Quotes from Larry Rosenberg

It's nothing personal, the universe might say.

Life is a precious gift, it's all we have, and it is always happening in the present.

Mindfulness is often likened to a mirror; it simply reflects what is there. It is not a process of thinking; it is preconceptual, before thought. One can be mindful of thought. There is all the difference in the world between thinking and knowing that thought is happening, as thoughts chase each other through the mind and the process is mirrored back to us.

Mindfulness is unbiased. It is not for or against anything, just like a mirror, which does not judge what it reflects. Mindfulness has no goal other than the seeing itself. It doesn't try to add to what's happening or subtract from it, to improve it in any way.

Basically, though, there is just one teaching—the Four Noble Truths—and all of the Buddha's other teachings fit within that framework: there is suffering; there is a cause for that suffering; there is an end to it, and there is a means to that end.

They say you don't need to develop jhanic states, just enough concentration to be with any object for as long as it exists, so you can see that it arises and passes away.

It is good to sit a little longer than you want to so you see the part of your mind that resists practice

Sometimes the breath is very fine, like silk or satin; it enters and exits freely. How wonderful just to be breathing! At other times it is coarse, more like burlap; it fights its way in and out. Sometimes the breath is so deep and smooth that it affects the whole body, relaxing us profoundly. Other times it's so short and pinched, hurried and agitated, that our minds and bodies are like that, restless and uncomfortable.

direct seeing of our inner and outer life, and on learning from what we see, has invigorated and inspired my life.

We're not looking at the breath in order to get to enlightenment.

Enlightenment, after all, is just one more bone. It's an idea we have.

I am actually deeply grateful to that Korean mosquito.

You just give total attention to the movement of energy known as fear, total mindfulness, not separating yourself from it at all, also not identifying with it.

Actually, however, all the wisdom we need is inside us, where this epic drama is taking place.

Especially in the modern world, where everybody is so impressed with variety and complexity, so desperate to be entertained, it is a relief to settle into this simple repetitive act.

It's not a problem unless you make it into one.

You sit and are aware of the breathing, but not in a pinpoint way. Your attention is not at the nostrils or chest or abdomen but, in a much more open way, on the whole body, a panoramic view of the sitting breathing body.

The biggest noisemaker is your ego, your tendency to attach to things as me or mine.

I already know that," you might say. Well, you do. And you also don't.

but you're beginning to get a taste of what it is like to be free and clear, wholehearted and effortless.

Silence as I am using the term is a dimension of existence. You can live in it. It is what spiritual life is all about. It is quite literally unfathomable, limitless space permeated by a vast stillness. In a way it is inside us—that is where we seek it—though at some point in our exploration words like inside and outside, all the spatial terms I've been forced to use, don't mean a thing.

I have to sound critical just to let people know there is more to life than they have realized.

They can't believe they're just supposed to sit there and watch the breath.

But seeing that the mind has wandered is practice.