Writing about mindfulness and meditation

Mindfulness as remembering to apply the teachings

The word sati, which we translate as "mindfulness" can be understood as present-moment recollection. We remember to be in the present, yes, but sati also implies that we remember Buddhist teachings and bring them to bear on our current experience.

Sati means, for example, remembering the teaching on dependent arising to see how our perceptions are constructed, fabricated.

In this view, the important thing is, for example, to see that experience is fabricated through sensory contact and our interpretations of this. We remember to see that the sense of self—these thoughts about who I am, what I'm going to do—is secondary, not primary. It arises in dependence on conditions such as the body, consciousness, the senses, perceptions, and feelings. We remember to see that phenomena are conditioned and impermanent, and to regard them with a wholesome dispassion, without clinging, whether these phenomena are thoughts, an itch, an ice cream sundae, a volition to check social media (don't), a sunset, or the unpleasant feeling tone when we feel slighted. Mindfulness is to remember to bring wisdom to bear on all aspects of experience.