Quotes About Awareness

The only way to understand fully is to become the object of our understanding.

If you sit regularly, it will become a habit. You will let go of trying to arrive anywhere. Even the Buddha still practiced sitting every day after his enlightenment. There is nowhere to arrive except the present moment.

When you sit, you may feel something pushing you to get up and do something else. That's the energy inside each of us called habit energy. Habit energy is energy that is fueled by an old pattern, situation, or habit. It isn't based on our real needs and our real situation in the present.

According to our narrow view of a truly existing self, life is just my body, my house, my spouse, my children, and my riches. But if we can extend beyond every limit we have created for ourselves, we will see that our life exists in everything, and that the deterioration of phenomena cannot touch that life, just as the arising and disappearing of the waves cannot influence the being of the water.

Anapana means breath and sati means mindfulness. Tang Hoi translated it as "Guarding the Mind." The Anapanasati Sutra, that is, is the sutra on using one's breath to maintain mindfulness.

the concentrations on emptiness, signlessness, and aimlessness. They are known as the Three Doors of Liberation and are available in every school of Buddhism.

When Avalokiteshvara says there is no suffering, he means that suffering is made entirely of things that are not suffering.2 Whether you suffer or not depends on many circumstances. The cold air can be painful if you are not wearing warm enough clothes, but with proper clothing, cold air can be a source of joy. Suffering is not objective. It depends largely on the way you perceive.

it seems hard at first, you can substitute the method of counting your breath. As you breathe in, count 1 in your mind, and as you breathe out, count 1. Breathe in, count 2. Breathe out, count 2. Continue through 10, then return to 1 again.

Mindfulness gives you the inner space and quietness that allow you to look deeply, to find out who you are and what you want to do with your life. You won't feel the need to make yourself run after meaningless

Buddha said, "The past no longer exists, and the future is not yet here." There is only a single moment in which we can truly be alive, and that is the present moment. Being present in the here and now is our practice.

Pídele que trate de mantener vivo ese espíritu todo el día

Somos lo que pensamos y, al mismo tiempo, mucho más que eso, porque también somos nuestros sentimientos, nuestras percepciones, nuestra sabiduría, nuestra felicidad y nuestro amor.

from now on I'll use the term "mindfulness" to refer to keeping one's consciousness alive to the present reality), then one must practice right now in one's daily life, not only during meditation sessions. When

When something takes place, if we look at it deeply in the heart of reality, seeing its source and the food that nourishes it, we are already on the path of liberation.

Allow yourself to sink deeply into the here and the now, because life is possible only in the present, life is available only in the present moment, and you know that you have the capacity to touch life in the present moment, in the here and the now.

The kind of sitting we're used to doing is sitting in order to work at our computers, to be in meetings, or to space out in front of a screen. So we have to practice sitting just to be with ourselves without distractions.

Fear or hatred, born of ignorance, amplifies your pain.

No sólo los niños deben ser protegidos de películas, programas televisivos, libros, revistas y juegos violentos insanos, sino que nosotros podemos también ser destruidos por los medios de comunicación.

usually discover that we've had a wrong perception

What is essential is to train to sit quietly and mindfully. The more you train yourself, the more you can reach the deeper aspect of what you are thinking and feeling. You might think: I'm bored! This is stupid. I need to do something else right this minute. There may be old habits and old stories that are creating those thoughts and those feelings. What is getting in the way of your being able to experience the present moment? Keep breathing. Keep sitting. This is the practice.

We know where we want to go, and we are very directed in getting there. This may be useful, but often we forget to enjoy ourselves along the route. There is a word in Buddhism that means "wishlessness" or "aimlessness." The idea is that you do not put something in front of you and run after it, because everything is already here, in yourself.

French philosopher Henri Bergson called élan vital. Like all species, we have a will to live and a strong desire to cling to and protect our life and to defend ourselves from danger. But we have to be cautious not to let our instinct of self-preservation and auto-defense mislead us into thinking we have a separate self.

La respiración consciente es la clave para reunificar cuerpo y mente y llevar la energía de la atención plena a cada instante de tu vida.

Many practitioners are inclined to think that sitting in meditation is a means for obtaining Awakening, which would thus be an end. However, a line of demarcation between the end and the means cannot truly be established. When we turn from forgetfulness to awareness of being, this state is already true Awakening. This is why the Ts'ao-t'ung [Soto] sect has said, To sit in meditation is to be Buddha. When one truly sits in meditation, one finds oneself Awakened; and Awakening is Buddha himself.