Best 1901 quotes in «mindfulness quotes» category

[I]f you can be with the pleasant without chasing after it, with the unpleasant without resisting it, and with the neutral without ignoring it - [...] that is an incredible [...] freedom.

İf you can change your brain, by the use of mindfulness and meditation, you can also change your life. Your life is what you think about your life. And whatever you think is closely related to what is going on in the brain.Therefore, let's start with a change in the brain.

If you can let go of fear and anger, you’ve already won.

If you could possibly understand how precious and powerful your experience of this one lifetime as yourself is, you wouldn't be trying to go anywhere else. If you could know the perfection of time and space, You would slow each moment down To drain every possible nuance of juice and flavor from it. When you leave this place, your body and mind and the earth which holds you, you will look back and only wish you had known the immense richness that you hurried through trying to find other better states of being. But this is the best bite. Heaven is here. Nirvana is now. As soon as you know that for sure Your life will never be the same again. In fact, in every way it seeks to get your attention. begs you to awaken to the magic right before your eyes.

If you don't waste your energy on variables you cannot influence, you can focus much more effectively on those you can. (Mark Epstein)

If you feel irritation or depression or despair, recognize their presence and practice this mantra: "Dear one, I am here for you." You should talk to your depression or your anger as you would to a child. You embrace it tenderly with the energy of mindfulness and say, "Dear one, I know you are there, and I am going to take care of you," just as you would with your crying baby.

If you find that you are a worrier, you might want to consider that the more you worry about each specific thing, the more likely you’ll bring it into reality.

If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

If you have mindfulness, if you feel safe, you recognize that you have plenty of conditions to be happy already, and that you don't need to run into the future in order to get a few more conditions.

If you know how to be happy with the wonders of life that are already there for you to enjoy, you don't need to stress your mind and your body by striving harder and harder, and you don't need to stress this planet by purchasing more and more stuff. The Earth belongs to our children. We have already borrowed too much from it, from them; and the way things have been going, we're not sure we'll be able to give it back to them in decent shape. And who are our children, actually? They are us, because they are our own continuation. So we've been shortchanging our own selves. Much of our modern way of life is permeated by mindless overborrowing. The more we borrow, the more we loser. That's why it's critical that we wake up and see we don't need to do that anymore. What's already available in the here and now is plenty for us to be nourished, to be happy. Only that kind of insight will get us, each one of us, to stop engaging in the compulsive, self-sabotaging behaviors of our species. We need a collective awakening. One Buddha is not enough. All of us have to become Buddhas in order for our planet to have a chance. Fortunately, we have the power to wake up, to touch enlightenment from moment to moment, in our very own ordinary and, yes, busy lives. So let's start right now. Peace is your every breath.

If you listen to birds, every day will have a song in it.

If you love too much, you lose yourself. If you love too little, you never find yourself.

If you look for problems hard enough, you’re bound to find one.

If you live well, you will be shocked and surprised to see how, at the end of your life, it all turns out. But like any great novel, the clues have always been there and the plot twists and turns were hidden in plain sight.

If you make time for the nonsense, good or bad, it will continue to seek you out.

If you meditate in perfect peace and then flash someone an irritable look because they make noise or their child cries, you are entirely missing the point.

If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do so prayerfully. However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present... gratefully.

If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life. It’s so clear. Mindfulness is the energy and practice that helps you go back to the here and now so that you encounter life.

If you're always racing to the next moment, what happens to the one you're in? Slow down and enjoy the moment you're in and live your life to the fullest.

If you really want to remove a cloud from your life, you do not make a big production of it, you just relax and remove it from your thinking. That's all there is to it.

If you’re living in the present...you only have to deal with what’s actually going on in that moment.

If your mind can move mountains and swallow gods, Why does it worry with helpless yesterdays and unborn tomorrows? If it can vomit stars and walk on split hairs, Why must it follow the same path to despair? Everyone will tell you: 'An orgasm here is just as good.

If your mind is clear and at peace, then your path leads to joy and happiness. However, if your mind is cluttered and frantic, then your path leads to suffering and frustration.

If your mind wanders, all that means is that you’re alive and your brain is functioning normally, which is great news!

If you’ve been thinking negative thoughts for long enough, you have probably come to believe in and identify with them.

If you’ve ever held on to a pair of shoes that make your feet ache or a pair of pants that no longer fit you for no other reason than you paid a lot of money for them, you’ve experienced the sunk-cost bias.

If you want to improve your life begin with mindfulness, presence, and self-awareness. Do the work to improve the relationship you have with yourself.

If you were your thoughts and feelings, than who is it that is aware of those thoughts and feelings? Can thoughts be aware of themselves, or rather are you something greater than your thoughts?

I get so god damn lonely and sad and filled with regrets some days. It overwhelms me as I’m sitting on the bus; watching the golden leaves from a window; a sudden burst of realisation in the middle of the night. I can’t help it and I can’t stop it. I’m alone as I’ve always been and sometimes it hurts…. but I’m learning to breathe deep through it and keep walking. I’m learning to make things nice for myself. To comfort my own heart when I wake up sad. To find small bits of friendship in a crowd full of strangers. To find a small moment of joy in a blue sky, in a trip somewhere not so far away, a long walk an early morning in December, or a handwritten letter to an old friend simply saying ”I thought of you. I hope you’re well.” No one will come and save you. No one will come riding on a white horse and take all your worries away. You have to save yourself, little by little, day by day. Build yourself a home. Take care of your body. Find something to work on. Something that makes you excited, something you want to learn. Get yourself some books and learn them by heart. Get to know the author, where he grew up, what books he read himself. Take yourself out for dinner. Dress up for no one but you and simply feel nice. it’s a lovely feeling, to feel pretty. You don’t need anyone to confirm it. I get so god damn lonely and sad and filled with regrets some days, but I’m learning to breathe deep through it and keep walking. I’m learning to make things nice for myself. Slowly building myself a home with things I like. Colors that calm me down, a plan to follow when things get dark, a few people I try to treat right. I don’t sometimes, but it’s my intent to do so. I’m learning.I’m learning to make things nice for myself. I’m learning to save myself. I’m trying, as I always will.

I guess it's human nature to question yourself, to question why all the pain has had to happen? sometimes there isn't any answers it just is what it is and how we make ourselves feel and see through that, is what will determine how we move forward.

I have a fear of living a surface kind of life; barely existing, barely touching or tasting anything. That's why you'll always see me giving my all or walking away ~ I'm too full of depth to dance in the middle of anything.

I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering, and like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt’ring eye and say, “Do you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?” The poor wretch flees. I am not making chatter; I mean to change his life.

I have been asked many times, "How do you stop thinking?" And I have found one way. The minute I can look at any person or condition and know that it is neither good nor evil, my thought stops, and my mind becomes quiet. That is the end of it because then there are no thoughts left for me to think about it: I do not think good of it and I do not think evil of it. All I know is that it is, and then I am back at the center of my being where all power is. Our mind is restless only when we are thinking about things or persons, either in terms of good or evil, but the mind is at rest when we surrender all such concepts.

I have never seen battles quite as terrifyingly beautiful as the ones I fight when my mind splinters and races, to swallow me into my own madness, again.

I have only been a ‘Poor Me’ once or twice in my life…. And that was my own fault.

I have only dwelt in my thoughts.

I honor truth I practice truth I live

I honor you for every time this year you: got back up vibrated higher shined your light and loved and elevated beyond —the call of duty.

Ik kan de tijd niet langzamer laten gaan, maar ik kan hem wel beter besteden.

In meditation we discover our inherent restlessness. Sometimes we get up and leave. Sometimes we sit there but our bodies wiggle and squirm and our minds go far away. This can be so uncomfortable that we feel’s it’s impossible to stay. Yet this feeling can teach us not just about ourselves but what it is to be human…we really don’t want to stay with the nakedness of our present experience. It goes against the grain to stay present. These are the times when only gentleness and a sense of humor can give us the strength to settle down…so whenever we wander off, we gently encourage ourselves to “stay” and settle down. Are we experiencing restlessness? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What’s for lunch? Stay! I can’t stand this another minute! Stay!”

I learned that when we can be absolutely present like this, our mind, body and spirit become integrated and we are fully conscious, energised, peaceful, alive, at one with the true essence of what it is to be ourselves. In that moment, we can relate with compassion to those around us and to ourselves. It is when what we have satisfies us, and when what we don’t have doesn’t matter.

... I laughed simply because being this particular person in this particular world at this particular moment was cause for joy...

Imagine you’re at a movie, and the person sitting in front of you is so huge and fat you can’t see the screen because he’s completely blocking your view. He’s also talking loudly, so you can’t hear the movie. That person is you. You can’t see the perfection of your life, as it is right now, because you’re in your own way.

I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought or thoughtfulness.

… I’ll feel the magic, in the blissful daylight I’ll listen to the cheerful songs of nature And I will heal my soul, with joy and love ... (Excerpted from My kind of resilience, chapter Resilience)

… I’ll celebrate the waltz of stars, in endless harmony I’ll dream with my angels, in far away lands And I will send love letters, to my future self ... (Excerpted from My kind of resilience, chapter Resilience)

Imagine a world where people were 10% happier and less reactive. Marriage, parenting, road rage, politics - all would be improved upon. Public health revolutions can happen rapidly. Most Americans didn't brush their teeth until after world war 2 after soldiers were demanded to maintain oral hygiene. Exercise didn't get popular until science proved its benefits. Mindfulness, I had come to believe, could, in fact, change the world.

Imagine yourself having a fight with your romantic partner. The tension of the situation makes your limbic system run at full throttle and you become flooded with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenalin. The high levels of these chemicals suddenly make you so damn angry, that you burst out in front of your partner saying, “I wish you die, so that I can have some peace in my life”. Given the stress of the situation through highly active limbic system, your PFC loses its freedom to take the right decision and you burst out with foul language in front of your partner, that may ruin your relationship. In simple terms due to your mental instability, you lost your free will to make the right decision. But when the conversation is over, and you relax for a while, your stress hormone levels come down to normal, and you regain your usual cheerful state of mind. Immediately, your PFC starts analyzing the explosive conversation you had with your partner. Healthy activity of the entire frontal lobes, especially the PFC suddenly overwhelms you with a feeling of guilt. Your brain makes you realize, that you have done something devilish. As a result, now you find yourself making the willful decision of apologizing to your partner and making up to him or her, no matter how much effort it takes, because your PFC comes up the solution that it is the healthiest thing to do for your personal life. From this you can see, that what you call free will is something that is not consistent. It changes based on your mental health. Mental instability or illness, truly cripples your free will. And the healthier your frontal lobes are, the better you can take good decisions. And the most effective way to keep your frontal lobes healthy is to practice some kind of meditation.

I’m helped by a gentle notion from Buddhist psychology, that there are “near enemies” to every great virtue—reactions that come from a place of care in us, and which feel right and good, but which subtly take us down an ineffectual path. Sorrow is a near enemy to compassion and to love. It is borne of sensitivity and feels like empathy. But it can paralyze and turn us back inside with a sense that we can’t possibly make a difference. The wise Buddhist anthropologist and teacher Roshi Joan Halifax calls this a “pathological empathy” of our age. In the face of magnitudes of pain in the world that come to us in pictures immediate and raw, many of us care too much and see no evident place for our care to go. But compassion goes about finding the work that can be done. Love can’t help but stay present

… I’ll pray to God to give me strength and patience I’ll feel no pain, no vengeance, no regrets And I will learn to love again…myself, this time. ... (Excerpted from My kind of resilience, chapter Resilience)