• དྲན་པ།
  • རྗེས་སུ་དྲན་པ།
  • dran pa
  • rjes su dran pa
  • smṛti
  • anusmṛti
  • smṛta
  • Term
Publications: 24

This is the faculty that enables the mind to maintain its attention on a referent object, counteracting the arising of forgetfulness, which is a great obstacle to meditative stability. The root smṛ may mean “to recollect” but also simply “to think of.” Broadly speaking, smṛti, commonly translated as “mindfulness,” means to bring something to mind, not necessarily something experienced in a distant past but also something that is experienced in the present, such as the position of one’s body or the breath.

Together with alertness (samprajāna, shes bzhin), it is one of the two indispensable factors for the development of calm abiding (śamatha, zhi gnas).