Quotes About Mindfulness

that the control of consciousness determines the quality of life

This simple truth—that the control of consciousness determines the quality of life—has been known for a long time; in fact, for as long as human records exist.

In normal life, we keep interrupting what we do with doubts and questions. "Why am I doing this? Should I perhaps be doing something else?" Repeatedly we question the necessity of our actions, and evaluate critically the reasons for carrying them out. But in flow there is no need to reflect, because the action carries us forward as if by magic.

Setting goals. Becoming immersed in the activity. Paying attention to what is happening. Learning to enjoy the immediate experience.

Control over consciousness cannot be institutionalized. As soon as it becomes part of a set of social rules and norms, it ceases to be effective in the way it was originally intended to be.

A person can make himself happy, or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening "outside," just by changing the contents of consciousness. We

Since what we experience is reality, as far as we are concerned, we can transform reality to the extent that we influence what happens in consciousness and thus free ourselves from the threats and blandishments of the outside world.

attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience.

The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow.

Yet we cannot reach happiness by consciously searching for it. "Ask yourself whether you are happy," said J. S. Mill, "and you cease to be so." It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.

The autotelic self transforms potentially entropic experience into flow.

In any case, an individual can experience only so much. Therefore, the information we allow into consciousness becomes extremely important; it is, in fact, what determines the content and the quality of life.

Information enters consciousness either because we intend to focus attention on it or as a result of attentional habits based on biological or social instructions.

Thoughts have to follow each other, or they get jumbled. While we are thinking about a problem we cannot truly experience either happiness or sadness. We cannot run, sing, and balance the checkbook simultaneously, because each one of these activities exhausts most of our capacity for attention.

the information we allow into consciousness becomes extremely important; it in, in fact, what determines the content and quality of life.

Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychologist, summarized it beautifully in the preface to his book Man's Search for Meaning: "Don't aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue…as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.

One of the most basic delusions of our time is that home life takes care of itself naturally, and that the best strategy for dealing with it is to relax and let it take its course.

The problem arises when people are so fixated on what they want to achieve that they cease to derive pleasure from the present. When that happens, they forfeit their chance of contentment.

Ask yourself whether you are happy," said J. S. Mill, "and you cease to be so." It

Nosotros siempre estamos luchando por vivir –solía decir Ralph Waldo Emerson–, pero nunca vivimos.» O como la pobre Frances aprendió en el cuento para niños: siempre habrá pan y jamón mañana, pero nunca habrá pan y jamón hoy.

Los mejores momentos suelen suceder cuando el cuerpo o la mente de una persona han llegado hasta su límite en un esfuerzo voluntario para conseguir algo difícil y que valiera la pena.

This fact brings us to the second condition that affects whether an optimal experience will occur or not: an individual's ability to restructure consciousness so as to make flow possible.

Involvement is greatly facilitated by the ability to concentrate. People who suffer from attentional disorders, who cannot keep their minds from wandering, always feel left out of the flow of life.

To improve life one must improve the quality of experience.