315 Mindfulness Quotes

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.

Sit still. Stop thinking. Shut up. Get out! The first two of these instructions comprise the whole of the technique of Yoga. The last two are of a sublimity which it would be improper to expound in this present elementary stage.

I just want to live each moment, but it's kind of hard to do that when you are asked to analyze yourself constantly. But it's also good in that you are forced to think about things that you don't ordinarily think about. I think it's strange.

Any time you are with anyone or think of anyone you must say to yourself: I am dying and this person too is dying, attempting the while to experience the truth of the words you are saying. If every one of you agrees to practice this, bitterness will die out, harmony will arise.

Understand the obstructions you are putting in the way of love, freedom, and happiness and they will drop. Turn on the light of awareness and the darkness will disappear. Happiness is not something you acquire; love is not something you produce; love is not something you have; love is something that has you.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

The earth is my altar, the sky is my dome, mind is my garden, the heart is my home and I'm always at home - yea, I'm always at Om.

Heaven is home. Utopia is here. Nirvana is now.

What do I want to take home from my summer vacation? Time. The wonderful luxury of being at rest. The days when you shut down the mental machinery that keeps life on track and let life simply wander. The days when you stop planning, analyzing, thinking and just are. Summer is my period of grace.

Of pleasures, those which occur most rarely give the most delight.

Think of God more often than thou breathest.

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.

Rather than continuing to seek the truth, simply let go of your views.

Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.

I thought how sadly beauty of inscape was unknown and buried away from simple people and yet how near at hand it was if they had eyes to see it and it could be called out everywhere again.

Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies. And be it gash or gold it will not come Again in this identical guise.

Be careful what you swallow. Chew!

He has great tranquility of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men.

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.

There is not past, no future; everything flows in an eternal present.

If you aren't in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.

If it's dangerous to talk to yourself, it's probably even dicier to listen.

We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.

Wherever life takes us, there are always moments of wonder.

Value judgments are destructive to our proper business, which is curiosity and awareness.

The gay motes that people the sunbeams.

Fresh beauty opens one's eyes wherever it is really seen, but the very abundance and completeness of the common beauty that besets our steps prevents its being absorbed and appreciated. It is a good thing, therefore, to make short excursions now and then to the bottom of the sea among dulse and coral, or up among the clouds on mountain-tops, or in balloons, or even to creep like worms into dark holes and caverns underground, not only to learn something of what is going on in those out-of-the-way places, but to see better what the sun sees on our return to common every-day beauty.

Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.

You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.

To me there is in happiness an element of self-forgetfulness. You lose yourself in something outside yourself when you are happy; just as when you are desperately miserable you are intensely conscious of yourself, are a solid little lump of ego weighing a ton.

Compassion: 'One of the greatest things you can learn in life is to be compassionate. However many people do not understand the most critical thing about compassion; that true compassion includes compassion for yourself.'

Life: 'Life is a wonderful journey. I believe we should make good use of the precious time and talents we have been given. We should look at the world around us, as well as the mysteries within us, as we seek for understanding and harmony with self. The gift of thought is more than I can bear, and I am elated in gracious joy for each moment I have in this beautiful and painful experience called life.'

follow no path all paths lead where truth is here

Free your mind, and the ass will follow

Happy or unhappy, life is the only treasure which man possesses[.]

I reflected that everything happens to a man precisely, precisely now. Centuries of centuries and only in the present do things happen; countless men in the air, on the face of the earth and the sea, and all that really is happening is happening to me . . .

For fast acting relief, try slowing down.

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come.We have only today. Let us begin.

'What I like doing best is nothing. It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.'

Do you know what eternal life is? You think it's everlasting life. But your own theologians will tell you that that is crazy, because everlasting is still within time. It is time perduring forever. Eternal means timeless- no time. The human mind cannot understand that. The human mind can understand time and can deny time. What is timeless is beyond our comprehension. Yet the mystics tell us that eternity is right now. How's that for good news? It is right now. People are so distressed when I tell them to forget their past. They're crazy! Just drop it! When you hear 'Repent for your past,' realize it's a great religious distraction from waking up. Wake up! That's what repent means. Not 'weep for your sins.': Wake up! understand, stop all the crying. Understand! Wake up!

I felt a joy in my heart, which seemed filled with love, love for the sun, the snow, the wind and the hills, love for everything around me. It was in this mood that I walked down the snow-covered path dotted with black footprints. Further down the footprints mingled and made dirty little puddles. I picked my way over the thickest snow because I loved the crunching of snow underfoot. With the sunlight pouring down and a breeze in my face I felt that balmy spring was coming to meet me.

A trifle consoles us because a trifle upsets us. (136)

Be aware of doing your best to understand the ROOT in life, and realize the DIRECT and the INDIRECT are in fact a complementary WHOLE. It is to see things as they are and not to become attached to anything - to be unconscious meant to be be innocent of the working of a relative (empirical) mind - where there is no abiding of though anywhere on anything - this is being unbound. This not abiding anywhere is the root of our life.

Fourmillante cite, cite pleine de reves, Ou le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant!

Mais qu'importe l'eternite de la damnation a qui a trouve dans une seconde l'infini de la jouissance?

Jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft is not a natural act. So let's do it right, enjoy the view. Come on. (as Gunnery Sgt. Tom 'Gunny' Highway in 'Heartbreak Ridge' - 1986)

You only punch yourself out when you start swinging blind.

What I mean by the Principle of Oneness is this: That we must learn to realize that there's nothing separate or apart. That everything is part of everything else. That there's nothing above us, or below us, or around us. All is inherent within us. Like Jesus said, 'The Kingdom is Within.'

Making men live in three worlds at once-past, present and future has been the chief harm organized religion has done.

Fortify thyself with contentment: that is an impregnable stronghold.

Lucid intervals and happy pauses.

[Puis pour curieuse leczon, & meditation frequente] rompre l'os, & sugcer la substantificque mouelle.

Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says 'I'.

Life is no more than a dewdrop balancing on the end of a blade of grass.

Let us all be thankful for this day, for we have learned a great deal; if we have not learned a great deal, then at least we learned slightly; if we did not learn slightly, then at least we did not become sick; if we did become sick, then at least we did not die. So, let us all be thankful.

Desire is the cause for all your sickness and misery.

The Jewish religion has it completely right in maintaining you should think very carefully about what you eat.

He was happy now, without a care in the world. A meal alone with her, a stroll along the highway in the evening, the way she touched her hand to her hair, the sight of her straw hat hanging from a window hasp, and many other things in which it had never occurred to him to look for pleasure -- such now formed the steady current of his happiness.

One must talk about everything according to its nature, how it comes to be and how it grows. Men have talked about the world without paying attention to the world of their own minds, as if they were asleep or absent-minded.

The most perfect mind is a dry light.

'The prayer of a person is (in reality) a light in his heart, so whoever desires, can illuminate his heart (by means of prayers).'

Les gens sans esprit ressemblent aux mauvaises herbes qui se plaisent dans les bons terrains, et ils aiment d'autant plus etre amuses qu'ils s'ennuient eux-memes.

- Je suis tourmente par de mauvaises idees. - En quel genre? Ca se guerit, les idees. - Comment? - En y succombant.

La lucidite, de meme que les rayons du soleil, n'a d'effet que par la fixite de la ligne droite, elle ne devine qu'a la condition de ne pas rompre son regard; elle se trouble dans les sautillements de la chance.

Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum. grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur hora.

Do not seek pleasure everywhere but always be ready to find it.

If you don't get outside every day, even for a minute, you have not appreciated what God has done. It makes you grateful for our surroundings, and it starts your day differently.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me not to measure time by saying, 'It was yesterday, and will be tomorrow.' Before my Soul taught me, I imagined the past as an era not to be met with, and the future as an age that I would never witness. But now I know that in the brief moment of the present, all time exists, including everything that is in time - all that is eagerly anticipated, achieved, or realized. My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me not to define a place by saying 'here' or 'there'. Before my Soul taught me, I thought that when I was in any place on the earth I was remote from every other spot. But now I have learned that the place where I subsist is all places, and the space I occupy is all intervals.

The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be defined is not the unchanging name. Non-existence is called the antecedent of heaven and earth; Existence is the mother of all things. From eternal non-existence, therefore, we serenely observe the mysterious beginning of the Universe; From eternal existence we clearly see the apparent distinctions. These two are the same in source and become different when manifested. This sameness is called profundity. Infinite profundity is the gate whence comes the beginning of all parts of the Universe.

The tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be spoken is not the eternal Name. The nameless is the boundary of Heaven and Earth. The named is the mother of creation. Freed from desire, you can see the hidden mystery. By having desire, you can only see what is visibly real. Yet mystery and reality emerge from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness born from darkness. The beginning of all understanding.

The Tao is called the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds.

Since before time and space were, the Tao is. It is beyond is and is not. How do I know this is true? I look inside myself and see.

I am not at all interested in immortality, only in the taste of tea.

The day wears heavily, - why, then, ignore it; Peace is the soul's desire, - such thoughts restore it; The truth thou art, - it needs not implore it.

Where there's no stop and go a thought may wet your face, a breath arreat your stare.

'Fire is the first and final mask of my God. We dance and weep between two enormous pyres.' Our thoughts and our bodies flash and glitter with reflected light. Between the two pyres I stand serenely, my brain unshaken amid the vertigo, and I say: 'Time is most short and space most narrow between these two pyres, the rhythm of this life is most sluggish, and I have no time, nor a place to dance in. I cannot wait.' Then all at once the rhythm of the earth becomes a vertigo, time disappears, the moment whirls, becomes eternity, and every point in space - insect or star or idea - turns into dance.

Der Abend wechselt langsam die Gewander, die ihm ein Rand von alten Baumen halt.

Through such impressions one gathers oneself, wins oneself back from the exacting multiplicity, which speaks and chatters there (and how talkative it is!), and one slowly learns to recognize the very few Things in which something eternal endures that one can love and something solitary that one can gently take part in.

It must be immense, this silence, in which sounds and movements have room, and if one thinks that along with all this the presence of the distant sea also resounds, perhaps as the innermost note in this prehistoric harmony, then one can only wish that you are trustingly and patiently letting the magnificent solitude work upon you, this solitude which can no longer be erased from your life; which, in everything that is in store for you to experience and to do, will act as an anonymous influence, continuously and gently decisive, rather as the blood of our ancestors incessantly moves in us and combines with our own to form the unique, unrepeatable being that we are at every turning of our life.

Get up, sweet Slug-a-bed, and see The dew bespangling herb and tree.

Mindfulness of God, migrating from oneself to God - (which is the greatest migration)-, migration from ego to truth, and from this world to the Invisible, have all fortified you..

Within the body there are billions of different particles. Similarly, there are many different thoughts and a variety of states of mind. It is wise to take a close look into the world of your mind and to make the distinction between beneficial and harmful states of mind. Once you can recognize the value of good states of mind, you can increase or foster them.

Beat all your feathers as flat down as pancakes.

'Personal density,' Kurt Mondaugen in his Peenemunde office not too many steps away from here, enunciating the Law which will one day bear his name, 'is directly proportional to temporal bandwidth.' 'Temporal bandwidth,' is the width of your present, your now. It is the familiar '? t' considered as a dependent variable. The more you dwell in the past and in the future, the thicker your bandwidth, the more solid your persona. But the narrower your sense of Now, the more tenuous you are.

Bethou me, said sparrow, to the crackled blade, And you, and you, bethou me as you blow, When in my coppice you behold me be.

Knowledge and meaning can be too earnestly sought after. for the boy who, blind or helpless, can lie around and find moonlight and dancing girls going about their business in the secrecy of his mind alone.

The business of polishing my shoes satisfies my soul.

Today is Sunday. For the first time they took me out into the sun today. And for the first time in my life I was aghast that the sky is so far away and so blue and so vast I stood there without a motion. Then I sat on the ground with respectful devotion leaning against the white wall. Who cares about the waves with which I yearn to roll Or about strife or freedom or my wife right now. The soil, the sun and me... I feel joyful and how.

Teacher (Shaolin Master - Mr. Lee's Teacher): What is the highest technique you hope to achieve? Student (Character - Mr. Lee): To have no technique. Teacher: Very good. What are your thoughts when facing an opponent? Student: There is no opponent. Teacher: And, why is that? Student: Because the word 'I' does not exist. Teacher: So... continue Student: A good fight should be... like a small play - but played seriously. A good martial artist does not become tense - but ready. Not thinking - yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come. When the opponent expands - I contract. When he contracts - I expand. And when there is an opportunity... I do not hit. 'It' hits all by itself. [shows his fist] Teacher: Now, you must remember. The enemy has only images and illusions, behind which he hides his true motives. Destroy the image and you will break the enemy. The 'it' that you refer to is a powerful weapon, easily misused by the martial artist who deserts his vows.

You are impatient and hard to please. If alone, you call it solitude: if in the company of men, you dub them conspirators and thieves, and find fault with your very parents, children, brothers and neighbours. Whereas when by yourself you should have called it Tranquillity and Freedom: and herein deemed yourself like unto the Gods. And when in the company of the many, you should not have called it a wearisome crowd and tumult, but an assembly and a tribunal; and thus accepted all with contentment. What then is the chastisement of those who accept it not? To be as they are. Is any discontented with being alone? let him be in solitude. Is any discontented with his parents? let him be a bad son, and lament. Is any discontented with his children? let him be a bad father.-'Throw him into prison!'-What prison?-Where he is already: for he is there against his will; and wherever a man is against his will, that to him is a prison. Thus Socrates was not in prison since he was there with his own consent. (31 & 32)