In a true you-and-I relationship, we are present mindfully, nonintrusively, the way we are present with things in nature. We do not tell a birch tree it should be more like an elm. We face it with no agenda, only an appreciation that becomes participation: 'I love looking at this birch' becomes 'I am this birch' and then 'I and this birch are opening to a mystery that transcends and holds us both.
Our joy, peace and happiness depend very much on our practice of recognizing and transforming habit energies. There are positive habit energies that we have to cultivate, and negative habit energies that we have to recognize, embrace and transform. The energy with which we do these things is mindfulness.
Mindfulness has helped me succeed in almost every dimension of my life. By stopping regularly to look inward and become aware of my mental state, I stay connected to the source of my actions and thoughts and can guide them with considerably more intention.
You have to remember one life, one death–this one! To enter fully the day, the hour, the moment whether it appears as life or death, whether we catch it on the inbreath or outbreath, requires only a moment, this moment. And along with it all the mindfulness we can muster, and each stage of our ongoing birth, and the confident joy of our inherent luminosity. (24)
When virtuous mental attitudes, like mindfulness, respect, and compassion, are invoked to justify nonvirtuous acts like hunting, fishing, and eating animal products, the mental attitudes are insincere. They are self-deceptions that we create to justify habits that in our hearts we know are wrong, but to which we have become attached.
The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence.
Reading is a gymnasium for the imagination where people can work out, get ready for the shocks of existence. [. . . ] For me, the intimate teachers have not only taught me how to make things, they have represented some qualities of mind and mindfulness that I would like to have.
You can just sweep the floor generally and gain nothing from it. Or you can figure out the best way to sweep the floor, put your power into it, use it as a concentration exercise, and be meditative.
One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious, and the same may be said of guilt.
In any given moment we are either practicing mindfulness, or defacto, we are practicing mindlessness.
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.
When you have an intense contact of love with nature or another human being, like a spark, then you understand that there is no time and that everything is eternal.
The only time that any of us have to grow or change or feel or learn anything is in the present moment. But we're continually missing our present moments, almost willfully, by not paying attention.
Daring greatly means the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need. To talk about how you're feeling. To have the hard conversations.
Each step along the Buddha's path to happiness requires practising mindfulness until it becomes part of your daily life.
No one teaches mindfulness better than Thich Nhat Hanh.
Sure, you need enormous amounts of technical expertise to be the best in the world. But to accomplish mindfulness, you just need something you already have: the willingness to quiet down, clear the crap and trust yourself.
Writing can be an incredible mindfulness practice.
Awakening is natural,delusion is not
Yoga is mind wave quieting.