Quotes About Awareness

Mindfulness practice helps create space between our actual experiences and the reflexive stories we tend to tell about them.

Integration arises from intimacy with our emotions and our bodies, as well as with our thoughts.

There's no denying that it takes effort to set the intention to see our fundamental connected-ness with others.

When emotions are long held and extremely complex, it sometimes takes years for them to enter fully into awareness.

When we truly allow ourselves to feel our own pain, over time it comes to seem less personal. We start to recognize that what we've perceived as our pain is, at a deeper level, the pain inherent in human existence.

Not paying attention keeps us in an endless cycle of wanting.

Love is a living capacity within us that is always present, even when we don't sense it.

There is so much we just can't see or know right now, including precisely how our actions will ripple out.

The first time a meditation teacher encouraged me to practice mindfulness—which

Breathe in the connection to all things, to the beautiful world that is just beyond the window, to the birds I saw in the marshes by the river, to my neighbors and to myself. Breathe out to spread that awareness, to share it, with the little cities nearby and the big ones out in the distance, and all the places in between and beyond. Light pouring into me and light pouring out from me in a grateful relationship with the world.

Though it may sound paradoxical, identifying our thoughts, emotions, and habitual patterns of behavior is the key to freedom & transformation.

When we contemplate the miracle of embodied life, we begin to partner with our bodies in a kinder way.

We cultivate mindfulness to help us distinguish the actual experience from the story we tell ourselves.

Much of our day we are pushed around by unhelpful habits such as being distracted or disconnected, holding on too long when circumstances have already changed, or not being wholehearted in pursuing an opportunity. Meditation can open us to alternative responses such as focus, awareness, and productive questioning and that leads to more fulfillment and better work.

There is no conflict between loving others deeply and living mindfully.

Feelings of apathy as they relate to our relationships often stem from insufficiently paying attention to those around us.

When we identify the thoughts that keep us from seeing others as they truly are we prepare the ground for real love.

How many pleasures escape our notice because we think we need big, dramatic sensations to feel alive? Mindfulness can allow us to experience fully the moment in front of us—what Thoreau calls "the bloom of the present"—and to wake up from

Thich Nhat Hanh: "To dwell in the here and now does not mean you never think about the past or responsibly plan for the future," he says. "The idea is simply not to allow yourself to get lost in regrets about the past or worries about the future.

IF WE TRY to block off or deny a big part of what we experience, our wakeful, connected relationship to ourselves gets sharply whittled down. How then can we possibly feel alive?

All beings want to be happy, yet so very few know how.

When we develop our ability to love in one realm, we simultaneously nourish our ability in others, as long as we remain open to the flow of insight and compassion.

We can use meditation as a way to experiment with new ways of relating to ourselves, even our uncomfortable thoughts.

Often when we believe we are practicing self-control or self-discipline, we're actually confining ourselves inside an overly analytical, self-conscious mental chamber.