Quotes About Awareness

The only way to find out where I was was to get out of the way and let myself happen.

We reduce, concretize, or substantialize experiences or feelings, which are, in their very nature, fleeting or evanescent. In so doing, we define ourselves by our moods and by our thoughts. We do not just let ourselves be happy or sad, for instance; we must become a happy person or a sad one. This is the chronic tendency of the ignorant or deluded mind, to make "things" out of that which is no thing.

Stillness does not mean the elimination of disturbances as much as a different way of viewing them.

A recently deceased American Zen master and navy veteran, John Daido Loori, used to say that those who think Buddhism is just about stillness end up sitting very silently up to their necks in their own shit.

Enlightenment does not mean getting rid of anything. It means changing one's frame of reference so that all things become enlightening.

In building a path through the self to the far shore of awareness, we have to carefully pick our way through our own wilderness. If we can put our minds into a place of surrender, we will have an easier time feeling the contours of the land. We do not have to break our way through as much as we have to find our way around the major obstacles. We do not have to cure every neurosis, we just have to learn how not to be caught by them.

The mind that realizes its own Buddha nature is said to be like clear space—it is empty and all-pervasive but also vividly aware.

We do not get lots of realizations in our lives as much as we get the same ones over and over.

Trauma, if it doesn't destroy us, wakes us up both to our own relational capacities and to the suffering of others. Not only does it makes us hurt, it makes us more human, caring, and wise.

Can you grasp your right fist with your right hand? Obviously not -- your hand can't grasp itself. But there's another, less obvious reason why you can't do it: As soon as you open your right hand to grasp something, you no longer have a right fist.

He wondered how much had really changed. Mike Webster had gone mad and died. Junior Seau had gone mad and died. How many more players were out there? The league had embraced BU's researchers and given them money. When the NFL didn't like the message, it cast BU aside and picked another partner and shelled out more money.

Okay, so, sometimes in life, I can be a score-keeper - someone who keeps track of what he gives and what he gets in return. An annoying quality, to say the least, and I'm sure my wife has your sympathy, but it's made me highly attuned to when and where credit is due.

to discriminate between the real and artificial is the beginning of wisdom;

WILL'S RULES FOR LIVING #10: WHEN VISITING A FOREIGN LAND, IT IS ALWAYS WISE TO OBSERVE AND ABIDE BY THE CUSTOMS OF THE LOCAL CULTURE. UNLESS THEY'RE TRYING TO EAT YOU.

WILL'S RULES FOR LIVING #15: AN OPEN DOOR IS EITHER A GREETING OR A TRAP. BEST TO DECIDE WHICH BEFORE YOU ENTER.

everything else out of his mind the way

Knowing isn't understanding

And I understand my sisters when they say every woman has a story that's been told a maxim of one soul, maybe less And that is why you'll never hear me call a woman slut, bitch or a dyke, No matter what she does, because I do not blame her I blame the men who have emotionally and physically raped her, I blame these corporations whose images tell them they hate her, And I put my arms on her shoulder and tell her how great to life and to God that SHE created her

While the simple act of naming the emotions you feel at each stage in a crisis is part of the solution, it's just the first step.

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way." —DORIS LESSING Ordinary

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way." —DORIS LESSING

Step 1: Increase physical awareness. Impulses begin as physical sensations. Stop and notice what you feel and where you feel it. In your stomach? Head? Neck? Chest? Step 2: Increase emotional awareness. Try to connect the physical sensation to an emotion. Why do you feel tense? What do you feel angry about? What are you afraid of?

Perceiving is believing. Misperceiving is deceiving— And worse yet, prevents achieving. The

Think about what you're thinking. When you consciously analyze the ideas you've formed about a person and weigh these perceptions against reality, you can rewire your brain and build new, more accurate perceptions. Then you'll be communicating with the person who's really in front of you—not the fictitious character conjured up by your false perceptions.