Quotes About Awareness

The minute we have even a passing thought of judging another person, the red light of practice should go on.

In practice, we return over and over again to perception, to just sitting. Practice is just hearing, just seeing, just feeling.

At any given moment, we are the way we are, and we see what we're able to see.

Doing one thing at a time and giving oneself wholly to doing it is the most efficient way one can possibly live, because there's no blockage in the organism whatsoever. When we live and work in that way, we are extremely efficient without being rushed. Life is very smooth.

Take the experience of having been hurt. When we've been criticized or treated unfairly, it's important to note the thoughts we have and move into the cellular level of being hurt, so that our awareness becomes simply raw sensation: our trembling jaw, the contraction in our chest, whatever we may be feeling in the cells of our body. This pure experiencing is zazen.

Our thoughts are not to be relied on. They just come and go. Are they important? No, they're not important. But until we know our thoughts a little bit, we believe them.

It's the play of our minds, of conceptualization about anything that happens to us, that is the problem. There's nothing wrong with conceptualization per se; but when we take our opinions about any event to be some kind of absolute truth and fail to see that they are opinions, then we suffer.

Awareness is our true self; it's what we are.

In practice, we work with the complex of physical sensation and thought that is "I feel hurt." If we totally experience the sensations and thought, then the "feeling hurt" evaporates. I never would say that we shouldn't feel what we feel.

When we discover Zen practice, we may hold out a hope that it is going to solve our problems and make our life perfect. But Zen practice simply returns us to life as it is. Being our lives more and more is what Zen practice is about. Our lives are simply what they are, and Zen helps us to recognize that fact. The thought If I do this practice patiently enough, everything will be different is simply another belief system, another version of the promise that is never kept.

When we're engaged in pure activity, we're a presence, an awareness. But that's all we are. And that doesn't feel like anything. People feel that the so-called enlightened state is flooded with emotional and loving feelings. But true love or compassion is simply to be nonseparate from the object. Essentially, it's a flow of activity in which we do not exist as a being separate from our activity.

he'd tried to teach her to be as thoughtful of his employees as she was of him and of her friends;

The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated.

Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world.

A country that does not know how to read and write is easy to deceive.

A homeless man with a dog approached us and put his hand out. This happens to be something I have a real problem with: homeless people with pets who approach you for food. How can they have the nerve to beg for food when they have a perfectly delicious dog standing right there? I didn't care if this guy understood English or not. Tell me when you're out of dog, buddy. Then we can talk about splitting a falafel.

I learned that adventure is never bad, but the alacrity with which you go through life has an impact on the wisdom that life has to offer you. That slowing down doesn't mean you have to do less. It means you have to pay attention more and catch what the world is throwing at you. That every situation you put yourself in deserves your full attention, and that each of us has a responsibility to be more aware of ourselves and of others.

Your lack of geographical knowledge is truly astounding.

Now that I had a better understanding of why I was so pissed off, I could finally do something about it.

DEAR LORD, forgive me when I demand evidence of your working and power instead of thanking you for all you do. Please open my eyes to be aware of your presence, to sense your nearness, and to see the works of your hand everywhere I look. With all my heart I welcome your presence today, however you choose to reveal yourself to me. And don't let me forget to thank you.

Jake became excruciatingly aware of her, there, right behind him. The small grunts and groans as she placed each foot carefully on the slick ground reverberated in his gut. He wanted to turn around and tell her to shut the hell up. She sounded as though she was having sex. Good sex.

There is no coincidences. Every event we experience and every person we meet has intentionally been put in our path to help raise our level of consciousness.

After all, I want to live my life, not rush through it.

Pretty girls behave best when you ignore them. Of course, they have to know you are ignoring them, for otherwise they may not even know you exist.