Quotes About Awareness

According to existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom: 'Death … itches all the time; it is always with us, scratching at some inner door, whirring softly, barely audibly, just under the membrane of consciousness. Hidden and disguised, leaking out in a variety of symptoms, it is the wellspring of many of our worries, stresses, and conflicts'.

In this way we will be reminded of their true nature and come to a more 'objective' judgement. It is, Marcus says, like: 'seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage is grape juice, and the purple robes are sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood. Or making love – something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid.

When we experience physical or mental pain, the first thing to do is to acknowledge it and allow it to be there simply as a feeling that will pass. A popular and useful acronym to remember is RAIN: Recognise what is happening; Allow the experience to be there; Investigate with kindness; Non-identification. By doing this we can loosen the added layer of suffering and become better able to live with the pain.

The relationship between the calm absorption of meditation and insight is captured with a simile: just like we would not be able to see our reflection in a bowl of water that had been mixed with a dye, or was bubbling over a fire, or was muddy or had algae growing in it, in the same way we need a calm mind to see things clearly.

Mistaken about good and bad, unwittingly taken in by things that are ultimately harmful for us, we suffer from something akin to a perceptual illusion, only much deeper and more problematic. It's like the Müller-Lyer illusion: we can't help experiencing the lines as of different length, even if we know they're not.

Marcus Aurelius writes: 'The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the colour of your thoughts.

Everybody knew everything now. Or did everybody know nothing? Nobody knew anything... Nobody could know everything.

You didn't see us," she said to Anna... "I was... lost in thought," Anna replied. "What were you thinking about?" "You," Anna said. "Isn't that strange? I was thinking of you two so hard that I didn't see you.

La primera cosa que pensé sobre tu padre fue que me notó. Incluso con toda esa gente y ese humo, e incluso aunque nadie nunca me nota.. él se acerco a mí...

Había cerrado los ojos... era más fácil sentir con los ojos cerrados.

Where there is a stink of shit there is a smell of being.

We do not die because we have to die; we die because one day, and not so long ago, our consciousness was forced to deem it necessary.

How hard is it, when everything encourages us to sleep, though we may look about us with conscious, clinging eyes, to wake and yet look about us as in a dream, with eyes that no longer know their function and whose gaze is turned inward.

We used to believe that we were thinking beings who just happen to feel. We now know that we are feeling beings who think.

No soy pesimista. Soy un optimista bien informado.

The point of modernity is to live a life without illusions while not becoming disillusioned

The popular element "feels" but does not always know or understand; the intellectual element "knows" but does not always understand and in particular does not always feel.

I've caught a glimpse of him in dreams: expert hunter of himself, every minute in ambush.

El ojo que ves no es ojo porque tú lo veas, es ojo porque te ve.

The eye you see is not an eye because you see it; it is an eye because it sees you.

Tras el vivir y el soñar, está lo que más importa: despertar.

Between living and dreaming there is a third thing. Guess it.

No my soul is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches, its clear eyes open, far-off things, and listens at the shores of the great silence.