You probably think of mindfulness as a way to slow down — but the 4th-century Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu had a stranger, more radical claim: what we call 'the present moment' is actually a rapid succession of mental constructions, each one already gone before it's registered. Mindfulness, in his Abhidharma framework, isn't about catching the present — it's about recognizing how much of what you call 'noticing' is actually narrating after the fact. This maps onto something counterintuitive about working with AI tools or any fast-moving information environment: the inner voice saying 'I'm aware of what I'm doing' is often the last thing to know. Vasubandhu's prescription wasn't vigilance — it was loosening the grip of the narrating self just enough to interrupt automatic interpretation. Today, try catching not what you're doing, but the story your mind tells about it half a second too late.

What is the opposite of what you're currently doing when you believe you're being mindful — and is that opposite closer to actual noticing?

Drawing from Abhidharma Buddhism (Yogācāra School) — Vasubandhu