Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?
I think of mindfulness in the following way. I don&#x27;t consider it a meditation. You can meditate on how to be mindful or how you could have been more mindful in a past circumstance, but that is different. Meditation is actively thinking on how to do something, training yourself to do something you ought to be doing. Mindfulness is maintaining a state of mind at all times.<p>I think of mindfulness as developing as complete an awareness as possible of the present without any past biases or perceptions affecting you. This is done to respond to the present situation you are facing more effectively. Too often, we associate a past experience with current experience, and react to the current experience as if it should play out in the same manner as the past experience had played out. We do this because we lose all situational awareness because the bond we have to this past connection is too strong. Mindfulness is intended to understand the present situation, what your possible present responses are, and to evaluate them to determine what to do this time around. The technique is effective because the situation is oftentimes more significant than our past experience even if we didn&#x27;t realize it.