Quotes About Awareness

The way to work with desire in meditation is the same way we worked with body sensations. It is not very useful to suppress it, because when you do it comes out in some other way. On the other hand, you do not want to act on it either. If you are like me and you acted on all of your desires, they would lock you up. So you do not want to suppress your desires, and you also do not want to act all of them out.

The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are.

Breathing meditation can quiet the mind, open the body, and develop a great power of concentration.

Escape from delusion is not achieved through reflective, considerate, relaxed effort. It is achieved only through the most powerful and sustained thrust of all the physical and mental capabilities at the meditator's command. Sunlun calls for just this.

Two qualities are at the root of all meditation development: right effort and right aim—arousing effort to aim the mind toward the object.

Almost always the roots of anger are in one of two difficult states, which arise just before the anger appears. We become angry either when we are hurt and in pain or when we are afraid. Pay attention to your own life and see if this is true. The next time anger and irritation spring up, see if just before they arose you felt fear or hurt. If you pay attention to the fear or pain first, does the anger even appear? Anger

Where we tended to be judgmental, we became more judgmental of ourselves in our spiritual practice.

It is not enough to touch awakening. We must find ways to live its vision fully.

You may have heard of "out-of-the-body experiences," full of lights and visions. A true spiritual path demands something more challenging, what could be called an "in-the-body experience." We must connect to our body, to our feelings, to our life just now, if we are to awaken.

Samadhi doesn't just come of itself; it takes practice.

In Buddhist practice, the outward and inward aspects of taking the one seat meet on our meditation cushion.

teaching that states of consciousness are far more crucial than outer circumstances.

Bring yourself back to the point quite gently. And even if you do nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back a thousand times, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.

When sleepy, meditate with your eyes open wide. Stand in place for a few minutes or do walking meditation. If it's really bad, walk briskly or walk backward, splash some water on your face. Sleepiness is something we can respond to creatively. When

Through awareness of the body, we remember who we truly are.

The art of living ... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past ... on the other. It consists in being completely sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.

what Buddhist writers call the clear open sky of awareness. It is empty like space, but unlike space it is sentient; it knows experience. In its true state, consciousness is simply this knowing

When we clearly realize that the source of disharmony and misery in the world is ignorance, we can open the door of wisdom and compassion.

When we take time to quiet ourselves, we can all sense that our life could be lived with greater compassion and greater weakness.

The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner's mind.

If we learn to be aware of feelings without grasping or aversion, then they can move through us like changing weather, adn we can be free to feel them and move on like the wind.

we give so much attention to our protective layers of fear, depression, confusion, and aggression that we forget who we really are.

There are many good forms of meditation practice. A good meditation practice is any one that develops awareness or mindfulness of our body and our sense, of our mind and heart.

The word "buddha" means one who is awake.