Quotes About Mindfulness

To assume the existence of a self, an 'I', is to assume the existence of something that has not changed … . … [I]f the thing in question – the 'I' – has changed, in what manner can it still be itself?

I]t's through our obsession with meaning that we create meaninglessness.

W]ith the sense of self gone, ... actions naturally become uncalculated and free.

When we fancy ourselves to be a particular thing with a name, we see ourselves as we would a cork in a stream. What we do not realize is that there is only stream. What we fancy as particular is, from the first, only movement, change and flow.

W]e reject … experience in favour of what we think.

This moment is complete unto itself. There's nothing lacking in this moment

There are no overwhelming questions such as 'Where do I go after I die?' because it becomes clear that such questions, doubts, fears, and anxieties are based on buying into an illusion – the self.

By simply attending to how we feel without trying to judge or change our feelings, we may notice that there's no real distinction between self and other. If it's a grey day inside, … it's a grey day outside as well.

Conscious experience is very much like a movie. It's just one moment – one still – after another. But because these seem to occur in rapid succession, we adopt the contradictory belief … there are … persistent things out there that nevertheless change.

Why would anyone want to awaken to the Reality that they're not even here in the first place?

If we're human, we habitually conceptualise our experience, thus conceiving a self. … [T]his self 1) is unlocatable, 2) contradicts direct experience, 3) is … impossible[.]

I]t's not conceptualisation that's the problem, but getting caught up in it, mistaking our concepts for Reality.

Most of us see ourselves as corks floating in a stream … [T]his is yet another frozen view. According to this … , everything … changes except the cork. While we generally admit to changes in our body, our mind, our thoughts, our feelings, our understandings, and our beliefs, we still believe 'I' myself doesn't change. I'm still me … an unchanging cork in an ever-changing stream. This is precisely what we believe the self to be – something that doesn't change.

It's not as if, when you see, the world winks out of existence.

Those who are aware," he said, "do not die. Those who are ignorant are as if dead already.

I]f we see the fleeting nature of all things without overlaying what we see with concepts, … the notion of a permanent self doesn't occur. … [T]here's still thought and sensations, there's no notion of a permanent self – only a peace of mind and fearlessness.

It's in our very trying to define and arrange things for ourselves – trying to identify and assign meaning to things – that we end up creating a world that is ultimately meaningless.

The Buddha encouraged people to "know for yourselves that certain things are unwholesome and wrong. And when you do, then give them up. And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome and good, then accept them and follow them.

In fixing] on the idea of a universe full of separate, unchanging, persistent things … [w]e also necessarily conceive that each thing must die, must one day come to an end. … [W]hen that thing is the imagined 'I', this prospect naturally terrifies us.

Or is it that I think too much?

My most persistent memory of stand - up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the future: the mouth speaking the line, the body delivering the gesture, while the mind looks back, observing, analyzing, judging, worrying, and then deciding when and what to say next. Enjoyment while performing was rare - enjoyment would have been an indulgent loss of focus that comedy cannot afford.

He knows only what is right in front of him; she is aware of every incoming sensation that glances obliquely against her soft, fragile core

She has learned that her body is precious and it mustn't be offered carelessly ever again, as it holds a direct connection to her heart.

You cannot be a good ACT therapist if you take words to be right, correct, and true rather than asking "How effectual are they?