Page 149 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

Perfect Mindfulness

As we saw in the last lecture, the Higher Evolution is
distinguished from the Lower Evolution by the fact that it takes

place in and through awareness. It follows, therefore, that
progress in the Higher Evolution is at the same time a progress

in awareness, and since progress, as we know, is measured by
the achievement of successively higher states, this in turn
introduces the whole idea of levels of awareness. It is these

levels of awareness which are the subject matter of the seventh
stage of the Noble Eightfold Path, the stage of Right

Mindfulness, and it is these levels that we have to investigate if
we want to know what the term 'Right Mindfulness', or 'Perfect
Awareness', really conveys.

In Sanskrit this stage is called samyak-smrti, the Pali equivalent

of which is samma-sati. Smrti, or sati, is usually translated as
'mindfulness', or sometimes as 'awareness', but the literal
meaning of both words is simply memory or recollection. The

word has, as one can well imagine, several shades of meaning,
and these are not always easy to distentangle. I am therefore

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