po_mindfulnessCandles2Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When you’re mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience.

Mindfulness (translated from Sanskrit as awareness) is a spiritual or psychological faculty that, according to the teachings of the Buddha, opens the door to enlightenment.

Enlightenment (bodhi) is a state of being, in which greed, hatred and delusion have been overcome, abandoned and are absent from the mind. When practicing mindfulness, for instance, by watching the breath, one must remember to maintain attention on the chosen object of awareness, “faithfully returning back to refocus on that object whenever the mind wanders away from it. “Thus, mindfulness means not only, “moment to moment awareness of present events,” but also, “remembering to be aware of something or to do something at a designated time in the future”. In fact, “the primary connotation of this Sanskrit term is recollection”.