Mindfulness: The Eastern Philosophy Tradition

Why Mindfulness?

It is natural for a mind given to reason to make inquiry of its tasks, ‘Why mindfulness?’  Why ought we to practice mindfulness?  Of what profit is it to us?

Well, life is a misery, surely you would agree.  Even if we have in our grasp a source of happiness, rarely does it last, and if it does, we either tire of it or live in fear of its loss.   And certainly, even the most fortunate of lives have this in end - old age, decay and death.  Thus it is of little surprise that the Buddha proclaims the unenlightened life to be one of suffering, and we are bound to nod in assent to his First Noble Truth that:

Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering

Sickness is suffering, death is suffering

Association with the unpleasant is suffering

Dissociation from the pleasant is suffering

Not to get what one wants is suffering

In short attachment to the five aggregates is suffering.

- Dhamma-cakkappavattana Sutra

But wait, before we take decision to jump to our conclusion, all is not lost in futility and hopelessness.  There is an end to suffering, the Buddha assures us, and to this end he offers us a path -  his Noble Eightfold Path.  Correct or right mindfulness (Pali: sammā-sati, Sanskrit: samyak- smrti) is the 7^th factor of this Eightfold Path.  

Goenka, a teacher of Buddhist Vipassana meditation writes of the merits of mindfulness meditation: it is

 “… how to live peacefully and harmoniously within oneself, and to generate peace and harmony for all others; how to live happily from day to day while progressing towards the highest happiness of a totally pure mind, a mind filled with disinterested love, with compassion, with joy at the success of others, with equanimity.”[1]

Now, since happiness - preferably the everlasting kind - is that which we all desire, and truly our lives’ toil is for this, it seems reasonable to give this promise of mindfulness a go. 

Some terminology:  Mindfulness is the usual english translation of the Pali term sati and in its Sanskrit counterpart smrti.  The word smrti in sanskrit literally means ‘to remember’ or ‘awareness’.  It is translated as nian in Chinese, and as trenpa in Tibetan. Some contend that the translation of sati and smrti as mindfulness is confusing and that a number of Buddhist scholars are trying to establish "retention" as the preferred alternative.

[1] S. N, Goenka, (1987), The Discourse Summaries, Vipassana Research Institute, Apollo Printing Press, Maharashtra, India., 1.

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