The Pali sati primarily meant remembering — early scholarly glosses give memory, recollection, calling-to-mind, being-aware-of. The present-moment, non-judgemental framing that MBSR inherited traces largely to Nyanaponika Thera's 1954 formulation, itself a radical simplification. Researchers also argue the secular version stripped the ethical dimension: Buddhist practice was embedded in a moral path, while Western implementations adopted a functionalist view of cognitive processes.