Best 1901 quotes in «mindfulness quotes» category

Everyone wants to be happy, and there is a strong energy in us pushing us toward what we think will make us happy. But we may suffer a lot because of this. We need the insight that position, revenge, wealth, fame, or possessions are, more often than not, obstacles to our happiness. We need to cultivate the wish to be free of these things so we can enjoy the wonders of life that are always available — the blue sky, the trees, our beautiful children.

Every repast can have soul and can be enchanting; it asks for only a small degree of mindfulness and a habit of doing things with care and imagination. -Thomas Moore

Everything can turn around in a moment, if you just change your thoughts, and make different decisions. Listen to your heart.

Everything in existence is a manifestation of the one living being we call God. Everything is God.

Everything makes so much more sense, when you forget what life forces you to remember.

Everything is alive. The sun, the earth, plants, animals, humans - all are expressions of consciousness in varying degrees, consciousness manifesting as form.

Everything that exists somewhere in the world also exists in us.

Everything real is in the present moment. Only here can we find happiness and harmony, feel alive and do something that will change our future. Only here can we be with the people we love, enjoy the things we like and see beautiful places.

Every thought, feeling, and sensation within your body throughout the day offer you an opportunity to love. Good or bad, whatever you experience is a lesson or a reminder to connect with love.

Every time the mind wanders away from the awareness of the breath, notice that it has wandered and bring your awareness back to the breath. This can be likened to a rep in the gym—every time you bring your mind back, you are building your "muscle" of attention.

Every thought, word, and action plants seeds in the garden of your life. Are you planting seeds of love, compassion, peace, or those of anger, resentment and dissatisfaction? Choose wisely and tend your garden well.

Every time you decide to do one thing, you decide not to do another. Keep this in mind when deciding what to do next. What is the consequence of what you are about to do? Will this action, or inaction help or harm you? Stay mindfully present! Empower yourself in the now.

Evolution is messy. Oftentimes our brains evolve more quickly than our capacity to love. Science has unlocked many mysteries of the universe by harnessing the human capacity for critical thinking, logic, and observation. But without a spiritual science to help the heart keep pace, disaster is often the outcome. Rather than clean sources of energy, we develop atomic bombs. Rather than medicines that heal we develop biological and chemical weapons. Rather than technologies that allow us to share ideas and communicate, we find ourselves more isolated and lonely than ever. Yoga, meditation, and other mystical practices are the spiritual counterpoint to western science. One unlocks the mind, the other opens the heart; and together they reveal humanity’s true potential.

Expectation has brought me disappointment. Disappointment has brought me wisdom. Acceptance, gratitude and appreciation have brought me joy and fulfilment.

Experiment with giving away this energy--in little ways at first--directing it toward yourself and toward others with no thought of gain or return. Give more than you think you can, trusting that you are richer than you think. Celebrate this richness. Give as if you had inexhaustible wealth. This is called "kingly giving.

Extraordinary people are ordinary people making extraordinary decisions.

Fairy tales and stories of fantasy bridge the gap and inspires the heart and mind wherever religious thought reaches its limits or meets a dead end. In other words, fairy tales are spiritual in nature, rising above set dogmas and traditions to provide a modern and universal spiritual nourishment for the human soul.

FANTASIES It’s not a problem to build castles in the air; it becomes a problem when we start living in them.

Fear and paranoia create many of our worldly struggles. We get something in our minds and our distorted perception sculpts the reality of what we see. Even though what we see isn’t really there, we tend to act as if it is. We then begin to put people and things into boxes, labeling them, and limiting them due to our fears.

Fear is an illusionary place we travel to in our minds when we allow ourselves to move away from the heart.

Feeling good about yourself is the best sleeping pill of all.

Fear is what created the monster in the room, and in order to overcome the many problems and enslavements that we have today, it is not about getting rid of the monster, but about getting rid of the fear.

Feel the blessings of the moment, this will bring success in all matters.

Feel better, work better.

Fifteen years ago, a business manager from the United States came to Plum Village to visit me. His conscience was troubled because he was the head of a firm that designed atomic bombs. I listened as he expressed his concerns. I knew if I advised him to quit his job, another person would only replace him. If he were to quit, he might help himself, but he would not help his company, society, or country. I urged him to remain the director of his firm, to bring mindfulness into his daily work, and to use his position to communicate his concerns and doubts about the production of atomic bombs. In the Sutra on Happiness, the Buddha says it is great fortune to have an occupation that allows us to be happy, to help others, and to generate compassion and understanding in this world. Those in the helping professions have occupations that give them this wonderful opportunity. Yet many social workers, physicians, and therapists work in a way that does not cultivate their compassion, instead doing their job only to earn money. If the bomb designer practises and does his work with mindfulness, his job can still nourish his compassion and in some way allow him to help others. He can still influence his government and fellow citizens by bringing greater awareness to the situation. He can give the whole nation an opportunity to question the necessity of bomb production. Many people who are wealthy, powerful, and important in business, politics, and entertainment are not happy. They are seeking empty things - wealth, fame, power, sex - and in the process they are destroying themselves and those around them. In Plum Village, we have organised retreats for businesspeople. We see that they have many problems and suffer just as others do, sometimes even more. We see that their wealth allows them to live in comfortable conditions, yet they still suffer a great deal. Some businesspeople, even those who have persuaded themselves that their work is very important, feel empty in their occupation. They provide employment to many people in their factories, newspapers, insurance firms, and supermarket chains, yet their financial success is an empty happiness because it is not motivated by understanding or compassion. Caught up in their small world of profit and loss, they are unaware of the suffering and poverty in the world. When we are not int ouch with this larger reality, we will lack the compassion we need to nourish and guide us to happiness. Once you begin to realise your interconnectedness with others, your interbeing, you begin to see how your actions affect you and all other life. You begin to question your way of living, to look with new eyes at the quality of your relationships and the way you work. You begin to see, 'I have to earn a living, yes, but I want to earn a living mindfully. I want to try to select a vocation not harmful to others and to the natural world, one that does not misuse resources.' Entire companies can also adopt this way of thinking. Companies have the right to pursue economic growth, but not at the expense of other life. They should respect the life and integrity of people, animals, plants and minerals. Do not invest your time or money in companies that deprive others of their lives, that operate in a way that exploits people or animals, and destroys nature. Businesspeople who visit Plum Village often find that getting in touch with the suffering of others and cultivating understanding brings them happiness. They practise like Anathapindika, a successful businessman who lived at the time of the Buddha, who with the practise of mindfulness throughout his life did everything he could to help the poor and sick people in his homeland.

Find your stillness. Find your acceptance. Find your gratitude. And most of all find you in the magic. You’re there. You’re the magic moment. Now let it happen and it will. Believe in yourself.

First, people were not thinking about what they were doing 47 per cent of the time. Second, people were unhappier when their minds were wandering than they were not. And third, what people were thinking was a better predictor of their happiness than what they were doing.

Finding ways to protect yourself and promote your own well-being is the most basic investment you can make. [...] The foundation of your investment, the key to transforming your professional life, is mindfulness. Mindfulness is the energy of attention. It is the capacity in each of us to be present one hundred percent to what is happening within and around us. It is the miracle that allows us to become fully alive in each moment. [...] The fruit of mindfulness practice is the realization that peace and joy are available within us and around us, right here and right now.

Flight of my mind rises beneath the seagull’s wings …then ocean is my motherland I feel.

Flood a pool of bloody thoughts with a pool of happy ones.

Followers accept answers. Leaders ask questions.

Follow emptiness, the rise and fall of breath, the sun greeting the moon, one thought dissolving into the next. Let all preconceptions fall away. Let the purity of each moment rise up. Your own mind is unsubstantial like the sky.

... for as the reality of light cannot be proved or described in terms of visible shape, the reality of the infinite cannot be proved in terms of the finite. For this reason every attempt to prove the existence of God by logic is a foregone failure. Logic cannot reach God. It may travel backwards in time from effect to cause, effect to cause, but as long as it stays in time, as it must, it cannot touch the eternal. That which doesn't not begin with the infinite cannot end with it.

Focusing on what we have, instead of what we don’t, keeps us in the present moment.

Food and eating often mask our pain, our inner longing for God, for acceptance. It is key to know our motivation for eating as well as for other actions. Why do I eat? Am I tired, am I bored, am I stressed and tired? A good practice is to live in the present moment, aware of the reality in which I am immersed.

For all human beings, everything begins and ends with the brain. Every move we make, every instinct we have, every problem we solve, every complicated emotional scenario we could conjure, every moment of joy, and every moment of pain are the result of the interplay between our brain, our body, and the world around us.

Forcing Your body into a yoga pose is like brushing your teeth with a wire brush. You may get rid of the plaque but gingivitis will be the least of your concerns.

Forgiveness is a personal process that doesn’t depend on us having direct contact with the people who have hurt us.

Forgiveness is not something we do; rather it is a process of reminding yourself over and over again that holding a resentment only hurts yourself. Once you embrace that truthfully, forgiveness simply happens on its own

Forget mindfulness. You just have to be a gorgeous lazy slacker.

Forgiveness is the way we break the grip that long-held resentments have on our hearts.

For me, better is energy-giving, flourishing, stretching, thriving, making progress one step at a time.

[F]or so many people, a large part of their sense of self is intimately connected with their problems. Once this has happened, the last thing they want is to become free of them; that would mean loss of self.

For some people, being a Zen monk is the perfect expression. For others, drinking beer and calling meditation hogwash is the perfect expression. Some teachers will tell you to sweep the floor mindfully, and others will tell you that your mindful sweeping is only a dream. Life is wonderfully playful and diverse.

For those few stolen minutes, she found she could let go, second by second, of everything that haunted her until her mind was empty as a scoured bowl and all she knew was flavor on her tongue, air against her face, the small, dazzling details of her scrap of world.

For while we are now blessed with "24/7 connectivity" so we can be in touch with anybody anywhere at any time, we may be finding, ironically enough, that it is more difficult than ever to actually be in touch with ourselves. What is more, we may feel that we have less time in which to do it, although each of us still gets the same twenty-four hours a day as everybody else. It's just that we fill up those hours with so much doing, we scarcely have time for being anymore, or even for "catching our breath.

For people like us, looking towards the future can feel daunting. It can literally make us feel sick to the stomach and often induces panic attacks. Trust me, I’ve been there; I get it. That’s why the far-future should never be at the top of our “to-plan” list. It’s alright to have goals but to stress ourselves out with plans and options and worries of the future is a good way to drive us crazy. However, there is one time when I want you to consider the future. Always have something to look forward to.

For two years I’ve been a monk but the only monastery I’ve lived in is my own mind.

Freedom of will is our birthright.

Freedom means either be mindful or do not mind.