Quotes About Mindfulness

We've got an overabundance of attention, more attention than we can cope with; our constant challenge is to control it.

Without knowing it or meaning to, we are training ourselves to be constantly on the alert for interruptions; to seek out messages incessantly, to process data rather than discover, invent, think, or feel, and in general to lose the propensity or even the capacity to ponder, pause, imagine, or give full focus to anyone or anything for more than a few restive moments.

Tendency to worry needlessly, endlessly; tendency to scan the horizon looking for something to worry about, alternating with inattention to or disregard for actual dangers. Worry becomes what attention turns into when it isn't focused on some task.

Structure is the vessel needed to contain the mercury of the ADD mind, to keep it from being here and there and everywhere all at once. Structure allows the ADD mind to be put to best use, rather than dissipating itself like so many tiny beads of mercury on the floor.

Happiness is not something that happens to people but something that they make happen." His research shows that people are happiest in a state he has named "flow." In a state of flow, you are one with what you are doing. Children know flow well. They call it play. Play is one of the childhood roots of adult happiness. But there are others—four others, to be exact—in the schema I outline in this book.

Trapped in the past or future in the DMN, you're likely to abandon projects you once started with enthusiasm, make careless mistakes, or, worse, fall into a state of misery and despair, for no good reason whatsoever. All

In other words: Spend more time in the TPN focusing on a single task. We know what you might be thinking: The whole point is that I can't focus on a single task! But you can—you are already a master of distraction, so now distract yourself. Productivity isn't the point here. Moving the toggle switch is.

Worry gives a small thing a big shadow. Swedish proverb

Worry is a special form of fear. To create worry, humans elongate fear with anticipation and memory, expand it in imagination, and fuel it with emotion.

In fact, we do not suffer from a deficit of attention. Just the opposite. We've got an overabundance of attention, more attention than we can cope with; our constant challenge is to control it.

Tendency to say what comes to mind without necessarily considering the timing or appropriateness of the remark

Always valuable, your attention has now also become one of your most insecure assets and most-sought-after possessions.

Let alone, without the help of or hot cognition, cold cognition is simply paralyzed by choice.

Edward Slingerland

I was thinking that a life is just the history of what we give our attention to,' said Patrick. 'The rest is packaging.

Yet I think he was not wholly the loser by being unable to think. The eye untroubled by thought sees things like a mirror newly burnished; at night, for example, the musing can see nothing before him but a mist, but if he stops thinking quickly the roads, the walls, the trees become visible. (pp217)

I have stared long enough at the glowing flat rectangles of computer screens. Let us give more time for doing things in the real world . . . plant a plant, walk the dogs, read a real book, go to the opera.

Never invest so much in anyone romantically that you lose your head. The Buddha of casual sex, I remain detached at all costs.

Corpse Pose sounds like no big deal, right? Then what's so difficult about this spiritualized snooze? Forget about getting your feet behind your head. Just try lying still for ten minutes. With nothing left to do, you're finally forced to come face to face with yourself.

At any given time, we are all doing the best we can. The problem is, our best often isn't good enough for us. We then punish ourselves, denying ourselves peace because we feel we don't deserve it. A sad situation remedied when we finally accept, we are doing the best we can.

Anger is a wasted emotion.

When you are aware that you are being triggered, rather than simply reacting, you can remain detached, and separate your emotions from your true self. Tolle

Attitude determines the altitude of life.

For the mind disturbed, the still beauty of dawn is nature's finest balm.