Mindfulness can be defined many ways. Let's look at some of the ways it is defined by academics, buddhists, therapists and others.

1. Mindfulness is…

2. Mindfulness means
paying attention in a
particular way; on
purpose, in the
present moment, and
non judgmentally.
Jon Kabor-Zinn

3. Mindfulness is a serene
encounter with reality.
Thich Nhat Hanh

4. Mindfulness is the practice of
paying attention – to thoughts,
physical sensations, and the
environment – without
constantly feeling the need to
judge what’s happening or to
make it other than it is.
Sarah Rudell Beach

5. Mindfulness is to keep
the breath in mind. Keep
remembering the breath
each time you breathe
in, each time you
breathe out.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu

6. Mindfulness is simply being aware
of what is happening now without
wishing it were different; enjoying
the pleasant without holding on
when it changes (which it will);
being with the unpleasant without
fearing it will always be this way
(which it won’t).
James Baraz

7. Mindfulness is the practice of
maintaining a nonjudgmental
state of heightened or
complete awareness of one's
thoughts, emotions, or
experiences on a moment-to-
moment basis.
Merriam Webster Dictionary

8. Mindfulness is loving all the
details of our lives, and
awareness is the natural thing
that happens; life begins to
open up, and you realize that
you’re always standing at the
center of the world.
Pema Chodron

9. Mindfulness is
the gentle effort
to be
continuously
present with
experience.
Jon Kabor-Zinn

10. Mindfulness is a state of active,
open attention on the present.
When you're mindful, you observe
your thoughts and feelings from a
distance, without judging them
good or bad. Instead of letting
your life pass you by, mindfulness
means living in the moment and
awakening to experience.
Psychology Today

11. Mindfulness is a quality, which human
beings already have, but they have usually
not been advised that they have it, that it is
valuable, or that it can be cultivated.
Mindfulness is the awareness that is not
thinking but which is aware of thinking, as
well as aware of each of the other ways we
experience the sensory world, i.e., seeing,
hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling through
the body.
University of California Center for Mindfulness

12. Mindfulness is non-judgmental, open-
hearted, friendly, and inviting of
whatever arises in awareness. It is
cultivated by paying attention on
purpose, deeply, and without judgment
to whatever arises in the present
moment, either inside or outside of us.
University of California Center for Mindfulness

13. Mindfulness means paying attention
to what is happening right now with
kindness.
Siri Chandler

14. Mindfulness is paying
attention to your life,
here and now, with
kindness and curiosity.
Amy Saltzman

15. Mindfulness is simple
acceptance,
described here as
making friends with
yourself. It is, as well,
a means to unlock
creativity and
compassion.
Chogyam Trungpa

16. Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the
present experience. It isn't more complicated than that.
It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant
or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or
rejecting it. Sylvia Boorstein

17. Mindfulness means being aware of what’s present
without greed, without aversion, without delusion. So
it’s a special kind of awareness, which is a little more
precise. So there’s a fine-tuning we need to do to
find that place in the mind that is aware of what’s
going on, and that also contains that ethical
framework…when we’re mindful of something the
implication of being mindful is that we’re not grasping at
the object or pushing it away, and, more obviously, that
we’re not deluded about it. Often in popular culture,
mindfulness is taken to mean simply “be present,” rather
than how we’re relating to the present.
Joseph Goldstein

18. Mindfulness is an innate
human capacity to
deliberately pay full
attention to where we are,
to our actual experience,
and to learn from it.
Jack Kornfield

19. Mindfulness is
nonjudgmental awareness
of what is occurring inside
and outside in successive
moments of consciousness.
Robert Beatty

20. Mindfulness is sitting with your
own feelings, some of which
are hard. Learning
compassion for yourself and
from that, for others, and from
that compassion to foster a
world that is less likely to be
prone to war and strife.

21. Mindfulness is listening for the
still small voice and coming to
peace and calm. We get out of
the loop of thoughts and still
allow the thoughts to come up
and go away, which when we
allow, eventually brings a
sense of peace and calm.

22. Mindfulness is the
nonjudgmental observation
and assessment of our
thoughts.

23. You
Deserve to be
Happy
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