Quotes About Focus

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.

Because of this inner busyness, which is going on almost all the time, we are liable either to miss a lot of the texture of our life experience or to discount its value and meaning.

After all, if you really aren't trying to get anywhere else in this moment, patience takes care of itself.

Allow your attention to gently alight on your belly, as if you were coming upon a shy animal sunning itself on a tree stump in a clearing in the forest. Feel your belly rise or expand gently on the inbreath, and fall or recede on the outbreath.

Knowing what you are doing while you are doing it is the essence of mindfulness practice.

and remind you that you are here now, and that when you get there, you will be there. If you miss the here, you are likely also to miss the there. If your mind is not centered here, it is likely not to be centered just because you arrive somewhere else.

But when we start to focus in on what our own mind is up to, for instance, it is not unusual to quickly go unconscious again, to fall back into an automatic-pilot mode of unawareness. These lapses in awareness are frequently caused by an eddy of dissatisfaction with what we are seeing or feeling in that moment, out of which springs a desire for something to be different, for things to change.

When I was talking to a reporter, she said, "Oh, you mean to live for the moment." I said, "No, it isn't that. That has a hedonistic ring to it. I mean to live in the moment.

Rather, it is bearing in mind what is most important to you so that it is not lost or betrayed in the heat and reactivity of a particular moment.

it is the awareness that is of primary importance, no matter what the objects are that we are paying attention to.

As you begin befriending your breath, you see immediately that unawareness is everywhere.

The present is the only time that we have to know anything.

When you see and feel the sensations you are experiencing as sensations, pure and simple, you may see that these thoughts about the sensation are useless to you at that moment and that they can actually make things worse than they need be.

TRY: Asking yourself in this moment, "Am I awake?," "Where is my mind right now?

Killingsworth MA, Gilbert DT. A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science. 2010;330:932. § Harvard Business Review. Jan-Feb 2012:88.

we are only breathing now — the last breath is gone, the next one hasn't come yet — it is always a matter of this one. So it is an ideal anchor for our wayward attention. It keeps us in the present moment.

There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hand.

Perhaps over time we can adjust our default setting to one of greater mindfulness rather than of mindlessness and being lost in thought.

Just because you decide to still your body and observe your breath from moment to moment doesn't mean that your thinking mind is going to cooperate.

In order to build continuity and momentum in the meditation practice, you will need to keep reminding yourself to come back to the breath over and over again, no matter what the mind is up to from one moment to the next.

If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, This is the best season of your life. WU-MEN

It helps to have a focus for your attention, an anchor line to tether you to the present moment and to guide you back when the mind wanders. The breath serves this purpose exceedingly well. It can be a true ally. Bringing awareness to our breathing, we remind ourselves that we are here now, so we might as well be fully awake for whatever is already happening.

You have to actually make the time to practice every day, because otherwise you will not find it.