What Is Mindfulness?

Here at the beginning of 2019, I am starting a new blog series called “Meditation Monday.” Each Monday I will be posting “Dharma Bites”… short bite-sized teachings, from myself and other teachers. These posts will be short teachings about mindfulness and meditation that you can easily to implement into your daily practice. I am starting this new endeavor with a video series from my own meditation teacher, the Ven. Sayadaw Vivekananda. Here is his teaching on What On Mindfulness?

What is Mindfulness? | Ven. Sayadaw Vivekananda

It’s a great pleasure to be with you out here, and certainly to be part of this interview. Now let me try to define mindfulness as succinctly as possible. So an easy definition of mindfulness will be the moment-to-moment awareness or presence of mind with whatever predominant phenomenon comes up in the body, in the mind, during formal sitting meditation, during formal walking meditation, as well as during general activities.

Mindfulness can be practiced during an intensive mindfulness meditation retreat but can be equally practiced outside of a formal retreat. It means that we’re simply aware of what we do from moment-to-moment and not do things in a mechanical, or in an automatic way as if on autopilot. So even when performing the most simple tasks, we are mindful of what’s happening on a physical level in terms of predominant mental states, and in terms of predominant thoughts that go along with the activity.

Question: How do you apply Mindfulness to your daily life? Leave your comments below!

Ven. Vivekananda Bio

Ven. Vivekananda is the abbot of Panditarama Int. Meditation Center” in Lumbini, Nepal. He is a direct student of the late Ven. Sayadaw U Pandita who placed him as the guiding teacher of Panditarama, Lumbini. Sayadaw Vivekananda has been teaching Vipassana and Loving-kindness (Metta) meditation since 1998, both at his center in Lumbini and internationally. For more info please go to “Panditarama Lumbini.”