimes as “self-respect” and “conscience.”
“No deed is good that one regrets having done.”
A counterintuitive but very helpful teaching is that it is better to do an unwholesome deed knowing it is unwholesome than to do it without that knowing. If we don’t even know that something is unwholesome, then
there is no motivation to change. But in knowing that something is unwholesome, even as we might be doing it, then the seeds of wisdom and future restraint are there.
(Mindfulness, wisdom, and bare attention as springboard for investigation)
The last aspect of mindfulness is its close association with wisdom. This comes about through bare attention and clear comprehension.
It is naked and bare because it is simple, direct, noninterfering, and nonjudging.
It’s not making up stories about experience; it’s just the simple awareness of things as they are.
while mindfulness is present in every wholesome mind state, the wisdom factor of mind (nondelusion) is not always present. And
For mindfulness to function as a factor of awakening, it has to be the springboard for investigation.
When mindfulness brings us face-to-face with the object, what do we learn?