by Osho: What Is Mindfulness?

When the mind disappears, thoughts disappear. It is not that you become mindless; on the contrary you become mindful. Buddha uses these words “right mindfulness” millions of times. When the mind disappears and thoughts disappear you become mindful. You do things – you move, you work, you eat, you sleep, but you are always mindful. The mind is not there, but mindfulness is there. What is mindfulness? It is awareness. It is perfect awareness.

Right-mindfulness Is Not a Goal

Osho,
Please explain “right-mindfulness.” If not a goal or something to practice, what is it?

“‘Right-mindfulness’ is a strange word. First: there is no mind in it – hence it is called ‘right-mindfulness.’ Secondly, there is nothing right and wrong in it – hence it is called right-mindfulness. This is a Buddhist way of saying things.

“It can’t be a goal, because when there is a goal you are always in the wrong. Why are you in the wrong when there is a goal? because when there is a goal there is desire, when there is desire you are unhappy, discontented. When there is desire, there is anxiety – whether you will be able to make it or not? Will it be possible or not?

“When there is desire there is future, and with the future anxiety enters into your being. With the desire you have lost contact with the present.

“Right-mindfulness is not a goal, cannot be a goal – because when all desires disappear and all goals disappear and you are herenow…that is the moment of right-mindfulness.

“Why is it called ‘right’? It is called right because it knows no division between right and wrong. Nothing is wrong! and nothing is right. All judgments have disappeared. One is utterly innocent.

“When you see a roseflower, does the idea arise in you: ‘It is right, it is wrong’? When you see the morning star disappearing, does the idea arise in you: ‘Is it right or is it wrong?’ When you start looking at life with no judgment, with no prejudice, then you are in the state of right-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.”