What Is Mindfulness?
Presence of Mind Is Really a State of No-Mind – You Can Call It Mindfulness
Osho,
What is presence of mind?
Presence of mind is really a state of no-mind. You can call it mindfulness, awareness, or you can call it a state of no-mind. The words seem to be contradicting each other, but they are indicative of the same state. Presence of mind means to be in the present, to be spontaneous, to be available to whatsoever is happening right now. To be available to here and now is presence of mind. But the only way to be available to here and now is not to be in the past, not to be in the future.
And mind consists of past and future; mind knows nothing of the present. Mind is always occupied, it is never unoccupied. And whenever the mind is unoccupied, utterly without any thought, just watchful, alert, conscious, there arises a great presence. That presence functions on its own accord. That presence makes your life a life of responses, not of reactions.
Ordinary life is of reaction; you react. Reaction means you are reacting to a present situation according to the past. It never fits because life never repeats itself.