Mindfulness is the kind of attention that can be developed by training and practice.
This non-judgmental awareness, consistently directed to what is happening here and now.

We all have a certain ability to direct our attention. Without such an ability you would not read these lines. But this ability is limited, and unskilled. Distractions and concentration difficulties are unattended attention. Our consciousness is often "hijacked" by something we have seen or heard, or thought. Without realizing it, we suddenly discover that we spent an entire evening in front of Facebook or television instead of doing what we planned.

Ad-Aware has other features besides concentration. It directs attention to certain things: especially what is happening here and now. We spend hours and days dealing with what has been or thoughts and worries about what will happen. On the other hand, what is happening right now is slipping away from us. why is it important? Because all the beautiful and exciting moments of life take place in the present tense. This is the only time to experience them. On the other hand, all the worries and pain are born in the present, and if we do not notice they may reach large dimensions and we will not even know where they came from. This moment, here and now, is the only moment in which there can be any change in our life.

The third aspect of attentive awareness is lack of judgment. Judgment is, of course, an important cognitive tool for the thinking person, but excess judgment, especially self-judgment, can cause internal and external conflicts between reality and our expectations of it. Instead of cultivating judgment and criticism, with attentive awareness, we foster inclusiveness and nonjudgmental observation that will enable us to see both good and evil more clearly.

These three components - deliberate activation of attention, present moment, and judgmental - transform the practice of attentive awareness into a powerful tool. Training is obviously not an end in itself. The goal is to see things more clearly, in a calm spirit, and to learn to make necessary changes in an efficient and beneficial way for ourselves and others.