Quotes About Mind

Our [Western] science has cut itself off from an adequate understanding of the Subject of Cognizance, of the mind. This is precisely the point where our present way of thinking needs to be amended, perhaps by a bit of blood-transfusion from Eastern thought.

The reason for this is, that what we call thought (1) is itself an orderly thing, and (2) can only be applied to material, i.e. to perceptions or experiences, which have a certain degree of orderliness.

The great thing was to form the idea that this one thing – mind or world – may well be capable of other forms of appearance that we cannot grasp and that do not imply the notions of space and time. This means an imposing liberation from our inveterate prejudice. There probably are other orders of appearance than the space-time-like. It was, so I believe, Schopenhauer who first read this from Kant.

The only way to consciously deactivate a thought is to activate another. In other words, the only way to deliberately withdraw your attention from one thought is to give your attention to another.

In presuming that knowledge is a mental activity we tend to think of our body strictly as a mindless container—an object. Of course, we understand that our senses take in information and our brains process it. But we see this as mechanical. We actually think computers might duplicate how humans know.

Emotions are amorphous and uncontrollable.

It is a sentiment of tremendous truth and simplicity, yet tremendously difficult for the mind to metabolize — we remain material creatures, spiritually sundered by the fact of our borrowed atoms, which we will each return to the universe, to the stardust that made us, despite our best earthly efforts.

they tell me there are four seasons but I live in a fifth one which is your space and your time

You can remember without seeing it.

We must perceive by our senses, before we can reflect with the mind. Our sensorium is that essential medium between the divine and human mind, through which God reveals to man the knowledge of nature, and is our only door of correspondence with God or with man.

We only have one wireless connection with the real Internet, and that's our mind. There isn't a single moment in our lives when our mind is not functioning as the basis of all our interactions—not even one. So it makes sense to train ourselves in the skilful operation of this basic interface. This is what meditation is for.

Our mind is conditioned by the past, and to try to alter what we are feeling right now, especially in the name of being a compassionate spiritual person, is just wishful thinking. This is a crucial realization, because we spend so much of life, and, sadly, so much of our spiritual paths, wishing we were feeling something other than what we are actually feeling in the present moment.

If we are able to take responsibility for our own mind, then we can work with whatever life throws at us without resentment or blame, and with the curiosity and self-care that are necessary for mindfulness to develop in all aspects of life. On this basis, we can also help others.

Sometimes, the most compassionate thing we can do is say no. Every once in a while, the best way to help another person is to yell at him. This is called an act of wrathful compassion, and it's why many traditional bodhisattvas are depicted carrying iconographic weaponry in Himalayan art, displaying a force that is not caught up within hatred, but that sets firm boundaries which a confused mind cannot cross.

Fear is not to be dismissed. A moment of fear is actually a message that we are in a new and unfamiliar place within the network of interdependence. Fear is the awkwardness of stepping into a new neighborhood of our mind. Dismissing it actually keeps us comfortable for even less time than a poorly made pair of expensive sneakers. But if we let it in, something new and unexpected is bound to happen.

A writer's mind seems to be situated partly in the solar plexus and partly in the head.

We need to be virtually bludgeoned into detachment from our daily lives, our habits and mental laziness, which conceal from us the strangeness of the world. Without a fresh virginity of mind, without a new and healthy awareness of existential reality, there can be no theatre and no art either; the real must be in a way dislocated, before it can be re-integrated.

A mere cast taken from nature will always be more real than the best copy a man can produce, for can anyone conceive that an artist's hand is not guided by his mind…his strange task will not be tinged with the colour of his spirit?...For the word realism to have any meaning all men would need to be of the same mind and to conceive things in the same way. For what is the supreme purpose of every form of art if it be not the effect? (22 February 1860)

Even the hardiest Marine typically kept his rifle and his person clean. His language and his mind might need a good bit of cleaning up but not his weapon, his uniform, or his person.

And just as the child gradually breaks off the habit of regarding his mother only as a means of satisfying his own desires and learns to love her for her own sake, so the worshipper after a struggle has reached an attitude of mind in which he desires God for himself and not as a means of fulfillment of his own wishes.

So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that's coming when Jesus arrives. Don't lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn't know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, "I am holy; you be holy.

Every time we worship our minds are informed, our memories refreshed with the judgments of God, we are familiarized with what God says, what he has decided, the ways he is working out our salvation.

Authentic worship means being present to the living God who penetrates the whole of human life. The proclamation of God's word and our response to God's Spirit touches everything that is involved in being human: mind and body, thinking and feeling, work and family, friends and government, buildings and flowers.

I'll shower blessings on the pilgrims who come here, and give supper to those who arrive hungry." The devout mind goes back to those years in the wilderness when God gave water from the rock, manna from the ground and quail from the skies, and fashions a hope for abundant, eternal providence.