To be mindful is to be non reactive in the present moment to what is happening while it is happening. Anything that happens in life doesn’t have any specific effect on a person, it’s effect is directly link to the conditioning that the person has in place; this is why one reacts to what happens the way they do. This reactivity is in place for everyone, it just manifest in different ways. The quality of how mindful one is of what’s happening while it’s happening determines one reactivity to it. Always before something occurs there’s the space of stillness that it arises from, so if one is already in an underlying state of anger, when the next thing arises it’s immediately labeled with anger. How can it not be? If one is in a mindfulness state of love or quietness and the same thing takes place, the reactivity to it will be much different. The key here is to pay attention to things that are skillful and conducive to your well being. This is not always easy to see because of the conditioning. Many of our reactions aren’t really skillful or conducive to our well being, but they’re done anyway because that’s what’s in place and until there’s awareness of this, these reactions will be repeated over and over.
You are always in the present moment whether you are mindful of it or not. When you’re not mindful, this is when what arises grabs hold of you. It’s one of the reasons the Buddha said “Nothing can harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts” because the unguarded thoughts control you as if you were a puppet on a string. This is more of a mindset than effort, it’s being mindful of the awareness aware of awareness. Stillness of each moment is where everything arises from so if your in harmony with this, what arises will have less of an effect on you. Life is life and it will be as it is, but you don’t have to be stuck in a state where you’re not mindful of what’s actually happening.
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