Attention and Mindfulness

The present article briefly examines attention and mindfulness in the way the functions of these two mental qualities emerge in selected Pāli discourse passages and their extant parallels. The survey shows that, alongside a considerable degree of affinity between the two, attention and mindfulness also differ in several respects. Early Buddhist mental analysis considers attention a constantly present mental quality, whereas mindfulness is intermittent, in the sense of needing to be aroused and, at least when cultivated by itself, stands for a more receptive quality of the mind. Descriptions of the deployment of attention cover a range of different functions, ranging from the more conceptual tasks of storing teachings in memory and later recalling them to the supportive role of facilitating experiences of deep concentration and liberating insight. In meditation-related contexts, attention is explicitly mentioned as a foundation for the cultivation of mindfulness. With later Buddhist traditions, understandings of attention and mindfulness evolved, leading to an increased similarity in function between these two qualities.