The contemporary understanding of mindfulness is reflected in Jon Kabat-Zinn’s definition:
Paying attention, in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, nonjudgmentally
Being non-judgmental is important but it is only one step in a broader practice that involves several key components. I believe that using the word non-judgmental as a key part of the definition misdirects and confuses people along the path. The emphasis needs to be redirected. Mindfulness is not a non-reactive and non-judgmental position but involves an open and receptive presence with discernment into the true nature of self in order to be present in a wholesome way.
The word non-judgmental refers to a state. This is the way I will be with experience. I believe mindfulness is a MULTIFACETED PROCESS of how one is in relationship with what is known and responds to it. The overarching map of mindfulness involves the three components of awareness, relationship and action.
I would like to offer my definition for mindfulness.
META-AWARENESS
ENGAGED EMBODIMENT
DISCERNMENT OF SELF-REFERENTIAL JUDGMENT
NON-ATTACHMENT WITH SELF
SKILLFUL ACTION
*AWARENESS
The original explanation of sati was to bring a sustained awareness to what is present in order to examine and learn from it. In holding what is present this allows for the possibility of discernment to understand how the present moment experience and self has come into existence.
One constantly hears that modern mindfulness is to:
Know what one’s experience is in the present moment
To know means to be aware of one’s experience. This definitely is part of the definition of mindfulness. There is no question that awareness is an essential first step to mindfulness. If we don’t know what is happening how can we know what to do with it. The problem is that too often we are lost in thought and don’t know what we know. There needs to be meta-awareness or knowing what one knows.
Furthermore, the understanding of awareness in mindfulness is that there is a sustained knowing of what is known. As Andrew Olendzki explains in Tricycle Magazine Fall 2014 The Mindfulness Wedge:
“The ability to hold awareness upon a chosen object with some stability or to return it to a primary object once it has strayed, and to do so without agitation, self-blame, or frustration, is a useful skill to learn.“
Bear in mind if you are aware of your sadness, guilt, shame and anger you may actually be MORE sad, guilty, shameful and angry. You are suddenly aware of what you are feeling while previously you were lost in the emotion and did not know what you knew. The problem is that modern definitions that limit mindfulness to enhanced attention does not do justice to what it really is. It is not just the: “Joy of Being in the Now.” What are we aware of? The initial sensation, the meaning making and one’s relationship with what is present or the action that follows?
*RELATIONSHIP
Mindfulness is not just about awareness! It is about developing a wholesome relationship with the present moment.
The initial aspect is RECEPTIVITY. Non-judgment has an implied quality of containment and separation. Mindfulness is an invitation, opening, allowing and intimately experiencing what is present without resistance. One begins to befriend the mind! This is not about inhibiting one’s normal reaction of judgment. If judgment occurs then it is just part of what one is intimately experiencing. This is achieved by directly feeling what is known through the body. Mindfulness is not just about the thinking mind but also importantly involves processing one’s experience through the body to feel one’s way through suffering.
Mindfulness is not only about being in the now
But being ok with whatever is now
Mindfulness is also about DISCERNMENT, not non-judgment. Judgment is a critical evaluation of what is present influenced by personal bias and the need to be better than someone else. Discernment is a clear seeing into how our sense of self and present moment reality comes into existence through self-referential judgment. It is an insight practice that brings clarity to the moment, not a judging process.This allows one to be with what is as it is not what we make, want, believe or need it to be. This insight allows for non-identification with the sense of self that is critical for not suffering.
Can you be one with it
Not the one that is it
*ACTION
It is through non-identification with the sense of self one is able to be open to the interconnectedness and interdependence with other allowing one to act skillfully. There is no reified sense of self to defend. Mindfulness is always associated with wholesome action.
One can see that being non-judgmental is in fact not an important component of mindfulness. It is not about what one does not do, not judge, but what one does do, awareness, embodiment, discernment and skillful action.
by Dr. Phil Blustein
March 7, 2025