This is a good point.
Perhaps it’s not that one makes it a priority in the sense that one would before mindfulness had become so naturally strong. Before mindfulness becomes established (effortless/strong) - which is most of the time for most of us - there’s a fair amount of what feels like “effortful” activity going on.
Sometimes the language used in the latter stages of the path can sound like one is ‘doing’ things, when actually, things are just happening with little or no effort. The descriptions of what happens within the Jhanas are good examples of this. (And people often talk about ‘being mindful’ in a way which indicates that they think it’s really ‘doing mindfulness’.)
Perhaps ‘priority’ works when we realise that it’s meant to be an attitude that (like the sati) is also already well established - and so it’s an effortless non-doing. So it’s not that you are actively trying to make mindfulness a priority. Rather, you can’t help making it a priority. What do you reckon, Bhante?
Bhante @sujato and Ajahn @Brahmali, if you look at ‘priority’ in this way, could it work for
ajjhattaṁ parimukhaṁ sūpaṭṭhitāya?
So then something like: Having well established (mindfulness) (as a) priority internally. Perhaps parimukhaṁ is meant to emphasise the “having” in ‘having well established’?