Quotes about Mindfulness

But waking up is ultimately something that each one of us can only do for ourselves. When it comes down to it, wherever you go, there you are

To be patient is simply to be completely open to each moment, accepting it in its fullness, knowing that, like the butterfly, things can only unfold in their own time.

as long as you are breathing there is more right with you than wrong with you, no matter what is wrong.

These qualities are beautifully encapsulated in the famous statement of Victor Frankl, himself a survivor of Auschwitz (and a neurologist and psychologist): "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." MBSR

When you begin to question the narrative of yourself and inquire as to who is even doing all of this talking inside your own head, you may come to realize that you have no idea!

is that if you are aware of what is happening, you are "doing it right," no matter what is happening.

We imagine that one or two big things will have a profound effect [on our happiness]. But it looks like happiness is the sum of hundreds of small things….The small stuff matters.

Thinking seems to constitute our "default setting" rather than awareness.

Here is Eliot, again from "Burnt Norton": Time past and time future Allow but a little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time

We will need to become more aware of and take precautions against the incredible pull of the Scylla and Charybdis of past and future, and the dreamworld they offer us in place of our lives.

Focusing on the breath does not mean you should think about your breathing!

Instead, we are living inside our own little narrative bubble of the moment, frequently misattributing cause and effect and therefore completely imprisoned in thoughts and emotions that are both inaccurate and misguided.