Description of mindfulness

Today I happened to pick up my copy of The Feeling Buddha by David Brazier - the same David Brazier who also wrote Zen Therapy that I've recommended to you before. Here's a thoughtful description of the benefits of mindfulness:

Mindfulness, then, does not just mean awareness. It is not just a matter of becoming scientifically objective. Mindfulness means to recollect our true purpose and deeply and fully live all that entails. Remembering that there is a higher, nobler life available than that of subjection to base desires and ego maintenance, frees us to be happy. We rise above the inevitable afflictions that flow into our lives. If we have something more important to base ourselves upon, then the hurts and assaults of circumstance do not have such effect. It is not so difficult to know what we should be doing and to do it. For a long time we have been seeking an impossible immunity to the ups and downs of life, and have found ourselves repeatedly capsized as a result. Our efforts have been misdirected. There is, however, another better way that does work.
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Mindfulness, therefore, is to be happy... We have the option to be happy if we choose. The cost may be that we have to give up everything that we have used to defend ourselves with in the past, but this is a small price.

My own experience is that it is impossible to give up our habitual defenses without a meditative practice. Only through insight meditation will we see our unnecessary defenses for what they are and train ourselves to let them go. Never disparage meditation! It is the foundation for everything you want to do, for all the changes you want to make.