Quotes About Mindfulness

Let my reader who is puzzled by my awkward explanations close his eyes for no more than two minutes, and see if he does not find himself suddenly not a compact human being at all, but only a consciousness on a sea of sound and touch; it is only with the eyes open that a corporeal form returns, and assembles itself firmly around the hard core of sight.

Nothing is hard to do unless you get upset or excited about it.

God grant me the serenity to accept my goal weight, the courage to resist anything with more than three hundred calories, and the wisdom to check the fat grams before I open my mouth and insert a fork.

Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power.

New Age thinking asks that each person take responsibility for everything that happens in life because everything in life is connected.

I found that no matter what unpleasantness I found myself involved with, if I stopped and asked myself, "Why have I created this? What am I learning from this?" the circumstance became not a tragedy but an enlightening experience.

The Ayurvedic route to great health involves two simple steps: 1. Doing less; 2. Being more.

Switch off the TV and tune in to yourself

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.

To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.

The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.

The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything. So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others, and you will be helped by others. Before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you.

In zazen, leave your front door and your back door open. Let thoughts come and go. Just don't serve them tea.

To live is enough.

Emotionally we have many problems, but these problems are not actual problems; they are something created; they are problems pointed out by our self-centered ideas or views.

The true purpose [of Zen] is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes... Zen practice is to open up our small mind.

When you accept everything, everything is beyond dimensions. The earth is not great nor a grain of sand small. In the realm of Great Activity picking up a grain of sand is the same as taking up the whole universe. To save one sentient being is to save all sentient beings. Your efforts of this moment to save one person is the same as the eternal merit of Buddha.

Even when lightning flashes inside them [clouds], we say they are only clouds and turn our attention to the next meal, next pain, next breath, the next page. This is how we go on.

if you're gonna shoot off your mouth, make sure it's loaded first.

When one does not have what one wants, one must want what one has.

Rather than write about what you know, you told us, write about what you see. Assume that you know very little and that you'll never know much until you learn how to see.

The mindfulness rage was just another distraction, he said. Of course we should be stressed, he said. We should be utterly consumed with dread. Mindful meditation might help a person face drowning with equanimity, but it would do absolutely nothing to right the Titanic, he said.

Self-care, relieving one's own everyday anxieties, avoiding stress: these had become some of our society's highest goals, he said—higher, apparently, than the salvation of society itself. The mindfulness rage was just another distraction.