Quotes About Awareness

Mindfulness is based in a daily meditation practice

When you meditate consistently and with proper instructions and effort, you are training yourself to overcome the power of old habits. In particular, the habits of inattention, distraction, and absence

One way I like to practice mindfulness is by the simple instruction "relax and stay present.

relaxation is not the ultimate goal. Awareness is. Try not to judge your practice by how relaxed or "good" you feel. Try not to judge it at all. Just try to be present and to recognize and accept what is here.

Mindfulness may be understood as friendly, nonjudging, present-moment awareness.

Changing the habits of inattention and distraction we have developed over a lifetime is hard work.

Kabat-Zinn responded, "There is no purpose in meditation. As soon as you assign a purpose to meditation, you've made it just another activity to try to get someplace or reach some goal" (128).

Having an agenda to get rid of something or to change something is a common source of frustration in meditation practice. Change and transformation do occur through meditation, but only when you teach yourself to allow attention and awareness to include disturbing and unpleasant conditions like anxiety and panic.

Let curiosity and love of learning support you in the art of meditation.

To practice mindfulness means to pay attention to life with an open heart. Meditation can actually help this way. Meditation is a heart-opening activity!

I'm 67 years old. it took me a long time to grow up to know that almost everything we hear is not true.

As most people get older, they become more tolerant and accepting. But you do not see this. You are frozen in childhood, unaware that the world has changed around you. You ascribe the mentality of a child to the adults around you. So you avoid situations where you might get exactly the positive feedback that you need. You never find out that you might actually be accepted.

There were some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things.

They thought depression was like bieng 'depressed'. They thought it was like being in a bad mood, only worse. Therefore, they tried to get him to snap out of it.

Don't waste your time on life.

It was something every child knew how to do, maintain a direct and full connection with the world. Somehow you forgot about it as you grew up, and had to learn it again.

I saw the movie, he said. I know what it's about. Listen to this. When girls get to be about twelve or so—he leaned toward us—their tits bleed.

Once you've visited the underworld, you never forget the way back.

and you can feel it in the air, they way the air has somehow been keeping score.

Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh.

But as I peeked at my brother's inert body....I was aware only of what a strange thing it was to be male. Society discriminated against women, no question. But what about the discrimination of being sent war? Which sex was really thought to be expendable.

If you weren't a lucky child, you didn't know you weren't lucky until you got older. And then it was all you ever thought about.

There was nowhere to go that wouldn't be me.

Here's a question I still can't answer: Did I see through the male tricks because I was destined to scheme that way myself? Or do girls see through the tricks, too, and just pretend not to notice?