So what actually does mindfulness achieve?

Here is a trivial example that was quite illuminating. I was cycling down a long straight country lane in the dark. At the end of the lane it joined a lit dual carriage way but the trees over hung the road in such a way that the light of the road ahead appeared as just a distant door or light at the end of a tunnel far ahead. As I cycled the road I was actually questioning the rate at which the circle of lightwas growing, was it reciprocal? To my surpise I found I never actually ended up cycling through the tunnel of overhanging trees into light, but instead the trees parted and there never was a tunnel.

Trivial as this is, it really demonstrated the difference between our expectation of the future and the unpredicatble complexity of what actually happens. What actually happens is an experience that occurs in a more fundamental way than our thoughts which are only ever superimposed. When people have an emotional relationship with the future, perhaps they are anxious about something that will happen, they are clearly not having a response to the actual event because it hasn't happened. Instead they have a relationship with the thoughts. Our emotions and derivative mental processes are always derived from what we think about a situation. About whether we see something as fearful or pleasant, etc.

Now meditation is the practice of placing oneself in the "present moment" for long periods of time. In Vipassana we spend time noting thoughts and when we are thinking to encourage ourselves to see this difference between the arising of a temporary impermanent thought that enters our mind like a film voice over, and the content of that thought which can be literally anything. The arising of a thought is real. what it contains is invented however. Eventually we can see the "present moment" at will, and ultimatly we never lose touch with what is really going on. Our thoughts don't go away, but we never make the mistake again of confusing what we think with what is there. We can always think of something else, or think positive rather than negative thoughts, and in so doing change our perception of the world. But we can never change what is actually happening.