What is mindfulness, I could define the word but that would not define the state of mind.
I could define that state of mind with in my own mind, but that would not give you any understanding of it.
I think this question may be better asked as "What leads to mindfulness?"
But asking this is like asking, "what is random?" *Ref:
What Is Random? :Vsauce:
So let us ask, what is NOT mindful?
This question was inspired by and
Andrew Huang song,
Los Angeles ft. Ally Rhodes.
The song talks about the fast life of LA, people looking to become rich, famous, to find that road to the top of our societal ranking.
But as the song goes on, "What the hell am I doing drinking in LA?"
In seeking some kind of meaning among the overwhelming stream of information, the stories of success, and stories of "people who made it". Keep seeking, keep drinking, keep talking, but no one can tell you what it means "to make it". So keep seeking more stimulation, more highs, more, and more, and more!
"If you're not careful, you might disappear.
Into the soundscape of the walls of the city."
"Stream of consciousness nobody filters,
Got to learn to fit in with the killers."
To fit in, you must lose your self. To fit in you must find meaning in "stuff", stimulation, the newest fad, more money. But in seeking to find your self via external things you lose your self to flood of external "stuff".
This is what I think is opposite of mindfulness, losing your self to the out side world until you are but a cork bobbing about in the turbulent sea of "trends".
When this becomes a habit, a pattern that builds it's hard to break. It seems this is the only way to live because it is what you see. Forming an echo chamber based on self biasing, creating your prison, your own hell.
It's easy for someone to say, "Just stop", but it seems nothing in the world of the mind and habits are that easy.
So "What leads to mindfulness?"
I'm not sure of the answer to that.
I think it starts by looking inward, understanding self, and getting to a point where self trust is greater than... something, I'm not sure what.
The actions that lead to mindfulness are different for every one, I do a lot of reading from the Tao Te Ching, *
An On Line Version*, I read a lot of Buddhist texts and enjoy reading the teachings of the 14th Dalai Lama *
His Web Site.*
But these are just actions, they are not the state of mind. That is up to you.
As a parting thought on this, I recall a moment when I was deep into a bout of depression, I was walking home from work on a very cold and snowy evening. As I walked home along the snow covered fields I watched the snow drift across the road the dead fields. I knew I was in depths of death here, the world was sleeping in a cold death around me. It hit me then that I was in the depths of a kind of death, a death of the mind. My mind was slow killing it's self, slow sinking into a darkness that I didn't even see. I walked out into the middle of one of the fields I walked by and just stood there, watching the snow drift by me in the darkness. There was a kind of dark beauty to that moment. Watching the cold stillness and letting me self feel that cold dark death filled stillness. That was one of the moments I felt I was very mindful. I saw beauty in death, I saw how amazing darkness is. I don't know every thing that lead to it.
I feel that working on that mindfulness helps me to prevent disappearing in the soundscape of the city, As Andrew's songs says. It seems to give me some kind of reference that keeps me from getting lost, it helps me to see that the world is an amazing place, even in the
Coldest Darkness.