Mindfulness in the Western world is perhaps best known in the terms of the words of\u00a0Jon Kabat-Zinn as:<\/p>\n
\u201cPaying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Bodhipaksa of Wildmind presents a helpful breakdown of each part of this sentence<\/a>\u00a0after offering his own definition of \u201cthe gentle effort to be continuously present with experience.\u201d<\/p>\n Culadasa (John Yates, PhD), author of The Mind Illuminated<\/a>, describes mindfulness in terms of \u201coptimizing the interaction between\u00a0attention<\/em> and\u00a0awareness<\/em>.\u201d He emphasizes awareness here to bring out the global or peripheral aspect of mindfulness; one is not\u00a0only<\/em> attending to a specified object such as the breath or a task, but\u00a0also<\/em> has an awareness of the world around them.<\/p>\n The meaning of sati<\/em> can be also be understood by looking at a description of it found in the Pali Canon. The Buddha there describes the sati\u00a0<\/em>of a cowherd, who had to watch closely over his cows to keep them from straying into fields with ripe crops. Once those crops were harvested, the cowherd could relax, just \u2018being mindful\u2019 (sati kara\u1e47\u012bya\u1e43<\/em>) of his cows. The crops here represent thoughts of sensuality and the harvest represents the abandonment via renunciation of those thoughts. Mindfulness, in this case, is a kind of gentle presence of being based on prior effort and control. So Bodhipaksa\u2019s definition reflects very closely this image from the early Buddhism<\/a> while Kabat-Zinn\u2019s might be seen as a more \u201cmodernized\u201d definition aimed specifically to the contemporary Westerner. Bhikkhu Analayo suggests that the gentle presence (similar to a wide-angle camera lens) is characteristic to the Buddha\u2019s particular use of the term sati<\/em>.<\/p>\n Here, Bhikkhu Bodhi, the pre-eminent contemporary translator of early Buddhist<\/a> texts, describes mindfulness (sati<\/em>) specifically in relation to clear comprehension (sampaja\u00f1\u00f1a<\/i><\/em>) as understood in early Buddhist teachings<\/a>. He defines the role of\u00a0sati<\/em> as that which \u201ckeeps the object present before one\u2019s attention\u201d or \u201cattentiveness<\/em>\u201d \u2013 retaining or preserving the object in mind.\u00a0Sampaja\u00f1\u00f1a,\u00a0<\/i><\/em>he notes, has the function of assessment and evaluation.<\/p>\n So, common factors of Buddhist \u201cmindfulness\u201d seem to include attention\/attentiveness<\/em> and awareness, as well as an activity of being present. It is not a passive state. It is a quality based on cultivation, past effort, based in gentleness or \u2013 perhaps more geared toward modern readers \u2013 non-judgement.<\/p>\n