Mindfulness (Buddhism) [2]

This is experienced as clarity and full consciousness of every activity performed however automatic or trivial, the activity being viewed as by an impartial observer. When one sits one just sits, when one walks one just walks. Those following the aryastangamarga (noble eightfold path) are in fact following the practice of perfect mindfulness, first being aware of bodily activity, then of the senses and thinking and their objects. By this means the mind is controlled and comes to rest. In Tibetan Buddhism, mindfulness is an essential feature of meditative stabilization, and may be considered as the non-distracted observation of a familiar object. In Hinayana Buddhism, it is the means of remembering, it remembers, it is remembering. The object of awareness does not slip away or wobble but remains steady. Mindfulness manifests as guarding or confronting the object, and its proximate cause is firm and strong perception or the foundation of mindfulness with respect to the body. It guards the doors of the senses. The four establishments in mindfulness or stations of mindfulness smrityupasthana of Hinayana Buddhism are attained through meditations on the impermanence, misery, emptiness and selflessness of: the body; feelings; thoughts; and other internal phenomena, of one's self and other sentient beings. Mahayana Buddhism recognizes the same four but here mindfulness is that of their emptiness – sunyata.

One of the five determining mental factors of Tibetan Buddhism. One of the formations aggregate (mental coefficients) of Hinayana Buddhism, being listed among the constant states which appear in their true nature, and as profitable primary (always present in any profitable or profitable-resultant consciousness). The four satipatthana (establishments in mindfulness) comprise the first of seven areas grouping the 37 prerequisites for enlightenment.