Mindfulness within itself can be cultivated,
through exercise of various contemplations and concentrations
calming habitual thinking and drifting
and focussing on particular aspects of being.

Yet the subtle borderline between mindfulness and meditation
is difficult to characterize or even understand
since "my" understanding is itself an aspect of ego,
while mindfulness and meditation are beyond ego.

I use "mindfulness" in much the sense that I use "practice"
as something one can do, with skillful means, as in Right Mindfulness.
Mindfulness in turn may help to provide a basis
for meditation, and realization.

Some negative characterizations of what is not meditation:
If you think you are meditating, you are wrong ...
Meditation is not counting, or watching, the breath ...
As long as there is a meditator, meditation cannot happen.

More positively, Suzuki suggests Zazen meditation
is something that dawns gradually, without necessary awareness,
instead, as when walking a fog, one eventually gets soaked,
with the results described in References On Meditation.

Most positive is Krishnamurthi's Meditation
perhaps taken from his experience.
His many books eschew gurus and religion, and instead urge meticulous attention,
saying truth is a pathless land one must find for oneself.

A more balanced but more difficult discussion
addresses Mindfulness, Concentration, and Meditation,
an extract from a 1973 dharma discussion
led by Kobun Chino Otogawa Sensei.


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Forward to An Introduction to Zazen Meditation
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