ABSTRACT
It is sometimes said that it is in those words least susceptible to translation that the life of any tradition may be found. This is certainly true of the word sati, now always translated as mindfulness. The word derives from the root for ‘memory’ (Skst smrti) though this does not quite accommodate all its shades of meaning, which is more an ‘attentiveness directed towards the present’.1 Mindfulness is that quality that characterizes the mind that is alert, awake and free from befuddlement. Rightly applied it becomes a path factor, the first of the factors of enlightenment, considered to be the basis of all Buddhist meditation teaching.2
According to the Abhidhamma, it is present and a distinguishing mark of all skilful consciousness. To be mindful is to be steady and awake: one sutta compares sati to the gatekeeper of a citadel who ‘refuses entrance to those unknown, but admits those he knows, for the protection of those inside’ (A IV 110). There are many accounts and books written about the subject of this all-important quality.3 It is not being confused or shallow, so that the mind does not ‘wobble’.4 It is likened to a good minister, who carries out each job that is needed at the right time; or salt in food: just as this brings out the quality of each taste in a dish, so mindfulness, which is aware of each sensory impression as it occurs, brings out the particular nature of each experience (see Asl 121-2). It is described as the opposite of superficiality and forgetfulness (Dhs 14). The Buddha said it is the one faculty that can never be unbalanced and is useful at all times (S V 115).
