Mindfulness Means More Than You Think | Psychology Today Australia
Mindfulness is widely recognised in the West through teachers and authors including Thich Nhat Hanh, Jon Kabat-Zinn and Jack Kornfield. Their accounts commonly emphasise awareness of the present moment, non-judgment, openness and learning through direct experience. Its older foundations lie in the Pali term *sati*. Although usually rendered in English as mindfulness, *sati* also carries meanings of recollection and non-forgetfulness. Buddhist psychology identifies it as a “beautiful” mental factor, with a role in preventing confusion. Buddhist texts further describe it as a skilful or right form of attentive awareness. No single English term fully captures *sati* as it functions in meditation practice, scholars note. Modern understandings frequently also draw on *sampajanna*, meaning clear comprehension, and *appamada*, meaning heedfulness. Together, these ideas involve perceiving experience accurately, observing the quality of one’s attention, and drawing on insight about thoughts and actions associated with happiness or suffering. As Buddhist and secular programmes have grown, mindfulness has become a broadly accessible term for people who may be unfamiliar with the linguistic and philosophical complexities of Pali and Sanskrit translation.
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