Quotes & Sayings About Mindfulness

When the heart opens, we forget ourselves and the world pours in: this world, and also the invisible world of meaning that sustains everything that was and ever shall be. — Roger Housden

Ultimately, time is all you have and the idea isn't to save it, but to savour it. — Ellen Goodman

Our ultimate goal is to be fully present for life. It takes practice — Janet Gallagher Nestor

In any given moment we are either practicing mindfulness, or defacto, we are practicing mindlessness. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

We can use meditation as a way to experiment with new ways of relating to ourselves, even our uncomfortable thoughts. — Sharon Salzberg

By accepting and learning to embrace the inevitable sorrows of life, we realize that we can experience a more enduring sense of happiness. — Sharon Salzberg

In the ancient Indian Pali language, the words for mind and heart are the same. And the Chinese character for mindfulness is a combination of two characters. One part means now and the other means mind or heart. So, when you hear the word mindfulness you can also consider it to mean heartfulness. — Shamash Alidina

When life throws difficulties at us and the mind is restless, emotional resilience will see us through challenging times. We can work through tempestuous emotions and self-doubt and come through them unharmed and avoid self-sabotage and self-harm. — Christopher Dines

Open the window of your mind. Allow the fresh air,new lights and new truths to enter. — Amit Ray

Personal power, knowledge and fun come from how you approach something, not what you approach. — Frederick Lenz

The light irradiates white peaks of Annapurna marching down the sky, in the great rampart that spreads east and west for eighteen hundred miles, the Himalaya- the alaya (abode, or home) of hima (snow).Hibiscus, frangipani, bougainvillea: seen under snow peaks, these tropical blossoms become the flowers of heroic landscapes. Macaques scamper in green meadow, and a turquoise roller spins in a golden light. Drongos, rollers, barbets, and white Eqyptian vulture are the common birds, and all have close relatives in East Africa. — Peter Matthiessen

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Seeking is endless. It never comes to a state of rest; it never ceases. — Sharon Salzberg

When emotions turn and stay sour, when thoughts become cynical and judgmental, good and compassionate treatment is on the line. Helpers who become sour and cynical tend to begrudge their high need clients for their neediness. There is a risk that helpers become too well-practiced at taking a bleak view of those they have avowed to assist. There is a temptation to begin to blame clients for their failure to improve. If treatment ends pre-maturely, with either a client never returning to treatment or a helper 'firing' them out of frustration, there is a tendency for the client to take the fall. Of course what we are talking about here are signs of burnout. — Scott E. Spradlin

With mindfulness we have the choice of responding with compassion to the pain of craving, anger, fear and confusion. Without mindfulness we are stuck in the reactive pattern and identification that will inevitably create more suffering and confusion. — Noah Levine

Sabbath is more than the absence of work; it is not just a day off, when we catch up on television or errands. It is the presence of something that arises when we consecrate a period of time to listen to what is most deeply beautiful, nourishing, or true. It is time consecrated with our attention, our mindfulness, honoring those quiet forces of grace or spirit that sustain and heal us. — Wayne Muller

Mindfulness means being aware of how you're deploying your attention and making decisions about it, and not letting the tweet or the buzzing of your BlackBerry call your attention. — Howard Rheingold

Curiously, just as much if not more mindless behavior can creep into our most momentous closures and life transitions, including our own aging and our own dying. Here, too, mindfulness can have healing effects. We may be so defended against feeling the full impact of our emotional pain - whether it be grief, sadness, shame, disappointment, anger, or for that matter, even joy or satisfaction - that we unconsciously escape into a cloud of numbness in which we do not permit ourselves to feel anything at all or know what we are feeling. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

The remarkable thing about the world of insects, however, is precisely that there is no veil cast over these horrors. These are mysteries performed in broad daylight before our very eyes; we can see every detail, and yet they are still mysteries. If, as Heraclitus suggests, god, like an oracle, neither "declares nor hides, but sets forth by signs," then clearly I had better be scrying the signs. The earth devotes an overwhelming proportion of its energy to these buzzings and leaps in the grass. Theirs is the biggest wedge of the pie: Why? I ought to keep a giant water bug in an aquarium on my dresser, so I can think about it. — Annie Dillard

Each place is the right place
the place where I now am can be a sacred space. (3) — Ravi Ravindra

It's like wearing gloves every time we touch something, and then, forgetting we chose to put them on, we complain that nothing feels quite real. — Mark Nepo

The challenge of mindfulness is to work with the very circumstances that you find yourself in - no matter how unpleasant, how discouraging, how limited, how unending and stuck they may appear to be - and to make sure that you have done everything in your power to use their energies to transform yourself before you decide to cut your losses and move on. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

By grounding yourself in mindfulness early in the morning, you are reminding yourself that things are always changing, that good and bad things come and go, and that it is possible to embody a perspective of of constancy, wisdom, and inner peace as you face any conditions that present themselves. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

The function of mindfulness is, first, to recognize the suffering and then to take care of the suffering. The work of mindfulness is first to recognize the suffering and second to embrace it. A mother taking care of a crying baby naturally will take the child into her arms without suppressing, judging it, or ignoring the crying. Mindfulness is like that mother, recognizing and embracing suffering without judgement.
So the practice is not to fight or suppress the feeling, but rather to cradle it with a lot of tenderness. When a mother embraces her child, that energy of tenderness begins to penetrate into the body of the child. Even if the mother doesn't understand at first why the child is suffering and she needs some time to find out what the difficulty is, just her acto f taking the child into her arms with tenderness can alreadby bring relief. If we can recognize and cradle the suffering while we breathe mindfully, there is relief already. — Thich Nhat Hanh

In the end, just three things matter:
How well we have lived
How well we have loved
How well we have learned to let go — Jack Kornfield

Even the tiniest manifestation of mindfulness in any moment might give rise to an intuition or insight that could be hugely transforming. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

As the flower blooms in spring, compassion grows in mindfulness. — Amit Ray

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

The unconscious process moves spiral-wise around a center, gradually getting closer, while the characteristics of the center grow more and more distinct. — Carl Jung

Mindfulness is a quality that's always there. It's an illusion that there's a meditation and post-meditation period, which I always find amusing, because you're either mindful or you're not. — Richard Gere

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

Buddha taught, "Breathing in, I recognize my feeling. Breathing out, I calm my feeling." If you practice this, not only will your feeling be calmed down but the energy of mindfulness will also help you see into the nature and roots of your anger. Mindfulness helps you be concentrated and look deeply. This is true meditation. The insight will come after some time of practice. You will see the truth about yourself and the truth about the person who you thought to be the cause of your suffering. This insight will release you from your anger and transform the roots of anger in you. The transformation in you will also help transform the other person. Mindful speaking can bring real happiness, and unmindful speech can kill. When someone tells us something that makes us happy, that is a wonderful gift. But sometimes someone says something to us that is so cruel and distressing that we feel like committing suicide. We lose our joie de vivre. — Thich Nhat Hanh

How you refill. Lying there. Something like happiness, just like water, pure and clear pouring in. So good you don't even welcome it, it runs through you in a bright stream, as if it has been there all along. — Peter Heller

Like the body craves oxygen, the mind is desperate for certainty. It believes that without a safe foothold on reality, it will die.
But the fascinating thing is that the illusion of certainty is exactly the opposite of safety because it hardens and narrows the vision to make everything fit its own scope. Then when new information arrives which would be its ally, the mind pushes it away in favor of the leaky life raft to which it clings, sinking all the while beneath the waves of change.
In fact, the only antidote for this is to embrace 'I don't know' so deeply that a powerful, dynamic safety emerges. This is like learning to surf so well that a tsunami wave shows up as a challenge to test our mastery. — Jacob Nordby

We cannot expect miracles of mindfulness in our own lives without preparation, commitment & continuing to energetically progress along our spiritual way. — Surya Das

The worst insult I can inflict on life is that I do not reflect on its meaning. — Kedar Joshi

The practice of concentration is like acquiring a lampshade to help us concentrate our mind on something. While doing sitting or walking meditation, cutting the future, cutting the past, dwelling in the present time, we develop our own power of concentration. With that power of concentration, we can look deeply into the problem. This is insight meditation.
First we are aware of the problem, focusing all our attention on the problem, and then we look deeply into it in order to understand its real nature [ ... ]. — Thich Nhat Hanh

To make hell into paradise, we only need to change the mind on which it is based.
[...] With your deluded mind, you make hell for yourself. With your true mind, you make paradise. — Thich Nhat Hanh

When we walk with solidity and freedom, and when mindfulness of our breathing brings us solidity, freedom, peace, and joy, then the Pure Land is there right away. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Patience requires a slowing down, a spaciousness, a sense of ease. — Allan Lokos

We live in a world where it is completely the norm to worry about what we put in our bodies but worry very little about what we throw in our minds. We think a hamburger is bad but a celebrity gossip magazine is completely harmless. As children you never hear "don't put that garbage in your mind," but for our body counterpart it is common thread. There is something very wrong with this scenario. — Evan Sutter

The 'Mind' in it's nature is conditioned to 'label'. From people, to situations, and circumstances to everything in between.

When we allow the mind to shut down we let things be as they are. — Matthew Donnelly

Destiny is manifested only through action. — Suzy Kassem

We resonate with one another's sorrows because we are interconnected. Being whole and simultaneously part of a larger whole, we can change the world simply by changing ourselves. If I become a center of love and kindness in this moment, then in a perhaps small but hardly insignificant way, the world now has a nucleus of love and kindness it lacked the moment before. This benefits me and it benefits others. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

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 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

Every minute can be a holy, sacred minute. Where do you seek the spiritual? You seek the spiritual in every ordinary thing that you do every day. Sweeping the floor, watering the vegetables, and washing the dishes become holy and sacred if mindfulness is there. With mindfulness and concentration, everything becomes spiritual. — Thich Nhat Hanh

inevitably someone will ask me about the word mindfulness with a tone of caution, suggesting that this is a Buddhist concept. It is true that Buddhists have long been faithful to the practice of mindfulness, but striving to live mindfully is a universal quest and belongs to us all. Living mindfully is the art of living awake and ready to embrace the gift of the present moment. — Macrina Wiederkehr

O brave new world, that hath such people in it
Soon you will be like her, Prospero's daughter,
Finding the door that leads you out of yourself,
Out of the rare, enameled ark of your mind,
Where you live with the gracious and light-footed creatures
That thrive in the glaze of your art and freedom. — Lisel Mueller

The difficult thing about practice isn't learning to sit for an hour, or sit for a weekend, or go on a three-month retreat, as hard as those things are. The difficult thing is to pay attention to what is happening right here and now. — Larry Rosenberg

The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers. — Thich Nhat Hanh

With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment. — Nhat Hanh

Most of us would rather kill ourselves than be, particularly if who we think we are keeps dying. Many of us do. — Brad Blanton

In mindfulness, breath can not play as not only reference point but point of view. — Gary Gach

This is today! What will tomorrow bring? Life arrives and departs on its own schedule, not ours; it's time to travel light, and be ready to go wherever it takes us. — Meg Wolfe

The practice of Zen is to eat, breathe, cook, carry water, and scrub the toilet - to infuse every act of body, speech, and mind - with mindfulness, to illuminate every leaf and pebble, every heap of garbage, every path that leads to our mind's return home. — Nhat Hanh

When you reach a calm and quiet meditative state, that is when you can hear the sound of silence. — Stephen Richards

Buddhism has a term for the happiness we feel at someone else's success or good fortune. Sympathetic joy, as it is known, invites us to celebrate for others. — Sharon Salzberg

It will take as long as it takes. Your work is to take the time and make the space. Everything else is beyond your influence. — Vironika Tugaleva

To be in touch with yourself requires great sensitivity to everything that's going on here and now. — Deepak Chopra

A key barometer to help us weigh the rightness of our actions is self-respect. — Sharon Salzberg

Don't let a day go by without asking who you are ... each time you let a new ingredient to enter your awareness. — Deepak Chopra

Developing the skill of creativity, like with any other skill, takes time. Do devote time to creativity. Honor its flow and its magic. Allow it to become your Life Force. Train Creativity daily. — Natasa Nuit Pantovic

[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

With mindfulness you can see the real owner of things. Do you think this is your world, your body? It is the world's world, the body's body. If you tell it, Don't get old, does the body listen? Does your stomach ask permission to get sick? We only rent this house; why not find out who really owns it? — Ajahn Chah

Mindfulness meditation should be more than just watching what you are doing. What you really need to watch is your motivation. — Thubten Zopa Rinpoche

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

We are all gardeners, planting seeds of intention and watering them with attention in every moment of every day. — Cristen Rodgers

Reading teaches us receptivity ... It teaches us to receive, in stillness and attentiveness, a voice possessed temporarily, on loan ... And as we grow accustomed to receiving books in stillness and attentiveness, so we can grow to receive the world, also possessed temporarily. — Lynne Sharon Schwartz

The challenge isn't to find better tools to lead a more productive life, it's learning to be mindful of the tools that have already taken root. Mindfulness while using technology is important, and therefore the future belongs to those who can tame their distractions. — Paul Jun

Concentration and mindfulness are the internal ways in which the mind restores itself from being out of balance and lost in confusion to a condition of ease, clarity, and wisdom. No external action needs to happen. — Sylvia Boorstein

Mastering our thoughts can only be achieved after we truly understand what reality is. Thus, it is time to shatter your pre-conceived concept of reality. First, the majority of what you perceive as reality exists only in your mind, and, chances are, you spend most hours of your life in this illusion. — Alaric Hutchinson

Keep your opinion to yourself unless it's asked for. — Alaric Hutchinson

We are so absorbed in our thoughts that every thought that comes through is a reality. We have to start to detach ourselves from thought and become aware that there are things beyond thought. — Frederick Lenz

It is good to stop by the track for a space, put aside the knapsack, wipe the brows, and talk a little of the upper slopes of the mountain we think we are climbing, would but the trees let us see it. — H.G.Wells

This Ariyan Eightfold Path, that is to say: Right view, right aim, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindfulness, right contemplation. — Gautama Buddha

We live in an incredibly dynamic universe that gives us what we wish for, like a waking dream — Cynthia Sue Larson

There are few things more destructive than thoughts believed without question. — Vironika Tugaleva

According to Dr. Bruce Lipton, gene activity can change on a daily basis. If the perception in your mind is reflected in the chemistry of your body, and if your nervous system reads and interprets the environment and then controls the blood's chemistry, then you can literally change the fate of your cells by altering your thoughts.
In fact, Dr. Lipton's research illustrates that by changing your perception, your mind can alter the activity of your genes and create over thirty thousand variations of products from each gene. He gives more detail by saying that the gene programs are contained within the nucleus of the cell, and you can rewrite those genetic programs through changing your blood chemistry. — LIPTON

Mindfulness allows us to watch our thoughts, see how one thought leads to the next, decide if we're heading down an unhealthy path, and, if so, let go and change directions. — Sharon Salzberg

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

Create inclusion - with simple mindfulness that others might have a different reality from your own. — Patti Digh

One goal of the mindful caregiver is to find ways to not feel 'dis-eased' in the caregiving process. — Nancy L. Kriseman

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

You end up making a home in every place you're at, in a small way. In any way you can find a kind of mindfulness. — Nick Littlemore

Just by breathing deeply on your anger, you will calm it. You are being mindful of your anger, not suppressing it ... touching it with the energy of mindfulness. You are not denying it at all. When I speak about this to psychotherapists, I have some difficulty. When I say that anger makes us suffer, they take it to mean that anger is something negative to be removed. But I always say that anger is an organic thing, like love. Anger can become love. Our compost can become a rose. If we know how to take care of our compost ... Anger is the same. It can be negative when we do not know how to handle it, but if we know how to handle our anger, it can be very positive. We do not need to throw anything away, (50). — Thich Nhat Hanh

There's no denying that it takes effort to set the intention to see our fundamental connected-ness with others. — Sharon Salzberg

Ironically, we may discover that death meditation is not a morbid exercise at all. Only when we lose the use of something taken for granted (whether the telephone or an eye) are we jolted into a recognition of its value. When the phone is fixed, the bandage removed from the eye, we briefly rejoice in their restoration but swiftly forget them again. In taking them for granted, we cease to be conscious of them. In taking life for granted, we likewise fail to notice it. (To the extent that we get bored and long for something exciting to happen.) By meditat- ing on death, we paradoxically become conscious of life. — Stephen Batchelor

If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do so prayerfully. However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present ... gratefully. — Maya Angelou

set up an appointment with yourself in the morning, during a busy work schedule, or at night to find a quiet space and practice mindfulness. It's as easy as being still, listening, focusing on your breathing, and emptying your thoughts, while practicing non-judgment. Every time a thought pops up, just let it go, without judgment, and return your attention to the moment. Build this up and practice every day. This may be one of the hardest things you'll ever do. If you can stick with it, your life (and brain, whoo hoo!) will begin to change in amazing ways. Tool #6: Compassionate Self-Talk "A moment of self-compassion can change your entire day. — Sarah Owens

Mindfulness is a state wherein one is totally aware in any situation and so always able to respond appropriately. Yet one is aware of being aware. Mindlessness, on the other hand, or "no-mindness" as it has been called, is a condition of such complete absorption that there is not vestige of self-awareness. — Philip Kapleau

When our mind is calm, it reflects reality accurately, without distortion. Breathing, sitting, and walking with mindfulness calms disturbing mental formations such as anger, fear, and despair, allowing us to see reality more clearly. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Every moment nature is serving fresh dishes with the items of happiness. It is our choice to recognize and taste it. — Amit Ray

Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Meditation is essential for our survival. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Ultimately, we forgive others in order to free ourselves. — Sharon Salzberg

The organic gardener does not think of throwing away the garbage. She knows that she needs the garbage. She is capable of transforming the garbage into compost, so that the compost can turn into lettuce, cucumber, radishes, and flowers again ... With the energy of mindfulness, you can look into the garbage and say: I am not afraid. I am capable of transforming the garbage back into love. — Nhat Hanh

In Zen you practice zazen, mindfulness and other forms of introspection to find out who you are and what you want, to balance your spirit, develop willpower, increase your sense of humor and gain wisdom. — Frederick Lenz

Your self-worth and self-esteem cannot be changed by doing positive affirmations. If that were the case many people would be super confident and are not. It may appear to work for some, but only because they have already faced the hurts inside that have caused low self-worth and low self-esteem, and are ready to feel differently.

Acknowledging the pain and the suffering that take place inside you, and allowing the feelings, will take time, but this new way of handling these feelings will change the way you relate to you and to the outside world. — Kelly Martin

Mindfulness means being present to whatever is happening here and now - when mindfulness is strong, there is no room left in the mind for wanting something else. With less liking and disliking of what arises, there is less pushing and pulling on the world, less defining of the threshold between self and other, resulting in a reduced construction of self. As the influence of self diminishes, suffering diminishes in proportion. — Andrew Olendzki

Until you realize how easily it is for your mind to be manipulated, you remain the puppet of someone else's game. — Evita Ochel