Quotes about Awareness

The American Negro has no conception of the hundreds of millions of other non-whites' concern for him: he has no conception of their feeling of brotherhood for and with him.

With increasing age, dullness of mind and heart sets in.

All of our problems start in our minds.

We'd all like to increase pleasure and minimize pain, but the truth is, suffering, even collective suffering that we're going through, is often the earmark that some real change is happening.

Suffering has causes which can be illuminated in order to be removed

Thus we are sucked away into the future—and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life.

Many of us spend a lot of time sitting—too much time. We sit at our jobs, we sit at our computers, and we sit in our cars. To sit, in this book, means to sit in such a way that you enjoy sitting, to sit in a relaxed way, with your mind awake, calm, and clear. This is what we call sitting , and it takes some training and practice.

What will happen to our consciousness after we die? A. What happens to consciousness when we're still alive? If you can answer that question, the other question will be answered as well.

Instead of describing sitting meditation as the practice of concentration, looking deeply, and getting insight, I like to describe sitting as enjoying doing nothing.

Even if two people have a baby together, they are still separate. Each of us remains in isolation. It's not by living together, or by having sexual relations, or even by having children together that we can dispel this feeling of isolation. We can only dispel our mutual isolation when we practice mindfulness and are able to truly come home to ourselves and each other.

If we're aware of the habit energies in us and can become more intentional in our thoughts, speech, and actions, then we can transform not only ourselves, but also our ancestors who planted the seeds. If we're able to do that, it means our ancestors are also able to smile at what is provoking them. If one person keeps calm and smiles at a provocation, the whole world will have a better chance for peace.

We have to learn the art of stopping — stopping our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness, the strong emotions that rule us.