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8 Understanding The Meaning of Mindfulness: Awareness From The Heart

Mindfulness, derived from the ancient Indian word Sati, encompasses awareness, attention, and remembering. It is a practice that helps individuals focus on their experiences, such as managing stress through mindful breathing. The Japanese character for mindfulness reflects the integration of mind and heart, emphasizing a deeper, compassionate awareness.

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26 views1 page

8 Understanding The Meaning of Mindfulness: Awareness From The Heart

Mindfulness, derived from the ancient Indian word Sati, encompasses awareness, attention, and remembering. It is a practice that helps individuals focus on their experiences, such as managing stress through mindful breathing. The Japanese character for mindfulness reflects the integration of mind and heart, emphasizing a deeper, compassionate awareness.

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dpdfs
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8 Part I: Introducing Mindfulness

Understanding the Meaning


of Mindfulness
Mindfulness was originally developed in ancient times, and can be found in
Eastern and Western cultures. Mindfulness is a translation of the ancient
Indian word Sati that means awareness, attention and remembering:

✓ Awareness. This is an aspect of being human that makes you conscious


of your experiences. Without awareness, nothing would exist for you.
✓ Attention. Attention is a focused awareness; mindfulness training devel-
ops your ability to move and sustain your attention wherever and how-
ever you choose.
✓ Remembering. This aspect of mindfulness is about remembering to pay
attention to your experience from moment to moment. Being mindful is
easy to forget. The word remember originally comes from the Latin re
‘again’ and memorari ‘be mindful of’.

Say that you want to practise mindfulness to help you cope with stress.
At work, you think about your forthcoming presentation and begin to feel
stressed and nervous. By becoming aware of this, you remember to focus
your mindful attention to your own breathing rather than constantly worry-
ing. Feeling your breath with a sense of warmth and gentleness helps slowly
to calm you down. See Chapter 6 for more about mindful breathing.

Awareness from the heart


The Japanese character for mindfulness is this: This Japanese character combines the words
for ‘mind’ and ‘heart’ and beautifully captures
the essence of mindfulness as not just aware-
ness, but awareness from the heart.

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