Mindfulness: noun; the trait of staying aware of (paying close attention to) your responsibilities; bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis; thoroughly paying attention with conscious and intentional purpose; present-centered awareness.

Mindfulness, from the adjective mindful.

What does this mean for you and I? To be mindful? To have mindfulness?

I was initially introduced to meditation in June 2006, with my very first class as a beginner White belt in the Okinawan martial art, Shotokan Karate. The term for meditation, in Japanese, is mokso.

Sensei says mokso.

While seated in kneeling position (called seiza), back and shoulders straight, palms resting on the knees facing down, the student closes her eyes, breathes in deeply and slowly, clearing the mind, removing attachments, leaving everything (judgments, stress, responsibilities, troubles, perceived knowledge, expectations) at the entrance to the dojo, and meditates for the training to come.

Mokso yame.

Stop meditating. Open the eyes. Be ready to receive.

In many regards, our Western society is extremely proficient at mokso yame.

We not only have stopped meditating, sometimes we skip the meditation part altogether (can we say efficiency? GTD? productivity? results-oriented? multi-task, multi-batch, multi-tab?).

We not only have open eyes, but sometimes we never close them at all (sleep deprivation or bouts of insomnia come to mind).

We not only are ready to receive at any given moment, we are always in a state of readiness (or, at least we believe we are; the (un)conscious acts of leaving the phone on, email open, web browser up, saying ‘yes’ all the time, are all acts to receive anything/everything).

Do you see the difference? More importantly, do you feel the difference?

It is not enough to understand on an intellectual and logical level how mokso yame (or the state of non-meditation, non-awareness) affects each and every one of us.

Clearing the mind, going into the lovely real world all around you, meditating, being in a state of perpetual mokso – these conscious acts will help obliterate the immense stagnation in your life, your lack of ground-trembling, soul-shaking purpose and direction, the meaningless pursuit of a supposedly meaningful life.

This is when you become One (Western thought), or Not Two (Eastern thought).

Can we live our lives with mindfulness? Can we offer ourselves liberation of the body, to transcend our five senses, to break through our fickle emotions, to mentally detach from all worldly objects (vairagya, in Sanskrit), to relax and concentrate on our spiritual or higher development?

You have the choice.

If you’re even slightly curious, I invite you to begin today.

Mokso.