Quotes About Mindfulness

When you act out of present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love — even the most simple action.

Whenever you deeply accept this moment as it is — no matter what form it takes — you are still, you are at peace.

You might say, "What a dreadful day," without realizing that the cold, the wind, and the rain or whatever condition you react to are not dreadful. They are as they are. What is dreadful is your reaction, your inner resistance to it, and the emotion that is created by that resistance. In Shakespeare's words, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are caused by too much future, and not enough presence.

If you are in the habit of creating suffering for yourself, you are probably creating suffering for others too. These unconscious mind patterns tend to come to an end simply by making them conscious, by becoming aware of them as they happen. You cannot be conscious and create suffering for yourself.

Waiting is a state of mind. Basically, it means that you want the future; you don't want the present.

Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you.

To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment.

Prejudice of any kind implies that you are identified with the thinking mind. It means you don't see the other human being anymore, but only your own concept of that human being. To reduce the aliveness of another human being to a concept is already another form of violence.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.

psychological time, which is the mind's deep-seated habit of seeking the fullness of life in the future where it cannot be found and ignoring the only point of access to it: the present moment.

The more you are focused on time — past and future — the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.

Become at ease with the state of "not knowing." This takes you beyond mind because the mind is always trying to conclude and interpret. It is afraid of not knowing. So, when you can be at ease with not knowing, you have already gone beyond the mind. A deeper knowing that is non-conceptual then arises out of that state.

Seek out a tree, and let it teach you stillness.

I don't have enough yet," by which the ego really means, "I am not enough yet.

When you are aware that you are thinking, that awareness is not part of thinking. It is a different dimension of consciousness. It is that awareness that says I AM

Your life's journey is no longer an adventure, just an obsessive need to arrive, to attain, to "make it." You no longer see or smell the flowers by the wayside either, nor are you aware of the beauty and the miracle of life that unfolds all around you when you are present in the Now.

When you no longer believe everything you think, you step out of thought and see clearly that the thinker is not who you are.

THE JOY OF BEING To alert you that you have allowed yourself to be taken over by psychological time, you can use a simple criterion. ASK YOURSELF: Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? If there isn't, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle.

Do I want the present moment to be my friend or my enemy? ....Become friendly toward it, welcome it no matter in what disguise it comes, and soon you will see the results. Life becomes friendly toward you; people become helpful, circumstances cooperative....But that one decision you have to make again and again and again - until it becomes natural to live in such a way.

Usually, the future is a replica of the past. Superficial changes are possible, but real transformation is rare and depends upon whether you can become present enough to dissolve the past by accessing the power of the Now.

Nobody's life is entirely free of pain and sorrow. Isn't it a question of learning to live with them rather than trying to avoid them?

Naming and labeling are habitual, but that habit can be broken. Start practicing "not naming"with small things. If you miss the plane, drop and break a cup, or slip and fall in the mud, can you refrain from naming the experience as bad or painful? Can you immediately accept the "isness"of that moment?

How spiritual you are has nothing to do with what you believe, but everything to do with your state of consciousness.