Quotes About Mindfulness

We don't need the Good Life. The Pretty Good Life would be just fine.

Or rather, a dialogue, between myself and my future self, in which my future self is telling my present self what I have already finished thinking but have not yet realized I thought. This is consistent with Libet (1983).

The time I spent thinking about how I was better than somebody else or worrying about somebody else's attitude was time I could put to better use.

As I began to love myself I recognized that my mind can disturb me and it can make me sick. But as I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally. Today I call this connection "WISDOM OF THE HEART

Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.

We think too much and feel too little.

If you made it to the end of the day, then it was a good day. You didn't think any further ahead than that. The future was a mystery.

But you can't focus on things that matter if all you've been is asleep for forty years. Funny how sleep rhymes with sheep. You know.

What I think is important is to appreciate every bit of happiness that comes your way, not to wait to celebrate the big happiness when it comes, but the more frequent little happinesses.

If we cease looking, searching, what are we left with? We're left with what's been right there at the center all the time. Underneath all that searching there is distress. There is unease. The minute that we realize that, we see that the point isn't the search, but rather the distress and unease which motivate the search. That's the magic moment—when we realize that searching outside of ourselves is not the way.

It's of no use to look back and say, "I should have been different." At any given moment, we are the way we are, and we see what we're able to see. For that reason, guilt is always inappropriate.

Joy is being willing for things to be as they are.

There is a foundation for our lives, a place in which our life rests. That place is nothing but the present moment, as we see, hear, experience what is. If we do not return to that place, we live our lives out of our heads. We blame others; we complain; we feel sorry for ourselves. All of these symptoms show that we're stuck in our thoughts. We're out of touch with the open space that is always right here.

My dog doesn't worry about the meaning of life.

If we can accept things just the way they are, we're not going to be greatly upset by anything.

The best way to let go is to notice the thoughts as they come up and to acknowledge them.

Awareness is our true self; it's what we are. So we don't have to try to develop awareness; we simply need to notice how we block awareness, with our thoughts, our fantasies, our opinions, and our judgments. We're either in awareness, which is our natural state, or we're doing something else. The mark of mature students is that most of the time, they don't do something else. They're just here, living their life. Nothing special.

When we're lost in thought, when we're dreaming, what have we lost? We've lost reality. Our life has escaped us.

If from morning to night we just took care of one thing after another, thoroughly and completely and without accompanying thoughts, such as "I'm a good person for doing this" or "Isn't it wonderful, that I can take care of everything?," then that would be sufficient.

If we have the patience to wait until the mud (our mind) settles and the water is clear, if we remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself, the right words will arise, without our thinking about them.

Daily sitting is our bread and butter, the basic stuff of dharma. Without it we tend to be confused.

We enter a discipline like Zen practice so that we can learn to live in a sane way.

Joy is being the circumstances of our life just as they are.

The only sure path is to live consciously, moment to moment, as you let go of the outcome.