Best 1901 quotes in «mindfulness quotes» category

Maybe (Taoist story) A classic ancient story illustrates the importance of equanimity and emotional resilience beautifully. Once upon a time, there was a wise old farmer who had worked on the land for over 40 years. One morning, while walking to his stable, he noticed that his horse had run away. His neighbours came to visit and sympathetically said to the farmer, “Such bad luck”. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following morning, however, the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “Such good luck,” the neighbours exclaimed. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following afternoon, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses and was thrown off, causing him to break his leg. The neighbours came to visit and tried to show sympathy and said to the farmer, “how unfortunate”. “Maybe,” answered the farmer. The following morning military officials came to the farmer’s village to draft young men into the army to fight in a new war. Observing that the farmer’s son’s leg was broken, they did not draft him into the war. The neighbours congratulated him on his good luck and the farmer calmly replied, “Maybe”.

Maybe what we really need is to change our relationship to what is, to see who we are with the strength of a generous spirit & a wise heart.

May you always remember the Beloved is your divine and sacred self.

May your sleep be your death, and your wakefulness be your heaven.

Meditation can be a refuge, but it is not a practice in which real life is ever excluded. The strength of mindfulness is that it enables us to hold difficult thoughts and feelings in a different way—with awareness, balance, and love

Meditation does not involve trying to change your thinking by thinking some more. It involves watching thought itself. The watching is the holding. By watching your thoughts without being drawn into them, you can learn something profoundly liberating about thinking itself, which may help you to be less of a prisoner of those thought patterns (….)

Mediation on the Scriptures will renew your mind.

Meditation brings Nirvana, and Nirvana brings Buddhahood.

Medicate less and meditate more.

Meditation and mindfulness are tools for working with the mind, but where they have led me is to a blossoming of the heart...

Meditation can be a doorway to mindfulness.

Meditation alone cannot heal the world, but it can and does speed up the healing process.

Meditation has enabled me to transform from the soulless entity living on automatic to the being that could walk into the office with a big smile on my face for no good reason.

Meditation is a method-less act – an act of contemplation – an act of being. And this contemplation or this being is not a buddhist thing, a hindu thing or a jewish thing – it is simply a human thing. No pranayama, vipassana or kabala has any kind of exclusive authority over meditation whatsoever. All these ways are merely the means of the novice to begin the journey. But the means is not the real act itself. Seeing the method of meditation as meditation itself, is like confusing the menu for the meal. The real journey takes place when there is no means whatsoever – when the self does not need to make efforts to be the self – that’s real meditation – the meditation where you simply are who you are and do not seek methods to attain a superficial state of mind.

Meditation isn’t only the act of successfully keeping your attention on the breath, it’s the whole period of time you spend with the intention to observe the breath. It is this intention and its application — not your success at achieving perfect concentration — that is responsible for the benefits of meditation.

Meditation is our number one tool in the quest for greater mindfulness.

Meditation is the alchemist of the soul. It transforms disappointment into acceptance; betrayal into forgiveness; scarcity into abundance; loneliness into self acceptance; fear into love; despair into hope; anxiety into peace; and apathy into compassion.

Meditation may be done in silence & stillness, by using voice & sound, or by engaging the body in movement. All forms emphasize the training of attention.

Meditation is not about what's happening, it is about how we're relating to what's happening.

Meditation isn’t what most people think,’ she said. ‘You’re meditating right now, in the way that you’re focused on what I’m saying. If your mind was somewhere else—if you were thinking about the Saints game or what you might have for dessert—that’s not meditation. You have to be here, now. Inhabit the present moment, because that’s the only way to find lasting happiness. If you think happiness is somewhere out there, you’ll spend your whole life chasing it, and once you find something that looks like happiness, it will change without warning. You have to accept yourself as you are, happy to be breathing, to be present in this moment.

Meditation is the best tool for neutralizing the voice in the head. It's a muzzle for the ego. Being mindful is an innate but underused ability we all have, the act of being aware without judging. When you repeatedly go through the cycle of trying to focus on your breath, losing that focus, and noticing and returning to the practice, you are literally building your mindfulness muscle the same way dumbbell curls build your biceps. As this mind-muscle develops, you start being way more aware of thoughts, emotions, and sensations as what they really are: squirts of chemicals & hormones that enter, peak and then fade completely back to the nothingness of which they arose. In other words, mindfulness provides space between impulse and action, so you're not a slave to whatever pops into your head. You are not your thoughts. You are the awareness of them.

Meditation is the brain's way to exercise.

Meditation on the self is the highest form of true method-less meditation, for it brings self-awareness – which is beyond the everyday joy and sorrow. True meditation does not put you in control of your sorrow, rather it takes your mind beyond that very sorrow, as well as joy, into the kingdom of contentment – a kingdom without ideology – without cognitive extremes, such as radical rationalism, radical romanticism or radical emotionalism. In that kingdom, you simply are a human, with no name, no nationality, no tradition, no culture, no religion, no gender and no social image – simply a human.

Meditation has nothing to do with achieving a result. It is not a matter of breathing in a particular way, or looking at your nose, or awakening the power to perform certain tricks, or any of the rest of that immature nonsense…. Meditation is not something apart from life. When you are driving a car or sitting in a bus, when you are chatting aimlessly, when you are walking by yourself in a wood or watching a butterfly being carried along by the wind—to be choicelessly aware of all that is part of meditation.

Meditation is about mindfulness and learning to strip away the illusion, revealing your authentic self and connectedness to everything and everyone.

Meditation is a method-less act.

Meditation is essentially training our attention so that we can be more aware— not only of our own inner workings but also of what’s happening around us in the here & now.

Meditation is good for the elderly, great for adults, even greater for children, and greater still for pregnant women. So, meditate and be well.

Meditation is not evasion; it is a serene encounter with reality.

Meditation is a practice that fosters mental stamina, perseverance, and the ability to openly receive.

Meditation is a secular practice, not a religious practice.

Meditation is the art of silencing the mind so that you may hear the inklings of the Soul.

Meditation is the vitamin for your mind.

Mental illness is a bigger problem than obesity and cardiovascular diseases in the modern western world but still we pay no homage to the philosophy of watching what we watch. We only worry about what we put in the body in the form of food and care very little, if at all, with what we consume in our minds.

Metta can only be founded in its most sympathetic and authentic form when it comes from the most humble and truest of intentions.

Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves. We can open to everything with the healing force of love. When we feel love, our mind is expansive and open enough to include the entirety of life in full awareness, both its pleasures and its pains, we feel neither betrayed by pain or overcome by it, and thus we can contact that which is undamaged within us regardless of the situation. Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be.

Mindfulness and fearless presence bring true protection.

Mindfulness develops the ability to be a real friend to ourselves.

Mindfulness gives freedom from negative and fixed mindset to positive and growth mindset.

Mindfulness is a quiet mind, an aware mind. Mindfulness itself is not about ‘arriving,’ but about being.

Mindfulness is a way of befriending ourselves and our experience.

Mindfulness is essential in our path toward personal growth. We cannot cannot change what we are not aware of.

Mindfulness is not chasing the moment but sipping the nectar of the moment.

Mindfulness is not entering into another planet. It is making you good at what you do. It is restoring your link to the source of life.

Mindfulness is the bedrock of all spiritual practice. With mindfulness, the simple becomes profound, and the common becomes extraordinary. Without mindfulness, even gold and silver will quickly lose their luster.

...mindfulness - it isn't a trick or a gimmick. It's being present in the moment. When I'm with you, I'm with you. Right now. That's all. No more and no less.

Mindfulness means intentionally being aware and engaged in the present moment.

Mindfulness meditation doesn't change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart's capacity to accept life as it is. It teaches the heart to be more accommodating, not by beating it into submission, but by making it clear that accommodation is a gratifying choice.

Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to being present. There is no "performance." There is just this moment. We are not trying to improve or to get anywhere else. We are not even running after special insights or visions. Nor are we forcing ourselves to be non-judgmental, calm, or relaxed. And we are certainly not promoting self-consciousness or indulging in self-preoccupation. Rather, we are simply inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intentino to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and now. Of course, with continued practice and the right kind of firm yet gentle effort, calmness and mindfulness and equanimity develop and deepen on their own, out of your commitment to dwell in stillness and to observe without reacting and judging. Realizatinos and insights, profound experiences of stillness and joy, do come. But it would be incorrect to say that we are practicing to make these experiences happen or that having more of them is better than having fewer of them.

Mindfulness allows us to shift the angle on our story and to remember that we have the capacity to learn and change in ways that are productive, not self-defeating.