What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When you're mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience.

Commentary taken from this article

http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/mindfulness

Cultivating a nonjudgmental awareness of the present bestows a host of benefits. Mindfulness reduces stress, boosts immune functioning, reduces chronic pain, lowers blood pressure, and helps patients cope with cancer. By alleviating stress, spending a few minutes a day actively focusing on living in the moment reduces the risk of heart disease. Mindfulness may even slow the progression of HIV.

Mindful people are happier, more exuberant, more empathetic, and more secure. They have higher self-esteem and are more accepting of their own weaknesses. Anchoring awareness in the here and now reduces the kinds of impulsivity and reactivity that underlie depression, binge eating, and attention problems. Mindful people can hear negative feedback without feeling threatened. They fight less with their romantic partners and are more accommodating and less defensive. As a result, mindful couples have more satisfying relationships.

As Mark Twain said, "I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened." The hallmark of depression and anxiety is catastrophizing—worrying about something that hasn't happened yet and might not happen at all. Worry, by its very nature, means thinking about the future—and if you hoist yourself into awareness of the present moment, worrying melts away.

The flip side of worrying is ruminating, thinking bleakly about events in the past. And again, if you press your focus into the now, rumination ceases.

Savoring forces you into the present, so you can't worry about things that aren't there.

"Focus less on what's going on in your mind and more on what's going on in the room, less on your mental chatter and more on yourself as part of something." To be most myself, I needed to focus on things outside myself, like the music or the people around me.

.....there's a simple exercise you can do anywhere, anytime to induce mindfulness: Breathe.

As it turns out, the advice my friend got in the desert was spot-on. There's no better way to bring yourself into the present moment than to focus on your breathing. Because you're placing your awareness on what's happening right now, you propel yourself powerfully into the present moment.

For many, focusing on the breath is the preferred method of orienting themselves to the now—not because the breath has some magical property, but because it's always there with you.

Perhaps the most complete way of living in the moment is the state of total absorption psychologists call flow. Flow occurs when you're so engrossed in a task that you lose track of everything else around you. Flow embodies an apparent paradox: How can you be living in the moment if you're not even aware of the moment?

The depth of engagement absorbs you powerfully, keeping attention so focused that distractions cannot penetrate. You focus so intensely on what you're doing that you're unaware of the passage of time.

Hours can pass without you noticing.

It doesn't have to be this way. The solution is acceptance—letting the emotion be there. That is, being open to the way things are in each moment without trying to manipulate or change the experience—without judging it, clinging to it, or pushing it away. The present moment can only be as it is. Trying to change it only frustrates and exhausts you. Acceptance relieves you of this needless extra suffering.

Acceptance of an unpleasant state doesn't mean you don't have goals for the future. It just means you accept that certain things re beyond your control. The sadness, stress, pain, or anger is there whether you like it or not.

Better to embrace the feeling as it is.

You can become mindful at any moment just by paying attention to your immediate experience. You can do it right now. What's happening this instant? Think of yourself as an eternal witness, and just observe the moment. What do you see, hear, smell? It doesn't matter how it feels—pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad—you roll with it because it's what's present; you're not judging it. And if you notice your mind wandering, bring yourself back. Just say to yourself, "Now. Now. Now."

By acquiring the habit of noticing new things, says Langer, we recognize that the world is actually changing constantly. We really don't know how the espresso is going to taste or how the commute will be—or at least, we're not sure.

Mindfulness isn't a goal, because goals are about the future, but you do have to set the intention of paying attention to what's happening at the present moment. As you read the words printed on this page, as your eyes distinguish the black squiggles on white paper, as you feel gravity anchoring you to the planet, wake up. Become aware of being alive. And breathe. As you draw your next breath, focus on the rise of your abdomen on the in-breath, the stream of heat through your nostrils on the out-breath. If you're aware of that feeling right now, as you're reading this, you're living in the moment. Nothing happens next. It's not a destination. This is it. You're already there.