Quotes About Mindfulness

The very idea of higher states of consciousness is absurd. Comparing one state of consciousness to another and saying one is "higher" and the other is "mundane" is like eating a banana and complaining it's not a very good apple.

Rather than face what really is, we prefer to retreat and compare what we're living through with the way we think it oughta be. Suffering comes from the comparison between the two.

Thus a person can be a Buddha one minute and a jackass three minutes later. You don't just become Buddha at the moment of your first enlightenment experience and then stay Buddha forever.

Do as well as you possibly can. That's Buddhist morality.

In order to deal with the fear of annihilation you have to face annihilation again and again and again. It's not enough just to understand this intellectually. It's not enough just to read about this. You need to watch yourself being annihilated right now. If you can manage to sit quietly as you disappear from existence moment by moment, then you can see it's really nothing to be afraid of. You gotta meditate. Nobody likes to hear that. But it's true.

But don't get too hung up on the future. The future's out of your control. Enjoy what's happening right now. Do what is appropriate, what is right, in the present moment and let the future be the future.

Not-being-a-jerk means this and that are done, and now you gotta do the other thing. It's an ongoing process. Haku

You've won all creation. It's yours to do with it as you please- and you discover what pleases you most is doing the right thing for all creation in moment after moment.

If you want to believe in reincarnation, you have to believe that this life, what you're living through right now, is the afterlife. You're missing out on the afterlife you looked forward to in your last existence by worrying about your next life. This is what happens after you die.

Buddhas do not make intentional efforts for this to happen," he says; "it happens when they are activated by the moment of the present." You get it when you allow the universe to act through you without hindering what it wants with your own petty needs and wishes.

He had the saffron robes, the shaved head, and that mellow spiritual way of talking that let you know here was a guy who had truly achieved a rare state of inner with-it-ness.

Practicing zazen is like gradually (or maybe not so gradually) getting your sight back.

At best, past and future are no more than reference material for the eternal now. The only real facts are those at the present moment.

So I do fear death in the sense that I find the prospect of dying pretty scary. But I no longer fear that I will one day be annihilated and cease to exist.

Transcending emotions doesn't mean you have no feelings. You have them. But you recognize them for what they are and respond appropriately without letting them develop into what we call emotions, which are really just feelings that have been blown way out of proportion. A

Often statues depicting the Buddha's moment of enlightenment show him touching the ground. This symbolizes that his enlightened state included a firm grounding in this reality instead of serving as an escape from it.

In conclusion, polishing a stone really does transform it into a mirror. If stones couldn't become mirrors, regular people couldn't become Buddhas. If we hate stones for being hunks of dirt, you might as well hate people for being hunks of dirt. If people have minds, stones must also have minds. Who can notice that there are mirrors in which stones are reflected? Who can notice that there are mirrors in which mirrors are reflected?

When I teach zazen I often tell people that it's kind of like a yoga class where there is only one posture and you hold it for a very long time.

Even if the whole universe is nothing but a bunch of jerks doing all kinds of jerk-type things, there is still liberation in simply not being a jerk.

It's easy to become a Buddha. Don't be a jerk. Don't get hung up on life and death. Have compassion for everybody and everything. Show some respect to people who deserve it and kindness to people who need it. Don't get all caught up in hating stuff or in wanting stuff. Don't think too much. Don't worry. That's what we call being a Buddha. You don't need anything else.

When you're alive there's nothing but life. When you die there's nothing but death. So when life comes, be alive. When death comes, die. You don't need to dodge either one, and you don't need to long for either one.

When you study a speck of dust thoroughly and completely, you study the entire universe.

When you're so committed to the future, it's real easy to let your life right now turn to shit.

At every moment, no matter what we're doing, we need to understand that not being a jerk is how someone becomes enlightened. This state has always belonged to us. Cause and effect makes us act. By not being a jerk now, you create the cause of not being a jerk in the future. Our action is not predestined, nor does it spontaneously occur.