Mindfulness

Mindfulness is very much like what you see with your peripheral vision,
as opposed to the hard focus of normal or central vision.
Yet this moment of soft, unfocused awareness contains a very deep sort of knowing that is lost as soon as you focus your mind and objectify the object into a thing.

In the process of ordinary perception,
the mindfulness step is so fleeting as to be unobservable.
We have developed the habit of squandering our attention on all the remaining steps, focusing on the perception, cognizing the perception, labeling it, and most of all, getting involved in a long string of symbolic thought about it.

The original moment of mindfulness is rapidly passed over.
It is the purpose of Vipassana meditation to train us to prolong that moment of awareness.


Bhante Henepola Gunaratana