Is There A Better Word for Mindfulness?

I’m not here to argue against being mindful but I find myself glossing over the word itself. An antithetical act to the purpose of the word. Is it because it has been used so mindless-ly through repetition these past years or is it simply a reflection of me?

I’ve moved past the novelty of the word and just personally need a new one (or need to readjust myself to using it)

The word, though, has some barnacles attached to it. It collects everything, stores memory, becomes weighted down by the responsibility of it all.

Meditation by: Pierre-Paul Prud’hon

The concept in modern western culture seems to stem from the Buddhist cognitive practice of Sati, to be aware of the present moment or “bare awareness”. The lightness in that, simple awareness of now, is a concept that is barnacle free in my mind. So why the complication of feeling with “mindfulness” and not “sati”?

Is it that the word “sati” has some hue of novelty for my western mind? Is it not used repeatedly through the circles or algorithms which in I swim? Can it become the new key word to arrest me out of waking sleep & remind me/remembrance of bare awareness? I’m going to try it. Because, sati works. For a busy-bee brain like mine (and yours too probably ), I juggle a few jobs, repeat a thousand ideas, to-do lists, desires, hair brained schemes, impulses, responsibilities, reactions, physical needs, and it is complicated with a digitally imbued world. I find myself trapped in a mindlessness spinning wheel of social media video scrolling a la The Price is Right. There is no bottom of the wheel, it keeps spinning.

I need to give myself new parameters, new reminders and one of them is to replace the word for the umbrella concept of Mindfulness. I don’t want my mind to be full, it already is. I want it to be relieved. Allowing that which does not belong to not remain.

The other morning I dreamt that my best friend arrived to my house after I had just finished redecorating it. I was so happy to be able to show her my new colors, but was confused and embarrassed that I’d forgotten she was coming. “Blame it on perimenopause or monkey mind, it doesn’t matter. I wonder what else I’m forgetting…” I said in the dream. And then, in the dream and again on waking, I thought how wonderfully freeing it is to simply forget! I get to forget things and that’s ok. I don’t have to hold on to all memory, store it like a hoarder in my mind, being cumulatively heavier by all the things I should remember. I allow to let things go and trust that I will hold on to what matters. So much fuel is fed into my mind that there’s no way I can burn it all up in a day, so allowing the extra to burn off is liberating.

This is to say, I do feel bad for forgetting important things, not arriving when I’ve promised to or at a different time than previously agreed on. As I practice sati and I reduce the junk that is fed into my sphere, my mind and my heart I will become more aware of the present moment. Awareness of now is a simple act. It’s the getting to the clearing in a field surrounded by mindless bramble that’s the tricky piece. This is where I’m at and the first step is replacing the word.

So, for now, the newword is “sati”. I am weeding away the unneeded fuel & maintaining the pathways to the open center through astrology, meditation and art making. What ways do you practice, participate, honor or act in bare awareness?

Spell it,

Christa