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RP Post 7 Buddha’s Art of Mindfulness: Recognizing Happiness //Right Mindfulness-//Barbara O’Brien (About.com) This non-fiction article discusses mindfulness as the seventh spoke in the Eightfold Path of Buddhism. It points out that Thich Nhat Hanh believes that Right Mindfulness is “at the heart of the Buddha’s teaching”, thus reinforcing its importance. It quickly defines mindfulness as “retention, recollection, or alertness”. It is a “whole-body-and-mind awareness of the present moment”. Not being mindful would be lost in daydreams, anticipation, indulgences, or worry. Mindfulness also means extracting your spiritual self to observe ad release habit of the mind, creating and maintaining the illusion of a separate self. Additionally, O’Brien points out that being mindful means “being attentive to everything as it is”, not seeing things with a subjective point of view. O’Brien asserts that Buddhism is a “discipline or process” rather than a belief system. Buddha taught people how to realize enlightenment themselves through direct experience. It is through mindfulness that we experience directly what is physically occurring. She touches upon the “three fundamental activities” of mindfulness. 1) Mindfulness reminds us of what we are supposed to be doing. 2) Mindfulness forces us to see things as they really are. 3) Mindfulness sees the true nature of phenomena. The author finishes off with discussing how to practice mindfulness, keeping in mind that it is a very difficult task to change mental habits. She recommends “daily chanting practice” to force oneself to be mindful. Another option is to just remind yourself to be mindful when you are doing tasks such as walking, cooking, etc.

O'Brien, Barbara. "Right Mindfulnes - Mindfulness as Buddhist Practice." //Right Mindfulness //. About.com Buddhism, n.d. Web. 17 June 2014.