Quotes About Intention

Waking up this morning I smile.        Twenty-four brand-new hours are before me.        I vow to live them deeply and learn to look at everything around me with the eyes of compassion.

When the Buddha was asked, "Sir, what do you and your monks practice?" he replied, "We sit, we walk, and we eat." The questioner continued, "But sir, everyone sits, walks, and eats," and the Buddha told him, "When we sit, we know we are sitting. When we walk, we know we are walking. When we eat, we know we are eating.

When people say, "Don't just sit there, do something," they're urging you to act. But if the quality of your being is poor—if you don't have enough peace, understanding, and equanimity, if you still have a lot of anger and worries—then your actions will also be poor.

If we practice stopping while attending to e-mails, surfing the Web, attending meetings or appointments, folding the laundry, washing the dishes, or taking a shower, we are living deeply.

The best way of preparing for the future is to take good care of the present, because we know that if the present is made up of the past, then the future will be made up of the present. All we need to be responsible for is the present moment. Only the present is within our reach. To care for the present is to care for the future.

Whoever moves from carelessness to vigilance, whoever overcomes his unwholesome deeds with wholesome actions, lights up the world, like the moon that merges from a cloud.

When we say something that nourishes us and uplifts the people around us, we are feeding love and compassion. When we speak and act in a way that causes tension and anger, we are nourishing violence and suffering.

Unwholesome action, hurting self, comes easily. Wholesome action, healing self, takes effort.

Just as an arrow smith shapes an arrow to perfection with fire, so does the wise man shape his mind.

Our message is first and foremost a nonverbal one; our message is our own action.

The ground for action is to be. Walk, sit, and eat in such a way that peace is possible in the here and the now.

If you truly practice mindfulness, it will never cause harm. If the practice doesn't bring about more compassion, then it's not right mindfulness.

I become an agent of change," Yusuf continued, "only to the degree that I begin to live to help things go right rather than simply to correct things that are going wrong.

From the point of view of a spiritual life, it is not what you do that matters most, but the way in which it is done and the consciousness you put into it. Remember always the Divine and all you do will be an expression of the Divine Presence. When all your actions are consecrated to the Divine, there will be no longer activities that are superior and activities that are inferior; all will have an equal importance — the value given them by the consecration.

At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it.

Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.

Each thought, each action in the sunlight of awareness becomes sacred.

The problem is whether we are determined to go in the direction of compassion or not. If we are, then can we reduce the suffering to a minimum? If I lose my direction, I have to look for the North Star, and I go to the north. That does not mean I expect to arrive at the North Star. I just want to go in that direction.

Mindfulness must be engaged. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. Otherwise, what's the use of seeing?

When you are washing the dishes, washing the dishes must be the most important thing in your life. Just as when you are drinking tea, drinking tea must be the most important thing in your life. Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the whole world revolves—slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this actual moment is life.

The present moment is the substance with which the future is made. Therefore, the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. What else can you do?

Words and thoughts concerning compassionate action that are not put into practice are like beautiful flowers that are colorful but have no fragrance.

There are two ways to wash the dishes. The first is to wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes and the second is to wash the dishes to wash the dishes.

We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living.