Quotes About Mindfulness

Actually we do not have any particular name for our practice; when we practice zazen we just practice it, and whether we find joy in our practice or not, we just do it.

It is when your practice is rather greedy that you become discouraged with it.

You should not have any remains after you do something. But this does not mean to forget all about it. In order not to leave any traces, when you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. You should not be a smoky fire. You should burn yourself completely. If you do not burn yourself completely, a trace of yourself will be left in what you do.

When we realize the everlasting truth of "everything changes" and find our composure in it, we find ourselves in Nirvana.

To take this posture itself is the purpose of our practice.

Actually the best way to relieve your mental suffering is to sit in zazen, even in such a confused state of mind and bad posture.

But if you make your best effort just to continue your practice with your whole mind and body, without gaining ideas, then whatever you do will be true practice.

While you are continuing this practice, week after week, year after year, your experience will become deeper and deeper, and your experience will cover everything you do in your everyday life.

Our effort in our practice should be directed from achievement to non-achievement.

If you want to discover the true meaning of Zen in your everyday life, you have to understand the meaning of keeping your mind on your breathing and your body in the right posture in zazen.

So even though you have some difficulty in your practice, even though you have some waves while you are sitting, those waves themselves will help you.

But the way of practice is just to be concentrated on your breathing with the right posture and with great, pure effort.

For the beginner, practice without effort is not true practice.

When we hear the sound of the pine trees on a windy day, perhaps the wind is just blowing, and the pine tree is just standing in the wind. That is all they are doing. But the people who listen to the wind in the tree will write a poem, or will feel something unusual. That is, I think, the way everything is.

You see something or hear a sound, and there you have everything just as it is. [...] Whatever you do, it should be an expression of the same deep activity. We should appreciate what we are doing. There is no preparation for something else.

The trying to do something is in itself enlightenment. When we are in difficulty or distress, there we have enlightenment.

To cook is not just to prepare food for someone or for yourself; it is to express your sincerity. So when you cook you should express yourself in your activity in the kitchen. You should allow yourself plenty of time; you should work on it with nothing in your mind, and without expecting anything. You should just cook!

Those who are attached only to the result of their effort will not have any chance to appreciate it, because the result will never come.

The important thing in our understanding is to have a smooth, free-thinking way of observation. We have to think and to observe things without stagnation. We should accept things as they are without difficulty. Ou mind should be soft and open enough to understand things as they are. When our thinking is soft, it is called imperturbable thinking. This kind of thinking is always stable. It is called mindfulness.

The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes.

You must force yourself to be patient, but in constancy there is no particular effort involved--there is only the unchanging ability to accept things as they are. For people who have no idea of emptiness, this ability may appear to be patience, but patience can actually be non-acceptance.

Our way to practice is one step at a time, on breath at a time.

When we do not expect anything we can be ourselves.

To have a headache will be all right, because you are healthy enough to have a headache.