Quotes About Awareness

I take refuge in awareness; I take refuge in truth; I take refuge in love

Once someone is an unreal other, we lose sight of how they hurt. Because we don't experience them as feeling beings, we not only ignore them, we can inflict pain on them without compunction. Not

There's a mystic who says there's only one really good question, which is, 'What am I unwilling to feel?

Mindfulness is the intentional process of paying attention, without judgment, to the unfolding of moment-by-moment experience.

When we get lost in our stories, we lose touch with our actual experience. Leaning into the future, or rehashing the past, we leave the living experience of the immediate moment. Our trance deepens as we move through the day driven by "I have to do more to be okay" or "I am incomplete; I need more to be happy." These "mantras" reinforce the trance-belief that our life should be different from what it is.

The deepest transformations in our lives come down to something very simple: We learn to respond, not react, to what is going on inside us.

Thoreau writes, "Is there a greater miracle than to see through another's eyes, even for an instant?

When we pause, we don't know what will happen next. But by disrupting our habitual behaviors, we open to the possibility of new and creative ways of responding to our wants and fears.

The biggest illusion about a path of refuge is that we are on our way somewhere else, on our way to becoming a different kind of person. But ultimately, our refuge is not outside ourselves, not somewhere in the future - it is always and already here.

The way out of our cage begins with accepting absolutely everything about ourselves and our lives, by embracing with wakefulness and care our moment-to-moment experience.

myself, "What would it be like if I could accept life—accept this moment—exactly as it is?

We find true refuge whenever we recognize the silent space of awareness behind all our busy doing and striving. We find refuge whenever our hearts open with tenderness and love. We find refuge whenever we connect with the innate clarity and intelligence of our true nature.

I became committed to dropping my resistance so I could get to know this energy that was driving the wanting self.

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! … The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. Rumi

The "one I love" was everywhere, including within me.

Our issues are in our tissues.

I'm skimming over life and racing to the finish line—death.

Just as a clear pond reflects the sky, mindfulness allows us to see the truth of our experience.

Taking our hands off the controls and pausing is an opportunity to clearly see the wants and fears that are driving us.... Often the moment when we most need to pause is exactly when it feels most intolerable to do so.

Everything within and around us is subject to change; the truth that if we try to hold on to or resist the stream of experience, we deepen the trance of fear.

Buddhist mindfulness meditation called vipassana, which means "to see clearly

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." Our

Mindfulness is the intentional process of paying attention, without judgment, to the unfolding

Through Buddhist awareness practices, we free ourselves from the suffering of trance by learning to recognize what is true in the present moment, and by embracing whatever we see with an open heart. This cultivation of mindfulness and compassion is what I call Radical Acceptance.