What Does Mindfulness Mean?

Someone asked me just the other day, "Tara....what does 'mindfulness' truly mean?"

You see, they like others, had been struggling with so many books filled with definitions ~ nebulous and imprecise in their meaning.

So many gurus, and gurus-to-be...spiritual leaders, and those who'll argue that their view is best.

"Be still," one may offer, "and ignore all distractions." But, shouldn't mindfulness create an equal, yet unclinging, awareness of all things... including those that have the capacity to shake us to our core?

"Let the thoughts simply travel through," another suggests. But, isn't mindfulness also about examination of these such events?

Here is, in my humble opinion, the issue my dears ~ as, there really isn't just one view, you see... as so much relies upon our own personal experience in the context of these such greater things.

Though, if I, a most simple writer indeed, were to take my attempts at what it all means...

I might say, just this,

"To know the stillness of water, while understanding that our simple being is continuously shifting the shore. This is what mindfulness means to me."

But, of course, my dears ~ this thing we call mindfulness...is something you must decide for you.

Namaste, and much love on this day.