Best 1901 quotes in «mindfulness quotes» category

Which is more important… to make a million dollars, or to enjoy your life in your effort, little by little, even thought it is impossible to make that million; to be successful, or to find some meaning in your effort to be successful?

Whether this moment is happy or not depends on you. It`s you who makes the moment happy, not the moment that makes you happy. With mindfulness, concentration, and insight, any moment can become a happy moment.

Whether we are in the city, the countryside, or the wilderness, we need to sustain ourselves by choosing our surroundings carefully and nourishing our awareness in each moment.

Whether you define the heart as the organ that pumps your blood, the emotional energy center in the center of your chest, or the complicated chemical symphony coursing through your body, love is truly at the center of the matter.

While practicing mindfulness, don't be dominated by the distinction between good and evil, thus creating a battle within oneself.

While religions and mystical traditions attempt to address the same spiritual questions with which all human beings wrestle, a religious person demands answers to questions that have no answers and attempts to demand harmony from the paradox of life. The result is less wisdom and varying degrees of both internal and external chaos. A mystic, on the other hand, contemplates and makes peace with unanswered questions. The great paradox is that sitting quietly with unanswered questions is the doorway to wisdom, balance, and peace.

While the opportunity to improve yourself and your situation is a great thing, our striving to build perfect lives seems to have morphed into perfectionism so focused on itself that we forget about others in the world. We work so hard to build the ultimate luxury sedan, to embody society's standard of beauty, and to achieve historical scientific breakthroughs that we conveniently forget our family members in other parts of the world who must walk miles each day in their only set of clothing for the opportunity to go to school.

While we may believe the circumstances of our lives have led us to think in a certain way, it is more accurate to say that the way we think is affecting the circumstances of our lives.

While there is always room for improvement and personal growth, it is important to remember that you are enough in this moment - just as you are.

Wholehearted acceptance is a basic element of love, starting with love for ourselves, and a gateway to joy. Through the practices of loving kindness and self-compassion, we can learn to love our flawed and imperfect selves. And in those moments of vulnerability, we open our hearts to connect with each other, as well. We are not perfect, but we are enough.

Whom are we attracted to? People who have the same traits as we have, but more so. We want to be in their company because subconsciously we feel that by doing so we, too, might manifest more of those traits as well. By the same token we are repelled by people who reflect back to us traits that we deny in our own selves. So if you are having a strong negative reaction to someone, you can be sure that they possess some traits in common with you, traits that you are not willing to embrace. If you were willing to accept those qualities, then they wouldn’t upset you.

Why do we call yoga a practice? The yoga poses of life—the grief, the fear, the uncertainty—rarely offer us the option of coming to child pose or modifying the posture. The yoga mat offers us a safe and controlled environment in which we can witness our challenges, embrace our discomfort, and hold space for our struggles. A yoga practice doesn’t prevent the storms of life, but it does teach us to weather those storms more gracefully.

WHY PARADIGMS MATTER Ideas drive results. People's beliefs drive their actions. Actions that stem from a simple, complete and accurate paradigm result in personal fulfillment, harmonious relationships, and economic prosperity. Actions based on false, incomplete and inaccurate paradigms, however well intended or passionately defended, are the cause of widespread misery, suffering and deprivation. As detailed in Rethinking Survival: Getting to the Positive Paradigm of Change, a fatal information deficit explains the worldwide leadership deficit and related budget deficits. In a dangerous world where psychological and economic warfare compete with religious extremism and terrorism to undo thousands of years of incremental human progress, a healing balance is urgently needed. Restoring a simple, complete and accurate paradigm of leadership and relationships now could make the difference between human survival on the one hand, and the extinction of the human race (or the end of civilization as we know it), on the other. p. 7.

With art, my heart and mind are fine-tuned.

With all of these chemical impulses bouncing around the body and the complicated and amazing arrangement of cells within us, it is not surprising that sometimes things go a bit awry when we throw in our fast-paced, modern lives. Enter mindfulness, the elixir of peace and calm.

With attachment all that seems to exist is just me & that object I desire.

with each measured step, we know this earth is only as solid as we are.

Within each being exists the voice of wisdom: a quiet and unassuming voice that longs to guide us out of darkness, to lift the veil of ignorance and shepherd the seeker to higher ground. Whether one calls it the Sadguru, the Holy Spirit, or the Still Small Voice, one thing is certain—this inner voice will never yell or compete for attention. Only by quieting the mind can this voice be heard. But when you take the time to listen—really listen—this voice is as evident as the warm sun on your face.

Within yourself is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.

With mindfulness, loving kindness, and self-compassion, we can begin to let go of our expectations about how life and those we love should be.

With mindfulness you do not need to exclude any thought, emotion, or experience.

Without a past, future, or name who are you? Nobody? Without a past, future, or name do you have a problem?

Without energy being invested in resisting the unwanted or dueling with fears, we have more energy and attention available for noticing not only the disturbing, but the wonderful...When we are not fixated on threat and defending ourselves, when we're not exhausted and burned out from chronic stress, we are able to see the daily evidence that we are in the midst of a mind-blowing miracle called Life....Then we will experience breathtaking, heart-rippling moments that counterbalance every trial and tribulation. When we're fully conscious of the universe's artistry and generosity, who needs psychodelics or Prozac?

Without the mind, the idea of worthiness would not exist.

With the right mindset, we can’t lose, we either practice what we’ve learned or we learn what we need to practice.

Words can’t harm you when they don’t mean anything to you.

Work done is of more consequence for the future than the foresight of an angel.

Working rightly, the brain is the highest form of "instinctual wisdom." Thus it should work like the homing instinct of pigeons and the formation of the foetus in the womb - without verbalizing the process of knowing "how" it does it. The self-conscious brain, like the self-conscious heart, is a disorder, and manifests itself in the acute feeling of separation between "I" and my experience.

Work, he tells them one night, is a kind of prayer.

Write that novel, sail that boat. And if you can't, immerse yourself in the fantasy, be the ultimate dabbler, just enjoy what it is you enjoy. It'll help you get well if you're going to get well, and it'll help you sail that great boat in the sky if that's what's going to happen. Onwards and Upwards. No regrets.

With 70,000 thoughts a day and 95% of our activity controlled by the subconscious mind, no wonder that it feels as though we are asleep most of the time. To awake, we need to train Self-Remembering and Mindfulness.

With a beginner’s mind, we can all become more fluid in our understanding and thereby pave the way for a more fulfilling and balanced future.

With a clear intention and a willing spirit, sooner or later we experience the joy and freedom that arises when we recognize our common humanity with others and see that real love excludes no one.

Within your body at any given time is an elaborate and finely tuned orchestra of chemical messages being shared throughout every system and synapse you have.

Within your ego mind there is a prison cell. Its bars are made of resentment and the door is hung on the hinges of disappointment and unfulfilled expectations. It is a cell, or so you imagine, for those you have not yet forgiven. This prison cell only lacks one thing—a lock for the door. And so you must hold the door shut by force of will—expending tremendous energy to hold the door shut— energy that would otherwise be used to cultivate joy, creativity, and passion.

With mindfulness there is more to unlearn than there is to learn.

Without relying on any deities, mantras, or mandalas, without having to master the intricacies of any doctrine or philosophy, I vividly understood what it meant to be a fragile, impermanent creature in a fragile, impermanent world. The mindfulness sharpened my attention to everything that was going on within and around me. My body became a tingling, pulsing mass of sensations. At times when I sat outside I felt as though the breeze were blowing through me. The sheen of the grass was more brilliant, the rustling leaves were like a chorus in an endlessly unfolding symphony. At the same time there was a deep stillness and poise at the core of this vital awareness.

Without suffering there cannot be happiness. Without mud there cannot be any lotus flowers.

Without the ability to be present we are missing much of what the adventure has to offer.

With silence comes mindfulness, and thus we become better at choosing our words with kind intent before we express them.

Witnessing is the alchemy of enlightenment. It can transform mud into gold.

With the strength of God, we shall overcome every struggle.

Witnessing is not flowing with the current of the river but observing the flow from the bank of the river.

WOMEN If you want to imagine the world without women, imagine a world without love and light.

Work. Good, honest work, whether it’s working with your hands to create an artwork, or manual labour, brings forth a sense of divinity at play. The only prerequisite is that whatever the work is, it is done sincerely and in congruence with the soul’s true origin and intent, then, without any effort, one experiences a flow, wherein one feels a part of the plan of the entire universe.

Worrying does not accomplish anything. Even if you worry twenty times more, it will not change the situation of the world. In fact, your anxiety will only make things worse. Even though things are not as we would like, we can still be content, knowing we are trying our best and will continue to do so. If we don't know how to breathe, smile,and live every moment of our life deeply, we will never be able to help anyone. I am happy in the present moment. I do not ask for anything else. I do not expect any additional happiness or conditions that will bring about more happiness. The most important practice is aimlessness, not running after things, not grasping.

WORK Work is never hard or soft; it becomes hard when we have no heart in it.

Xerxes, I read, ‘halted his unwieldy army for days that he might contemplate to his satisfaction’ the beauty of a single sycamore. You are Xerxes in Persia. Your army spreads on a vast and arid peneplain…you call to you all your sad captains, and give the order to halt. You have seen the tree with the lights in it, haven’t you? You must have. Xerxes buffeted on a plain, ambition drained in a puff. Your men are bewildered…there is nothing to catch the eye in this flatness, nothing but a hollow, hammering sky, a waste of sedge in the lee of windblown rocks, a meager ribbon of scrub willow tracing a slumbering watercourse…and that sycamore. You saw it; you will stand rapt and mute, exalted, remembering or not remembering over a period of days to shade your head with your robe. “He had its form wrought upon a medal of gold to help him remember it the rest of his life.” We all ought to have a goldsmith following us around. But it goes without saying, doesn’t it, Xerxes, that no gold medal worn around your neck will bring back the glad hour, keep those lights kindled so long as you live, forever present? Pascal saw it; he grabbed pen and paper and scrawled the one word, and wore it sewn in his shirt the rest of his life. I don’t know what Pascal saw. I saw a cedar. Xerxes saw a sycamore.

Yes, our goal as Christians should be to do away with the things in our world that keep people from knowing the love and freedom of Christ. Equally, and maybe more so, our goal should be noticing and doing away with the things on our own lives that keep people from understanding Christ as well. After all, don't the systematic injustices usually grow from the individual ones?

Yoga happens in the last 1% of a pose.