Active awareness is a spiritual power. We call it mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh describes mindfulness as “being alive to the present reality.” I appreciate this definition, because it stretches beyond basic awareness. We are alive to the present, not just blankly aware of it. And we cannot be alive in the present moment if we are stuck in the past, or looking to the future. It asks us to be present right here, right now.

Mindfulness is a spiritual power because it knows and sees the totality of how things are. Before judgment creeps in, before thoughts take over, mindfulness sees clearly, without category. So it holds a wholeness that our dualistic ways of thinking undo. The trick of mindfulness is to stay in this wholeness of seeing long enough to allow the wisdom of it to sink in.

Shantideva says devotion doesn’t benefit us if we have a wandering mind. So the spiritual power of mindfulness is that it allows our devotion to take root somewhere, to become actionable. He describes our mind as a wild and rampant elephant who needs to be tethered to the post. The post is mindfulness of the teachings, resting in awareness.

Shantideva also describes mindfulness as a sentinel, stationed as a guard upon the threshold of the mind. What a fitting metaphor for active awareness. Mindfulness is the act of keeping watch.

Buddhist scholars say the word for mindfulness (sati in Pali and smriti in Sanskrit) contains an aspect of remembering. When we are mindful, we remember what is essential, and of value. And we also remember our own mortality, our own pain. We are awake to it, so that we can see it not as an end but as part of the whole.

This week, can you find some time to tether your wild and rampant elephant to the post of mindfulness? Can you practice training your mind to serve as a sentinel, keeping guard over your thoughts?

This post is part of the Paramita Project, where I’m practicing one paramita each month. Read all the posts on spiritual power here.