Quotes About Mindfulness

We are not interested in developing eternity or immortality, or in preventing being sick or being born. We are interested in doing something while we are alive, while we are breathing, while we can see the beauty of the snow, the flowers, the blue sky, the sunshine, and the many other things we can imagine.

Many people have discovered that mindfulness offers them a down-to-earth yet immediate way to connect with themselves. It is simple acceptance, described here as making friends with yourself. It is, as well, a means to unlock creativity and compassion. Meditation is a powerful technique for developing mindfulness, which can help us discover a way of being that is authentic, relaxed, and gentle. Meditation

The purpose of the practice of meditation is to experience the gaps. We do nothing, essentially, and see what that brings—either discomfort or relief, whatever the case may be. The starting point for the practice of meditation is the mindfulness discipline of developing peace. The peace we experience in meditation is simply this state of doing nothing, which is experiencing the absence of speed.

So, when you sit in the saddle on your fickle horse, you feel completely exposed and gentle. If you feel aggressive, you don't have a good seat. In fact, you are probably not even riding the horse.

When you are meditating, whether you are alone or sharing the space with others, you always hold your seat properly. Then you feel that you are doing the practice with dignity. When you sit down to meditate, you are making a connection with the earth, whether you sit in a chair or on a cushion. It's almost as if a message is coming from the earth, encouraging you to hold your seat properly.

In meditation practice, we neither hold the mind very tightly nor let it go completely. If we try to control the mind, then its energy will rebound back on us. If we let the mind go completely, then it will become very wild and chaotic. So we let the mind go, but at the same time there is some discipline involved.

When you relate to thoughts obsessively, you are actually feeding them because thoughts need your attention to survive. Once you begin to pay attention to them and categorize them, then they become very powerful. You are feeding them energy because you are not seeing them as simple phenomena. If one tries to quiet them down, that is another way of feeding them.

Becoming "awake" involves seeing our confusion more clearly.

Delight in itself is the approach of sanity. Delight is to open our eyes to the reality of the situation rather than siding with this or that point of view.

It's easier to put on a pair of shoes than to wrap the earth in leather.

When we find ourselves in a situation in which our buttons are being pushed, we can choose to repress or act out, or we can choose to practice. If we can start to do the exchange, breathing in with the intention of keeping our hearts open to the embarrassment or fear or anger that we feel, then to our surprise we find that we are also open to what the other person is feeling. Open heart is open heart.

It's hard to be less than happy when you can be happy with less.

It was said that a person was only as big as the smallest thing that annoyed them...

This life is a deafening roar but listen. You could hear a pin drop.

How lovely was each breath. How peculiar that one had never noticed.

He tries to force the anger down, but it's like an anvil on his chest. He closes his eyes, like Sammy taught him, and forces the anvil up; he softens.

Prayer changes the person who prays.

Do not dwell on the past, do not think about the future. Live in the present as if it was your last.

and presence

I work hard, but I work from a position of rest.

I talk to myself, especially in the car.

Would you try an experiment with me today? On a single sheet of paper, will you write words of thanks? As you become aware of your blessings today, write them down. Some blessings are large and some might seem small. God has given you 86,400 seconds today—use as many of them as possible to say thanks.

If you don't know where you're going, stop racing to get there. -- from Just Desert by M. T. Anderson

He ignored the disturbing ripple and tried to focus on the gateway.