Quotes About Awareness

Acceptance of the present moment has nothing to do with resignation in the face of what is happening. It simply means a clear acknowledgment that what is happening is happening. Acceptance doesn't tell you what to do. What happens next, what you choose to do, that has to come out of your understanding of this moment.

ultimately, mindfulness is intimacy—with ourselves and the world—underneath any apparent separation between the two. The

In this regard, cultivating mindfulness is not unlike the process of eating. It would be absurd to propose that someone else eat for you. And when you go to a restaurant, you don't eat the menu, mistaking it for the meal, nor are you nourished by listening to the waiter describe the food. You have to actually eat the food for it to nourish you. In the same way, you have to actually practice mindfulness in order to reap its benefits and come to understand why it is so valuable.

it is awareness that we fall into when we stop trying to get somewhere or to have a special feeling and allow ourselves to be where we are and with whatever we are feeling right now.

We live immersed in a world of constant doing. Rarely are we in touch with who is doing the doing, or, put otherwise, with the world of being.

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and non judgementally

The Tibetans sometimes describe thoughts as writing on water, in essence empty, insubstantial, and transient.

Our lives are simply bigger than thought.

But meditation is not just about sitting, either. It is about stopping and being present, that is all. Mostly we run around doing. Are you able to come to a stop in your life, even for one moment? Could it be this moment? What would happen if you did?

We see that thoughts, when brought into and held in awareness in this way, readily lose their power to dominate and dictate our responses to life, no matter what their content and emotional charge. They then become workable rather than imprisoning. And thus, we become a bit freer in the knowing and the recognizing of them as events in the field of awareness.

It is only when the mind is open and receptive that learning and seeing and change can occur.

It has to do with examining who we are, with questioning our view of the world and our place in it, and with cultivating some appreciation for the fullness of each moment we are alive.

New Yorker cartoon: Two Zen monks in robes and shaved heads, one young, one old, sitting side by side cross-legged on the floor. The younger one is looking somewhat quizzically at the older one, who is turned toward him and saying: "Nothing happens next. This is it.

If this is true, maybe you don't need to make one more phone call right now, even if you think you do. Maybe you don't need to read something just now, or run one more errand. By taking a few moments to "die on purpose" to the rush of time while you are still living, you free yourself to have time for the present. By "dying" now in this way, you actually become more alive now. This is what stopping can do.

What happens now is what matters.

immersed in a seemingly never-ending stream of thoughts, coming willy-nilly one after another in rapid succession.

How you are in relationship to this moment influences the quality and character of the next moment. In this way, we can shape the future by taking care of the present. What a remarkable opportunity.

Either wherever you go there you are or wherever you go there you aren't.

This really is your life. You only have this moment. All the rest is memory (which is also here now) and anticipation (which is also happening here and now). This moment is as good as any other. In fact, it's perfect.

Bhavana translates as "development through mental training." To me, this strikes the mark; meditation really is about human development.

even and especially as we are being confronted with the law of impermanence and the inevitability of change, conditions we are subject to as individuals regardless of how much we resist or protest or try to control outcomes. If we wish to make a quantum leap to greater awareness, there is no getting around the need for us to be willing to wake up, and to care deeply about waking up.

look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them.

Fui a vivir al bosque porque quería vivir despierto, enfrentarme tan sólo a los hechos esenciales de la vida y aprender lo necesario para no verme obligado, cuando estuviera postrado en mi lecho de muerte, a reconocer que no había vivido.

However, when we start paying attention a little more closely to the way our own mind actually works, as we do when we meditate, we are likely to find that much of the time our mind is more in the past or the future than it is in the present.