Quotes About Awareness

known. If you are completely preoccupied with what is already known, you can't make the leap into that other dimension of creativity or imagination or poetry, or whatever it is that allows for seeing a hidden order in things which, until it is seen and realized, it isn't seen at all.

One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait. WALT WHITMAN, Leaves of Grass

There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hand.

When we spend some time each day in non-doing, resting in awareness, observing the flow of the breath and the activity of our mind and body without getting caught up in that activity, we are cultivating calmness and mindfulness hand in hand.

Perhaps over time we can adjust our default setting to one of greater mindfulness rather than of mindlessness and being lost in thought.

Feel your body lying in bed. Straighten it out. Ask yourself, Am I awake now? Do I know that the gift of a new day is being given to me? Will I be awake for it? What will happen today? Right now I don't really know. Even as I think about what I have to do, can I be open to this not-knowing? Can I see today as an adventure? Can I see right now as filled with possibilities?

We can feel victimized by our thoughts, or blinded by them. We can easily mis-take them for the truth or for reality when in actuality they are just waves on its surface, however tumultuous they may be at times.

It is not that mindfulness is the "answer" to all life's problems. Rather, it is that all life's problems can be seen more clearly through the lens of a clear mind.

Just because you decide to still your body and observe your breath from moment to moment doesn't mean that your thinking mind is going to cooperate.

What does happen as we intentionally pay attention to our breathing is that we realize pretty quickly that we are

In order to build continuity and momentum in the meditation practice, you will need to keep reminding yourself to come back to the breath over and over again, no matter what the mind is up to from one moment to the next.

we scarcely have time for being anymore, or even for catching our breath, literally and metaphorically—to say nothing of time for knowing what we are doing as we are doing it, and why.

If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, This is the best season of your life. WU-MEN

the true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." Einstein

It helps to have a focus for your attention, an anchor line to tether you to the present moment and to guide you back when the mind wanders. The breath serves this purpose exceedingly well. It can be a true ally. Bringing awareness to our breathing, we remind ourselves that we are here now, so we might as well be fully awake for whatever is already happening.

We are not meditating to make anything go away, any more than we are meditating to attain some special state or feeling. Whether we are basically healthy at the moment or have a terminal illness, none of us knows how long we have to live.

Even the tiniest manifestation of mindfulness in any moment might give rise to an intuition or insight that could be hugely transforming.

Through it all, we attempt to bring balance to the present moment, understanding that in patience lies wisdom, knowing that what will come next will be determined in large measure by how we are now.

The more you practice, the more skill you can develop in reducing pain or at least becoming more transparent to it, so that it is less eroding of your quality of life.

Non-doing simply means letting things be and allowing them to unfold in their own way.

Mindfulness has been called the heart of Buddhist meditation.

The power of mindfulness is the power to examine those self-identifications and their consequences and the power to examine the views and perspectives we adopt so reflexively and automatically and then proceed to think are us.

Knowing that we don't know is just as important, if not more so, than anything else we might know.

Meditation is more rightly thought of as a "Way" than as a technique. It is a Way of being, a Way of living, a Way of listening, a Way of walking along the path of life and being in harmony with things as they are.