c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
By identifying impermanence as a fundamental characteristic of existence itself, rather than a problem to be solved, the Buddhists are encouraging us to let go our hold on illusory solidity and learn to swim freely in the sea of change.
— Andrew Olendzki, Unlimiting Mind: The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism
You are taking things far too literally. Everything you see is merely a symbol for things you do not see. Most of the people of this world are asleep in their minds.
— Seth Adam Smith, Rip Van Winkle and the Pumpkin Lantern
Together with the patient, a therapist looks at the nature of the pain. Often, the therapist can uncover causes of suffering that stem from the way the patient looks at things, the beliefs he holds about himself, his culture, and the world. The therapist examines these viewpoints and beliefs with the patient, and together they help free him from the kind of prison he has been in. But the patient’s efforts are crucial. A teacher has to give birth to the teacher within his student, and a psychotherapist has to give birth to the psychotherapist within his patient. The patient’s “internal psychotherapist” can then work full-time in a very effective way.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it. We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by the almanac, but let the season rule us. The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature's. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this. Where the good husbandman is, there is the good soil. Take any other course, and life will be a succession of regrets. Let us see vessels sailing prosperously before the wind, and not simply stranded barks. There is no world for the penitent and regretful.
— Henry David Thoreau
The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves “inside the skin” of the other.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Even if we were very good at making everything outside of ourselves be just the way we ourselves want it to be (a ludicrous thought, you must admit), we could fundamentally never get everything perfect: because our desires are always changing, because they are often conflicting, and because the changes of the environment can never keep up with the pace of the wanting mind. The satisfaction of desire as a strategy for happiness will always be a doomed enterprise.
— Andrew Olendzki, Unlimiting Mind: The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism
The truth is that everything contains everything else. We cannot just be, we can only inter-be.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
We need the vision of interbeing—we belong to each other; we cannot cut reality into pieces. The well-being of “this” is the well-being of “that,” so we have to do things together. Every side is “our side”; there is no evil side.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Most of the people of this world are asleep in their minds.
— Seth Adam Smith, Rip Van Winkle and the Pumpkin Lantern
Of all the nouns we use to disguise the hollowness of the human condition, none is more influential than "myself". It consists of a collage of still images - name, gender, nationality, profession, enthusiasms, relationships - which are renovated from time to time, but otherwise are each a relic from one particular experience or another. The defining teaching of the Buddhist tradition, that of non-self, is merely pointing out the limitations of this reflexive view we hold of ourselves. It's not that the self does not exist, but that it is as cobbled together and transient as everything else. [With] the practice of meditation, ... we can begin to see how each artifact of the mind is raised and lowered to view, like so many flashcards. But we can also glimpse, once in a while, the sleight-of-hand shuffling the card and pulling them off the deck. Behind the objects lies a process. Self is a process. Self is a verb.
— Andrew Olendzki, Unlimiting Mind: The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism
There is a lot of work ahead of us, as we endeavor to rescue the planet from ourselves, and we are likely to be at this work for a very long time. Perhaps we could come at it from the wisdom of the non-self perspective, rather than the passions of the "world is mine" point of view.
— Andrew Olendzki, Unlimiting Mind: The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism
Mindful observation is based on the principle of “non-duality”: our feeling is not separate from us or caused merely by something outside us; our feeling is us, and for the moment we are that feeling. We are neither drowned in nor terrorized by the feeling, nor do we reject it. Our attitude of not clinging to or rejecting our feelings is the attitude of letting go[.]
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
In the West, we are very goal oriented. We know where we want to go, and we are very directed in getting there. This may be useful, but often we forget to enjoy ourselves along the route.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Western civilization places so much emphasis on the idea of hope that we sacrifice the present moment. Hope is for the future. It cannot help us discover joy, peace, or enlightenment in the present moment.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
We are too undemanding, too ready to watch whatever is on the screen, too lonely, lazy, or bored to create our own lives. We turn on the TV and leave it on, allowing someone else to guide us[.]
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
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.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment[.]
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Practicing mindfulness enables us to become a real person. When we are a real person, we see real people around us, and life is present in all its richness.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
We all exist as part of a wonderful stream of life.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
A wave has a right to live her life as a wave, but she must also learn to live her life as water because she is not only a wave. She is also water. And water lives without the fear carried by the wave.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
What's the difference between people who see and seek gaps and those that see and seek bridges? The first stops and stays on the side. The second, crosses and reaches new worlds.As soon as your mind identifies the bridge, the gap is gone...but the bridge was always there...you just had to see it.There are holes in the ground, yet a bridge (which is there, but may take time to see) filled it. That's where asking better questions comes in. Where is the bridge so I can cross? There is one. Believing there is a bridge from where you are to where you want to go is 99% of the battle. The other 1% is to cross it.But do I have to build the bridge? Maybe. But everything is first created in the mind and then in the world. The bridge is there. See it. Cross it.
— Richie Norton
The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
In us, there is a river of feelings, in which every drop of water is a different feeling, and each feeling relies on all the others for its existence. To observe it, we just sit on the bank of the river and identify each feeling as it surfaces, flows by, and disappears.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
[T]he flower is made of non-flower elements. We can describe the flower as being full of everything. There is nothing that is not present in the flower. We see sunshine, we see the rain, we see clouds, we see the earth, and we also see time and space in the flower.A flower, like everything else, is made entirely of non-flower elements. The whole cosmos has come together in order to help the flower manifest herself, The flower is full of everything except one thing: a separate self, a separate identity.The flower cannot be by herself alone. The flower has to inter-be with the sunshine, the cloud and everything in the cosmos. If we understand being in terms of inter-being, then we are much closer to the truth. Inter-being is not being and it is not non-being. Inter-being means being empty of a separate identity, empty of a separate self,
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
I am a continuation like the rain is the continuation of the cloud.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
Things cannot stay the same because they are influenced by everything else, everything that is not itself.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
Just because we do not perceive something, it is not correct to say it does not exist.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible. If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
Mindfulness is about focusing on the magic of the present moment. Rather than fretting about the past or worrying about the future, the aim is to experience life as it unfolds moment by moment. This simple practice is immensely powerful. As we rush through our lives, mindfulness encourages us to stop constantly striving for something new or better and to embrace acceptance and gratitude. This allows us to tap into the joy and wonder in our lives, and to listen to the wisdom of our hearts. This book will show you how to experience small but beautiful moments of mindfulness every day and so guide you along the path to finding more peace and contentment in your life.
— Anna Barnes, How to Be Mindful
Impermanence means that everything changes and that nothing remains the same in any consecutive moments. And although things change every moment, they still cannot be accurately described as the same or as different from what they were a moment ago.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
Emptiness is not the opposite of existence. It is not nothingness or annihilation.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
Direct experience is the only way.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
When you lose a loved one, you suffer. But if you know how to look deeply, you have a chance to realize that his or her nature is truly the nature of no birth, no death. There is manifestation and there is the cessation of manifestation in order to have another manifestation. You have to be very keen and very alert in order to recognize the new manifestations of just one person.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
Many of us live like dead people because we live without awareness. We carry our dead bodies with us and circulate throughout the world. We are pulled into the past or we are pulled forward into the future or we are caught by our projects or our despair and anger. We are not truly alive
—  we are not inhabited by awareness of the miracle of being alive.
Nourish yourself every day with the wonderful things that life has to offer you. Nourish yourself in the present moment. Walk in the kingdom of God.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
We can only accept teachings that we have put into practice with our own awakened understanding and that we can see with our own experience to be true.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
Don't chase after your thoughts as a shadow follows its object. Don't run after your thoughts. Find joy and peace in this very moment .
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you,
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
When a feeling or thought arises, your intention should not be to chase it away, even if by continuing to concentrate on the breath the feeling or thought passes naturally from the mind. The intention isn't to chase it away, hate it, worry about it, or be frightened by it. So what exactly should you be doing concerning such thoughts and feelings? Simply acknowledge their presence.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
...didn't need to waste so much time envisioning some vague horribleness awaiting me in my future.
— Dan Harris, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works
While practicing mindfulness, don't be dominated by the distinction between good and evil, thus creating a battle within oneself.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
A person who looks at the table and can see the universe is a person who can see the way.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
People normally cut reality into compartments, and so are unable to see the interdependence of all phenomena. To see one in all and all in one is to break through the great barrier which narrows one's perception of reality, a barrier which Buddhism calls the attachment to the false view of self.Attachment to the false view of self means belief in the presence of unchanging entities which exist on their own.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
Whatever the tasks, do them slowly and with ease, in mindfulness. Don't do any task in order to get it over with. Resolve to do each job in a relaxed way, with all your attention.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
To take hold of your mind, you must practice mindfulness of the mind. You must know how to observe and recognize the presence of every feeling and thought which arises in you.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
All we can do is everything we can do. (David Axelrod)
— Dan Harris, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works
If you don't waste your energy on variables you cannot influence, you can focus much more effectively on those you can. (Mark Epstein)
— Dan Harris, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works
If everything in this world was in constant decay, why expend so much energy gnashing my teeth over work?
— Dan Harris, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works
Turns out, it's pretty simple to win people over, especially in tense situations, if you're able to take their perspective and validate their feelings.
— Dan Harris, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works
In fact, when you're mindful, you actually feel irritation more keenly. However, once you unburden yourself from the delusion that people are deliberately trying to screw you, it's easier to stop getting carried away.
— Dan Harris, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works
Dalai Lama: "If a scientist confirm nonexistence of something we believe, then we have to accept that."Dan Harris: "So if scientists come up with something that contradicts your beliefs, you will change your beliefs?"Dalai Lama: "Oh yes. Yes.
— Dan Harris, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works
When you lurch from one thing to the next, constantly scheming, or reacting to incoming fire, the mind gets exhausted. You get sloppy and make bad decisions.
— Dan Harris, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works
A big part of (Janice) Marturano's success in bringing mindfulness to this unlikely venue was that she talked about it not as a "spiritual" exercise but instead as something that made you a "better leader" and "more focused," and that enhanced your "creativity and innovation." She didn't even like the term "stress reduction." "For a lot of us," she said, "we think that having stress in our lives isn't a bad thing. It gives us an edge.
— Dan Harris, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works
Now I see that if one doesn't know how to die, one can hardly know how to live - because deathis a part of life.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
[A]ll the methods in the search for truth should be looked on as means rather than as ends in themselves or as absolute truth.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
The meditation on interdependence is to help one penetrate reality in order to be one with it, not to become caught up in philosophical opinion or meditation methods. The raft is used to cross the river. It isn't to be carried around on your shoulders. The finger which points at the moon isn't the moon itself.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
Meditation is not evasion
—  it is a serene encounter with reality.
Live the actual moment. Only this actual moment is life.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
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.
— Amit Ray, Mindfulness Living in the Moment - Living in the Breath
Equanimity means to let go, not to abandon.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation
Sati—sampajanna ("Mindfulness and clear comprehension") should be examined carefully from the point of view of the centipede who could not walk when she thought about how she moved her limbs. And also from the point of view of absorption in, say artistic creation and detached observation of it. Absorption in piano playing or painting seems to be "successful" but detached observation or enjoyment of "my playing" or "my painting" seems to have the centipede effect. What are the facts here and what is the lesson to be drawn?
— Nanamoli Thera
Everyone wants to be happy and live mindfully. Books teach us how to resuscitate the body and soul and how to recognize what in our own personal lives is worthy of noticing. Writers’ considered opinions and subtle observations regarding the joys, paradoxes, pains, tragedies, and truths of living provide us with a jumpstart in analyzing how best to integrate our personal experiences and disjointed thoughts into a cogent belief system. An artistic person understands their passions demand a struggle. Reading allows me unobtrusively to discover how other people freed themselves from suffering a destructive life of attachment, delusion, and disablement.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Sitting meditation, walking meditation, and mindful eating are good opportunities for resting. When you feel agitated, if you are able to go to a park or a garden, it is an opportunity for rest. If you walk slowly and remember to take it easy, if you are able to sit and do nothing from time to time, you can rest deeply and enter a state of true ease.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation
there’s more to liberation than trying to avoid discomfort, more to lasting happiness than pursuing temporary pleasures, temporary relief.
— Pema Chödrön, Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change
Concentration is not wholesome in itself. A thief needs concentration to break into a house.The object of our concentration is what makes it beneficial or not. If you use meditative concentration to run away from reality, that is not beneficial.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation
When mindfulness is present, the Buddha and the Holy Spirit are already there,
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ
The skill of mindfulness allows you to remain grounded in the present moment even when you face difficult stressors, so that your stressful feelings feel more manageable..
— Melanie Greenberg, The Stress-Proof Brain: Master Your Emotional Response to Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity
Smiling is a kind of mouth yoga. When we smile, it releases the tension in our face. Others notice it, even strangers, and are likely to smile back. By smiling, we initiate a wonderful chain reaction, touching the joy in anyone we encounter. A smile is an ambassador of goodwill.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children
Our feelings are formations, impermanent and without substance. We learn not to identify with ourselves with our feelings, not to consider them as a self, not to seek refuge in them, not to die because of them.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation
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.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation
Mindfulness is not chasing the moment but sipping the nectar of the moment.
— Amit Ray, Mindfulness Living in the Moment - Living in the Breath
If we think we have twenty-four hours to achieve a certain purpose, today will become a means to attain an end. The moment of chopping wood and carrying water is the moment of happiness. We do not need to wait for these chores to be done to be happy. To have happiness in this moment is the spirit of aimlessness. Otherwise, we will run in circles for the rest of our life. We have everything we need to make the present moment the happiest in our life, even if we have a cold or a headache. We don't have to wait until we get over our cold to be happy. Having a cold is a part of life.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation
The wise man is one who knows, the significance and nothingness of his life.
— Aditya Ajmera
There is no need to put anything in front of us and run after it. We already have everything we are looking for, everything we want to become. Be yourself. Life is precious as it is. All the elements for your happiness are already here. There is no need to run, strive, search, or struggle. Just be. Just being in the moment in this place is the deepest practice of meditation. Most people cannot believe that just walking as though you have nowhere to go is enough. They think that striving and competing are normal and necessary. Try practicing aimlessness for just five minutes,and you will see how happy you are during those five minutes.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
The challenge for mindfulness is to be present for your experience as it is rather than immediately jumping in to change it or try to force it to be different.
— Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mindfulness for Beginners
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.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation
O happiness! O happiness! Wilt thou perhaps sing, O my soul? Thou liest in the grass. But this is the secret, solemn hour, when no shepherd playeth his pipe.Take care! Hot noontide sleepeth on the fields. Do not sing! Hush! The world is perfect.Do not sing, thou prairie-bird, my soul! Do not even whisper! Lo—hush! The old noontide sleepeth, it moveth its mouth: doth it not just now drink a drop of happiness——An old brown drop of golden happiness, golden wine? Something whisketh over it, its happiness laugheth. Thus—laugheth a God. Hush!"For happiness, how little sufficeth for happiness!" Thus spoke I once and thought myself wise. But it was a blasphemy: that have I now learned. Wise fools speak better.The least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a whisk, an eye-glance—little maketh up the best happiness. Hush!
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The challenge for each of us is to find out who we are and to live our way into our own calling.we do this by paying close attention to all aspects of life as they unfold in the present moment.
— Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mindfulness for Beginners
True wealth is contentment, and happiness is forgetting to worry how you are and how much you have.
— Robert Thurman, Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit and Be Much Happier
I sit watching until dusk, hypnotized. I think of the sea as continually sloshing back and forth, repetitive, but my psyche goes with the river- always loping downhill, purposeful, listening only to gravity.
— Ann Zwinger, Downcanyon: A Naturalist Explores the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon
The ultimate experience of being mindful occurs when we forget about everything, even the mindful self and doing. In that mode we are full of energy, utterly self-generated.
— Sang H. Kim, Mindful Movement: Mastering Your Hidden Energy
Habitually we are caught between the play of mind and heart: mindfulness versus heartfulness! We create this polarity within. Is it possible to reconcile?When the heart is right, there will always be an unquestioning agreement between the mind and the heart. In fact, a perfect synchronicity exists between them and they function as one. Integrating these two principal players in our life eases our burden of existence. By ignoring either one, we cannot move ahead purposefully in life.
— Daaji
We cradle in our nucleus emotional ingots gathered through studied immersion of the incongruities of life. In an elusive quest to disinter meaning out of life, we must cull joy from our daily rituals while conscientiously striving to nourish the nucleus of our buried innate essence. By discovering inner peace blossoming amongst the rubble of daily life, while determinedly searching out the cytoplasm our innate essence, a person’s reveals their inspirational tranquility.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Mindfulness can serve as an antidote to living a fragmental life riven with deleterious delusions and illusions.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Nothing worthwhile ever came from divided attention.
— Chris Matakas, The Tao of Jiu Jitsu
Do not lose yourself in the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. Do not get caught in your anger, worries, or fears. Come back to the present moment, and touch life deeply. This is mindfulness.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation
What he’s looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn’t want that because it is all around him. Every step’s an effort, both physically and spiritually, because he imagines his goal to be external and distant.
— Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
In the strictest sense, we cannot actually think about life and reality at all, because this would have to include thinking about thinking, thinking about thinking about thinking, and so ad infinitum. One can only attempt a rational, descriptive philosophy of the universe on the assumption that one is totally separate from it. But if you and your thoughts are part of this universe, you cannot stand outside them to describe them.
— Alan W. Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
To "know" reality you cannot stand outside it and define it; you must enter into it, be it, and feel it.
— Alan W. Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
Sooner or later everything will turn to dust - except love
— Rasheed Ogunlaru
The bike does this; it is an apotheosis of self-sufficiency, in which a well-loved machine will unhesitatingly and quietly mediate intentional being into momentum. As you ride a bike and start to ride it well, there are moments when it becomes an affirmation of life devoid of separation and distinction; you ride through the earth unthinkingly rather than across it. There is no need to account for who you are in others’ terms, in language, even. Your characteristics give way to your being. The effort put into the bike can take you out of your socialized, represented self into what Heidegger called ‘disclosing self’, where you simply are ever-shifting endeavour.
— Robin Holt
The mistake is to assume that the way it feels at the moment is the way it will feel forever.
— Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
Mindfulness is a quiet mind, an aware mind. Mindfulness itself is not about ‘arriving,’ but about being.
— Jean Moreau, Abbey of Kervennec, France
Mindfulness is not chasing the moment but beautifying the moment.
— Amit Ray, Mindfulness Living in the Moment - Living in the Breath
The idea has come to me that what I want now to do is to saturate every atom. I mean to eliminate all waste, deadness, superfluity: to give the moment whole; whatever it includes. Say that the moment is a combination of thought; sensation; the voice of the sea. Waste, deadness, come from the inclusion of things that don't belong to the moment; this appalling narrative business of the realist: getting on from lunch to dinner: it is false, unreal, merely conventional.
— Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary
A full-throttled deployment of the practices of strategic communication would kill candor and leave truth bereft to fend for herself in the backstabbing night of political bogeys.
— Nick Bostrom
The energy of mindfulness has the element of friendship and loving kindness in it.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Body scan meditation is mentally scanning through each part of the body with presence. It helps us be one with the body. Thus, we can feel if we are holding on to any tension or heaviness or any static emotions. And by doing so, we can find relief and internal freedom.
— Christopher Dines, The Kindness Habit: Transforming our Relationship to Addictive Behaviours
When we observe the flow of our breathing, we transcend our thoughts and are able to bring mind and body into harmony with each other. Thus, we create calm.
— Christopher Dines, The Kindness Habit: Transforming our Relationship to Addictive Behaviours
Every moment nature is serving fresh dishes with the items of happiness. It is our choice to recognize and taste it.
— Amit Ray, Mindfulness Living in the Moment - Living in the Breath
We do so much, we run so quickly, the situation is difficult, and many people say, "Don't just sit there, do something." But doing more things may make the situation worse. So you should say, "Don't just do something, sit there." Sit there, stop, be yourself first, and begin from there.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace
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.
— Alan W. Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child - our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
No ideals. No illusions. Just reality - but more perfect than you’ve ever imagined. That’s what being mindful and living in the present means.
— Lidiya K., This Moment
Vast skies in the Australian desertwaves that don't movewe slide surf glide like condors
— Martin Stepek
I felt like I wasn’t living thoroughly enough — I was distracted in ways I wouldn’t be if I’d been born in 1929.
— Miranda July, It Chooses You
Meditation is to be aware of what is going on: in your body, in your feelings, in your mind, and in the world.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace
Everything can turn around in a moment, if you just change your thoughts, and make different decisions. Listen to your heart.
— Stacie Hammond, Ana J. Awakens
Our work and educational institutions reinforce this preference for later over now throughout our lives. In school we focus on the ends — passing the semester, making the grade, or otherwise getting it all behind us — rather than the present-moment experience of actually learning. As employees, we want the work to be over as soon as it begins. Work culture is driven by quotas, billable hours, budgets, and Gantt charts — bottom lines of any sort. The value is always somewhere ahead of you, rather than here right now, in the room with you. We’re perpetually looking ahead to a payday or a weekend or some other kind of finish line. Virtually every day of our lives, we’re trained to lean towards something we don’t have, which essentially trains us to be dissatisfied with where we already are.
— David  Cain, You Are Here
My experience is that many things are not as bad as I thought they would be.
— Mary Doria Russell, Children of God
The standard way of reducing stress in our culture is to put as much energy as possible into trying to arrive at a moment that matches our preferences. This ensures that we feel some level of stress until we get there (assuming we ever will) and worse, it makes the present moment into an unacceptable place to be.
— David  Cain, You Are Here
By learning to allow different types of discomfort to simply stay in the room with you, without your scrambling for a button to push (real or metaphorical), you make discomfort matter less.The pool of things you’re afraid of shrinks. It becomes a lot less important to control circumstances, because you know you can handle moments of uncertainty or awkwardness or disappointment without an escape plan.
— David  Cain
You have more power over your mind than you realize. The time to strengthen it is now.
— Aimee Halpin
Do what you are doing. Monastic motto
— Rick Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan
We think consciously yet live life unconsciously!
— Ramana Pemmaraju
Avoid having to pump your brakes by keeping your flow on cruise control.
— T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"
He made me question what was, when for a whole lifetime up till that moment, I accepted the world’s excuses.
— Walter Mosley
Stay present, stay conscious.
— Eckhart Tolle
One day the Buddha was sistting with some of his monks in the woods. They had just come back from an almsround and were ready to share a mindful lunch together. A farmer passed by, looking distraught.He asked the Buddha, "Monks, have you seen some cows going by here?""What cows?" the Buddha responded."Well," the man said, "I have four cows and I don't know why, but this morning they all ran aay. I also have two acres of sesame. This year the insects ate the entire crop. I have lost everything: my harvest and my cows. I feel like killing myself." The Buddha said, "Dear friend, we have been sitting here almost an hour and we have not seen any cows passing by. Maybe you should go and lookin the other direction." When the farmer was gone, the Buddha looked at his friends and smiled knowingly. "Dear friends, you are very lucky," he said. "You don't have any cows to lose.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering
What is it you really want? Are you really going to be happy when you get the object? What will it bring you? Is what you’re telling yourself really true? You have the choice, you can keep on getting hit by the wave or you can get the courage to run towards it and dive right through it - everything starts with you.
— Evan Sutter, Solitude: How Doing Nothing Can Change the World
This inability to just do nothing is a direct result of our habit of externalisation. As children we are never taught in schools, or in social settings, to look within ourselves for answers. Whether it is that our answers are found in some sort of religion, or another person, or in something else, we start to make this common practice. We are indecisive in life looking to friends, family, counsellors, teachers, and even strangers for advice. We are never taught or, better yet, shown how to look after our number one relationship in life, which is the relationship with one’s self.
— Evan Sutter, Solitude: How Doing Nothing Can Change the World
The worlds high on doing and distracting and as result we need to keep doing and it doesn’t really matter what we are doing, as long as it is distracting.
— Evan Sutter, Solitude: How Doing Nothing Can Change the World
Either you 'are' in your mind, or you are where you are. Fully present.
— Matthew Donnelly
When you're one with being you're one with god.
— Matthew Donnelly
Traffic is more of the in between time where we think more about where we are going than where we are at the moment.
— Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do
Mindless fear is greater than mindful fear.
— Idowu Koyenikan
Collaboration is the essence of life. The wind, bees and flowers work together, to spread the pollen.
— Amit Ray, Mindfulness Living in the Moment - Living in the Breath
Mindfulness is intimacy with all things.
— Jeffrey A.  White
It is easier to act your way into a better feeling than to feel your way into a better way of acting. When certain feelings hinder you, look for other feelings to feel. Supplant your fear with a greater motivation. The more frequently we feel and do not act, the less often we will feel. Act genially in the face of rancor; you may be the only angel in that person’s life. What you practice projecting you are projecting and you become.
— Kare Anderson, Mutuality Matters How You Can Create More Opportunity, Adventure & Friendship With Others
We become more devoted to pleasing other people than establishing a relationship with ourselves. We believe we are what we have and what we do and we believe we are what other people think we are. Ego is in many ways the primary cause of most of our misconception and woe.
— Evan Sutter, Solitude: How Doing Nothing Can Change the World
To find signals in data, we must learn to reduce the noise - not just the noise that resides in the data, but also the noise that resides in us. It is nearly impossible for noisy minds to perceive anything but noise in data.
— Stephen Few, Signal: Understanding What Matters in a World of Noise
You are a miracle. Remind yourself often.
— Charnita Arora, Mindfulness for Beginners in Plain English: Practical Guide with Mindfulness, exercises & tips for anxiety and stress management
Living closer to the center of our being is the practice of a lifetime, but so, too, is skillfully living on the horizontal plane-the surface of life-where our purpose for being on the planet is uniquely expressed. Redefining moments are simply energy vortexes that draw the authentic self up (vertically) and out (horizontally) and into present moment awareness, revealing it to the light of day and the gifts it holds.
— Dennis Merritt Jones, Your Redefining Moments: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be
We must realise that cognitive hygiene is as important subject as oral hygiene for healthy and happy existence.
— Aditya Ajmera
To be self-compassionate is not to be self-indulgent or self-centred. A major component of self-compassion is to be kind to yourself. Treat yourself with love, care, dignity and make your wellbeing a priority. With self-compassion, we still hold ourselves accountable professionally and personally, but there are no toxic emotions inflicted upon and towards ourselves.
— Christopher Dines, Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
The human brain is incredible in its capacity to heal and rewire itself. The human brain can be shaped and trained to be more resilient, calm, compassionate and alert—we can condition ourselves to be successful. Through mindfulness meditation, we can literally re-wire our brains through new experiences, which modify our neural network and our neural chemistry. Mindfulness also enhances gamma synchrony and improves the function of the human brain.
— Christopher Dines, Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
Things sometimes go our way and sometimes they don’t. All we can do is apply ourselves to our profession, giving our very best effort but emotionally letting go of the outcome. Why? Because if we obsess about an outcome, we cannot possibly honour the present moment.
— Christopher Dines, Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
First and foremost, if we maintain healthy emotional boundaries and direct love and kindness inwards, we are taking care of ourselves and secondly we are giving a subliminal message to others about how we wish to be treated. People tend to subconsciously treat us how we treat ourselves.
— Christopher Dines, Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
It is impossible to control outcomes or results, although most of us have been programmed from a very young age to believe otherwise. The idea that we can perform actual ‘magic’ causes tremendous dysfunction, unnecessary suffering and prevents the development of emotional resilience.
— Christopher Dines, Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
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”.
— Christopher Dines, Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
Conscious breathing anchors us into the nowness of life and gives us a fresh outlook, no different from how a baby observes reality without mental commentary. The baby enjoys watching the world and human activity without any limiting mental concepts spoiling his or her perception. Naturally, we all have to evolve from the helpless state of babyhood, but to be able to tap into that wonderful ability and truly BE in the moment is immensely liberating.
— Christopher Dines, Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
I step outside, easy at first... there is noise; I don't hear it. There are people; I don't see them... I see the water; I am alongside it. There is a big hill; I conquer it. A mile of grass; I fly across it. With each step I am stronger, and then faster. My body engages; I am really flying; I am one with the road, but I no longer feel it. With every step forward I am faster and freer. Nothing can touch me; no one can find me. What I find is the truth. I find myself... I am a runner.
— Jacqueline Simon Gunn, In the Long Run: Reflections from the Road
To still your mind , first still your tongue.
— Mebs Alibhai
Stress, burnout and strain on the human heart are all increasingly taking their toll for millions of hardworking people. However, even someone who is working in a job that simply ‘pays the bills’ can turn mundane and stressful tasks into pleasant activities with a slight adjustment in attitude and by adopting a daily mindful practice.
— Christopher Dines, Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
I used to think that life was only about progress, getting to a destination, the final outcome. But this isn’t quite right. Life is more of a process, and as much as goals are important, the in-the-moment experiences along the way are really where authentic living takes place. Running has taught me this. In fact, running has been my greatest teacher of life.
— Jacqueline Simon Gunn, In the Long Run: Reflections from the Road
Through practising body scan awareness meditation, we can greatly reduce the detrimental effects of stress and make our working lives pleasant and enjoyable.
— Christopher Dines, Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals
The word ‘pranayama’, often referred to as alternate breathing, comes from the Sanskrit meaning ‘extension of life force’ or ‘extension of breath’. At times, we are going to have days where we are bombarded with one task after another. This simple yet effective meditation only takes a couple of minutes and its calming qualities can be felt almost immediately. It is one of the easiest meditation techniques to apply. This practice is well worth applying at least three or four times a day (somewhere private) to develop emotional balance and evenness of mind, especially in the working environment.
— Christopher Dines, Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals