‘Mindfulness, or awareness, does not mean that you should think and be
conscious “I am doing this” or “I am doing that.” No. Just the contrary. The
moment you think “I am doing this,” you become self-conscious, and then you
do not live in the action, but you live in the idea “I am,” and consequently
your work too is spoiled.
You should forget yourself completely, and lose yourself in what you do. The
moment a speaker becomes self-conscious and thinks “I am addressing an
audience,” his speech is distributed and his trend of thought broken. But
when he forgets himself in his speech, in his subject, then he is at his
best, he speaks well and explains things clearly.
All great work–artistic, poetic, intellectual or spiritual–is produced at
those moments when its creators are lost completely in their actions, when
they forget themselves altogether, and are free from self-consciousness.
— Walpola Rahula, in What the Buddha Taught
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book