Quotes About Mindfulness

Awareness of motivation plays a central role in the path of liberation.

Mind is the forerunner of all things. Speak or act with peaceful mind, happiness follows like a shadow that never leaves.4

Do no harm, act for the good, purify the mind." The flowering of all the great traditions of Buddhism derives from the teachings in this one simple verse.

The entire spiritual journey rests on the morality of nonharming. This is the expression of the love and care we feel both for others and for ourselves.

Some people think the longer you can sit, the wiser you must be. I have seen chickens sitting on their nests for days on end. Wisdom comes from being mindful at all times."3

Mindfulness practice begins to open up everything. We open our mind to memories, to emotions, to different sensations in the body. In meditation this happens in a very organic way, because we are not searching, we are not pulling or probing, we are just sitting and watching.

When the momentum of mindfulness is well developed, it works like a boomerang; even if we want to distract ourselves, the mind naturally rebounds to a state of awareness.

We see that each experience is simply just what it is, and that the "I" and "mine" are extra.

At first, as we undertake the cultivation of compassion, we may feel genuine empathy with others in pain or difficulty. This happens when we take the time to stop and feel what is really going on—even for just a few moments before rushing on with our lives.

Munindra-ji, one of my first Dharma teachers, used to say that in spiritual practice, time is not a factor. Practice cannot be measured in time, so let go of the whole notion of when and how long. The practice is a process unfolding, and it unfolds in its own time. It is like the flowers that grow in the spring. Do you pull them up to make them grow faster?

Through mindful attention in the moment, we see the impermanent nature of phenomena and understand the happiness of nongrasping.

the five aggregates" (khandhas, in Pali) of experience: material elements, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness.

There are many things in our mind and body, tensions of all kinds, unpleasantness, things we don't like to look at, things about which we're untruthful with ourselves. Truthfulness in speech becomes the basis for being honest in our own minds, and that is when things begin to open up.

The last in this list of unskillful speech actions is frivolous and useless talk. How often do we say things that really are of no use at all?

In short, the five aggregates of clinging are dukkha.

Whenever we are mindful of a physical sensation — hardness, softness, pressure, vibration, heat, cold, lightness, heaviness — we are contemplating the first aggregate.

BALANCING THE SPIRITUAL FACULTIES Mindfulness also works to balance what the Buddha called "the five spiritual faculties": faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom.

For a long time in my meditation practice I felt embarrassed and ashamed when I saw unwholesome states in my own mind, states like pride or jealousy, ill will or selfishness; and instead of examining them and working free of them, I would judge myself and dig the hole I was in even deeper.

WE MOVE FROM THE FIRST OF THE TEACHINGS OF ALL THE Buddhas, doing no harm, to the second: acting for the good. This principle of One Dharma, common to all traditions, highlights the positive actions we undertake both for our own welfare and for the benefit and well-being of others.

Defects of Samsara The fourth reflection that turns our minds toward the Dharma is the reflection on the defects of samsara. Samsara is a Pali and Sanskrit word that means "perpetual wandering," or the wandering through the endless cycles of existence.

The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, expressed it well: Live, you say, in the present; Live only in the present. But I don't want the present. I want reality; . . . I only want reality, things without time present.3 And the Buddha

Mindfulness in this aspect is the quality of bare attention, of noninterfering awareness, which we're familiar with from our enjoyment of music. When we're listening to the music, our minds are open and attentive, not attempting to control what comes next, not reflecting on the notes just past. There is a great power when we learn how to listen; it is this quality of receptivity that allows intuitive wisdom to arise. An

When we see something pleasant, we want to hold on, not understanding the impermanence of it all. As soon as we become mindful, paying attention to what's happening, seeing how everything is arising and passing away, the grasping and greed decreases. There's nothing to hold onto. It's all bubbles. And the experience of impermanence, the dissolving of the solidity of everything, brings about the letting go, the state of non-attachment.

When we can settle back into the moment, realizing that past and future are simply thoughts in the present, then we free ourselves from the bondage of "time.