Quotes About Mindfulness

But one need not believe in psychic powers to cut through the illusion of the self. Accomplishing this can be elusive enough. If I've met a person who has done so perfectly, I am unaware of it.

most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now. Acknowledging that this is the structure of the game we are playing allows us to play it differently. How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives.

The paradox is that we can become wiser and more compassionate and live more fulfilling lives by refusing to be who we have tended to be in the past. But we also must relax. Accept things as they are in the present, as we thrive to change ourselves.

It is always now

We need not come to the end of the path to experience the benefits of walking it.

If you just focus on the trees swaying outside the window without distraction, you will see your true face.

If you are perpetually angry, depressed, confused, and unloving, or your attention is elsewhere, it won't matter how successful you become or who is in your life—you won't enjoy any of it.

In the East, especially in contemplative traditions like those of Buddhism, being distracted by thought is understood to be the very wellspring of human suffering.

We spend our lives telling ourselves the story of past and future, while the reality of the present goes largely unexplored.

Most people who believe they are meditating are merely thinking with their eyes closed.

mindfulness" is not very clear, and it takes some training to distinguish between being lost in thought and seeing thoughts for what they are.

In my view, the realistic goal to be attained through spiritual practice is not some permanent state of enlightenment that admits of no further efforts but a capacity to be free in this moment, in the midst of whatever is happening. If you can do that, you have already solved most of the problems you will encounter in life.

One must be able to pay attention closely enough to glimpse what consciousness is like between thoughts—that is, prior to the arising of the next one. Consciousness does not feel like a self.

Your capacity to be offended isn't something that I or anyone else needs to respect. It isn't something that you should respect. In fact, it's something you should be on your guard for.

It isn't enough to know, in the abstract, that thoughts continually arise or that one is thinking at this moment, for such knowledge is itself mediated by thoughts that are arising unrecognized. It is the identification with these thoughts—that is, the failure to recognize them as they spontaneously appear in consciousness—that produces the feeling of "I." One

After all, there is an enormous difference between being hostage to one's thoughts and being freely and nonjudgmentally aware of life in the present.

Consciousness is the prior condition of every experience; the self or ego is an illusory appearance within it; look closely for what you are calling "I," and the feeling of being a separate self will disappear; what remains, as a matter of experience, is a field of consciousness—free, undivided, and intrinsically uncontaminated by its ever-changing contents.

Leaving aside the metaphysics, mythology, and sectarian dogma, what contemplatives throughout history have discovered is that there is an alternative to being continuously spellbound by the conversation we are having with ourselves; there is an alternative to simply identifying with the next thought that pops into consciousness. And glimpsing this alternative dispels the conventional illusion of the self.

And there is something degraded and degrading about many of our habits of attention as we shop, gossip, argue, and ruminate our way to the grave. Perhaps I should speak only for myself here: It seems to me that I spend much of my waking life in a neurotic trance. My experiences in meditation suggest, however, that an alternative exists. It is possible to stand free of the juggernaut of self, if only for moments at a time. Most

We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises

The ultimate wisdom of enlightenment, whatever it is, cannot be a matter of having fleeting experiences. The goal of meditation is to uncover a form of well-being that is inherent to the nature of our minds. It must, therefore, be available in the context of ordinary sights, sounds, sensations, and even thoughts. Peak experiences are fine, but real freedom must be coincident with normal waking life.

When you are able to rest naturally, merely witnessing the totality of experience, and thoughts themselves are left to arise and vanish as they will, you can recognize that consciousness is intrinsically undivided.

The paradox is that we can become wiser and more compassionate and live more fulfilling lives by refusing to be who we have tended to be in the past. But we must also relax, accepting things as they are in the present, as we strive to change ourselves.

My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible.