Mindfulness Quotes

I experience each moment like baklava: rich in this layer, and this layer, and this layer.

The mistake we make is that when we're feeling another person is not treating us in the way that makes us feel secure and loved, we fixate our attention on that person and what's wrong with them. We also fixate on what's wrong with us. Instead, we can bring forward two wings of awareness: the wing of mindfulness (noticing what's going on inside us) and the wing of kindness (compassion to what's going on inside us).

Mindfulness is so powerful that the fact that it comes out of Buddhism is irrelevant.

Mindfulness, as defined by the Buddha, means awareness of incessant change, of arising and vanishing, inside of your own body, which is the ultimate reality of your own life.

All this hurrying soon will be over. Only when we tarry do we touch the holy.

No matter how many times you have failed you must keep going forward. Only when you have become humble will you begin to grasp the meaning of life.

The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind

Those who do not have faith in others will not be able to stand on their own.

By removing that which is petty and self-seeking, we bring forth all that is glorious and mindful of the whole.

None of this matters a bit. Yet, of course, it matters at that moment. So we try to be mindful of the moment; but it's fleeting.

The more I give myself permission to live in the moment and enjoy it without feeling guilty or judgmental about any other time, the better I feel about the quality of my work.

Mindfulness is paying attention to what is going on. Just look at beauty. Not just the beauty of things you see with your eyes, but beautiful feelings, beautiful awareness. There is no such thing as reality. Reality is what you make it.

How many times have you noticed that it's the little quiet moments in the midst of life that seem to give the rest extra-special meaning?

The ultimate expression of meditation comes when we can feel all the pains of the world, experience them with mindfulness and equanimity so they dissolve into energy, and then recolor that energy and radiate it out as unconditional love, moment by moment, through every pore of our being.

You should enjoy the present moment because this is all you have. Create for tomorrow, but live in and for today.

Mindfulness must be engaged. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. Otherwise, what's the use of seeing?

To me, bringing mindfulness-bas ed practices to students, teachers and parents is some of the most important work we can be doing. If we can help the next generation become more self-aware, empathetic and emotionally resilient, they will bring their wisdom to healing the earth and creating a more peaceful world.

Every present moment will offer itself as a window onto eternity, a doorway to the infinite.

Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.

It is necessary to go through all the daily tasks and bring perfection to them.

Mindfulness is both a state of being and a daily spiritual practice, a form of meditation.

Information is key to raising awareness of what our brain withholds from our conscious mind. Unfortunately we are hardwired emotion-driven thinkers. It takes effort and training to exercise introspection and mindfulness.

So too, monks, I saw the ancient path, the ancient road traveled by the Perfectly Enlightened Ones of the past. And what is that ancient path, that ancient road? It is just this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

The Noble Eight-Fold Path is the path of living in awareness. Mindfulness is the foundation. By practicing mindfulness, you can develop concentration, which enables you to attain understanding. Thanks to right concentration, you realize right awareness, thoughts, speech, action, livelihood and effort. The understanding which develops can liberate you from every shackle of suffering and give birth to true peace and joy.

Mindfulness develops attention, concentration and the ability to simply be present with little or no future orientation, past orientation or goal orientation—choosing to be a human being rather than a human doing.

By perfecting the practices of zazen and mindfulness, by learning patience and love and by realizing the essential emptiness of all phenomena, you will discover nirvana.

The closing of a door can bring blessed privacy and comfort - the opening, terror. Conversely, the closing of a door can be a sad and final thing - the opening a wonderfully joyous moment.

I pray as part of my mindfulness practice and try to recount my day, all my triumphs and foibles, before I go to sleep at night. These practices keep me calm for the most part.

Why, if we are as pragmatic as we claim, don't we begin to ask ourselves seriously: Where does our real future lie?

We must especially learn the art of directing mindfulness into the closed areas of our life.

If one were truly aware of the value of human life, to waste it blithely on distractions and the pursuit of vulgar ambitions would be the height of confusion.

Mindfulness is Buddha's word for meditation. By mindfulness he means: you should always remain alert, watchful. You should always remain present. Not a single thing should be done in a sort of sleepy state of mind. You should not move like a somnambulist, you should move with a sharp consciousness.

We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.

Mindful and creative, a child who has neither a past, nor examples to follow, nor value judgments, simply lives, speaks and plays in freedom.

To diminish the suffering of pain, we need to make a crucial distinction between the pain of pain, and the pain we create by our thoughts about the pain. Fear, anger, guilt, loneliness and helplessness are all mental and emotional responses that can intensify pain.

We all need a place that is safe and wholesome enough for us to return for refuge. In Buddhism, that refuge is mindfulness.

Love the moment and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries.

There is no promise of love and light or visions of any kind - no angels, no devils. Nothing happens: it is absolutely boring. Sometimes you feel silly. One often asks the question, "Who is kidding whom? Am I on to something or not?" You are not on to something. Traveling the path means you get off everything, there is no place to perch. Sit and feel your breath, be with it.

I don't think we are here for anything. We're just products of evolution. You can say, "Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don't think there's a purpose." But I'm anticipating a good lunch.

Our normal human tendencies are distraction and dissipation. We begin one task, then get seduced by some other option, and lose our focus. We drift away from what is difficult and we know to be true, to what is comfortable and socially condoned.

Forget about enlightenment. Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins. Feel the love, the longing and the fear in your bones. Open your heart to who you are, right now, not who you would like to be. Not the saint you're striving to become. But the being right here before you, inside you, around you. All of you is holy. You're already more and less than whatever you can know. Breathe out, look in, let go.

Why do some people always see beautiful skies and grass and lovely flowers and incredible human beings, while others are hard-pressed to find anything or any place that is beautiful?

Suddenly it makes sense again. In no haze of mindfulness, staring down at this snow-covered quilt of America, I am the stars exploding. Voice shot down to hell, half sick, half recovered, alive and well and ready. The unknown for now will remain as such and in this moment that feeling is not one of suspension. It is the hopeful unknown. Reaching into the future could only be good now as the past is wrapping itself in ribbons and pleasant packing paper, rarely to be revisited.

There are so many things that can provide us with peace. Next time you take a shower or a bath, I suggest you hold your big toes in mindfulness. We pay attention to everything except our toes. When we hold our toes in mindfulness and smile at them, we will find that our bodies have been very kind to us. We know that any cell in our toes can turn cancerous, but our toes have been behaving very well, avoiding that kind of problem. Yet, we have not been nice to them at all. These kinds of practices can bring us happiness.

Mindfulness, though so highly praised and capable of such great achievements, is not at all a "mystical" state, beyond the ken and reach of the average person. It is, on the contrary, something quite simple and common, and very familiar to us.

Be mindful of the words that you use and the actions that you live and who you are and how it is you use your power. Keep clear at all times that you are what you say you are.

Another way to look at meditation is to view thinking itself as a waterfall, a cascading of thought. In cultivating mindfulness, we are going beyond or behind our thinking, much the way you might find a vantage point in a cave or depression in the rock behind a waterfall. We still see and hear the water, but we are out of the torrent.

... circles of trust ... are a rare form of community - one that supports rather than supplants the individual quest for integrity - that is rooted in two basic beliefs. First, we all have an inner teacher whose guidance is more reliable than anything we can get from a doctrine, ideology, collective belief system, institution, or leader. Second, we all need other people to invite, amplify, and help us discern the inner teacher's voice.

Straight away, remove yourself from the field of spiritual progression , stay away from contemplation and skillful discourse, do not do research or meditate on the divinities, and stop concentrating and reciting textbooks! Tell me, what is the absolute nature of reality which allows no room for doubt? Listen carefully! Stop holding on to this or that, inhabit your true absolute nature, and peacefully enjoy the essence of what it is to be alive!

I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tching-thang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again."