Quotes About Awareness

No one can practice for us. The Buddhas just point the way.

As we walk the way of awareness, we see that the deepest purpose we all have is to perfect the qualities of our heart and mind. The spiritual path transforms our consciousness, purifying it of greed, hatred, ignorance, fear, envy, jealousy—those forces that create suffering in us and in the world.

The last of these wholesome actions is meditation, the development of tranquillity and insight.

But in their deeper meaning, these refuges always point back to our own actions and mind states. Although there may be many false starts and dead ends as we begin our journey, if our interest is sincere, we soon make a life-changing discovery: what we are seeking is within us.

Awareness of motivation plays a central role in the path of liberation.

the results of our actions follow us like a shadow, or, to use an ancient image, like the wheel of the oxcart following the foot of the ox.

Some people think the longer you can sit, the wiser you must be. I have seen chickens sitting on their nests for days on end. Wisdom comes from being mindful at all times."3

One thing you need to remember and understand is that you cannot leave the mind alone. It needs to be watched constantly. If you do not look after your garden it will overgrow with weeds. If you do not watch your mind, defilements will grow and multiply. The mind does not belong to you, but you are responsible for it.

Mindfulness practice begins to open up everything. We open our mind to memories, to emotions, to different sensations in the body. In meditation this happens in a very organic way, because we are not searching, we are not pulling or probing, we are just sitting and watching.

When the momentum of mindfulness is well developed, it works like a boomerang; even if we want to distract ourselves, the mind naturally rebounds to a state of awareness.

We see that each experience is simply just what it is, and that the "I" and "mine" are extra.

At first, as we undertake the cultivation of compassion, we may feel genuine empathy with others in pain or difficulty. This happens when we take the time to stop and feel what is really going on—even for just a few moments before rushing on with our lives.

Munindra-ji, one of my first Dharma teachers, used to say that in spiritual practice, time is not a factor. Practice cannot be measured in time, so let go of the whole notion of when and how long. The practice is a process unfolding, and it unfolds in its own time. It is like the flowers that grow in the spring. Do you pull them up to make them grow faster?

Through mindful attention in the moment, we see the impermanent nature of phenomena and understand the happiness of nongrasping.

the five aggregates" (khandhas, in Pali) of experience: material elements, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness.

The last in this list of unskillful speech actions is frivolous and useless talk. How often do we say things that really are of no use at all?

In short, the five aggregates of clinging are dukkha.

Whenever we are mindful of a physical sensation — hardness, softness, pressure, vibration, heat, cold, lightness, heaviness — we are contemplating the first aggregate.

When the mind is silent, relaxed and attentive, pain is experienced not as a solid mass but as a flow, arising and vanishing moment to moment.

THE FOUR REFLECTIONS Precious Human Birth The first of the mind-changing reflections contemplates the preciousness of our human birth.

For a long time in my meditation practice I felt embarrassed and ashamed when I saw unwholesome states in my own mind, states like pride or jealousy, ill will or selfishness; and instead of examining them and working free of them, I would judge myself and dig the hole I was in even deeper.

The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, expressed it well: Live, you say, in the present; Live only in the present. But I don't want the present. I want reality; . . . I only want reality, things without time present.3 And the Buddha

Mindfulness in this aspect is the quality of bare attention, of noninterfering awareness, which we're familiar with from our enjoyment of music. When we're listening to the music, our minds are open and attentive, not attempting to control what comes next, not reflecting on the notes just past. There is a great power when we learn how to listen; it is this quality of receptivity that allows intuitive wisdom to arise. An

When we see something pleasant, we want to hold on, not understanding the impermanence of it all. As soon as we become mindful, paying attention to what's happening, seeing how everything is arising and passing away, the grasping and greed decreases. There's nothing to hold onto. It's all bubbles. And the experience of impermanence, the dissolving of the solidity of everything, brings about the letting go, the state of non-attachment.