Quotes about Awareness

The more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand.

In the Diamond Sutra the meditator is urged to throw away, to release, four notions in order to understand our own true nature and the true nature of reality: the notion of "self," the notion of "human being," the notion of "living beings," and the notion of "life span.

Cultivating a strong training in meditation and mindfulness is not an opiate to escape what's going on but a way for us to truly still the mind and look deeply, in order to see ourselves and the world clearly.

When you're in bed and unable to sleep, the best thing to do is to go back to your breathing.

According to our narrow view of a truly existing self, life is just my body, my house, my spouse, my children, and my riches. But if we can extend beyond every limit we have created for ourselves, we will see that our life exists in everything, and that the deterioration of phenomena cannot touch that life, just as the arising and disappearing of the waves cannot influence the being of the water.

Anapana means breath and sati means mindfulness. Tang Hoi translated it as "Guarding the Mind." The Anapanasati Sutra, that is, is the sutra on using one's breath to maintain mindfulness.

Avalokiteshvara means "the one who listens deeply to the sounds of the world.

Ignorance is in each cell of our body and our consciousness. It's like a drop of ink diffused in a glass of water. That ignorance stops us from seeing reality; it pushes us to do foolish things that make us suffer even more

Concentration, samadhi in Sanskrit, is a powerful force that you can generate to make a breakthrough, to see clearly what is there and understand its true nature.

The mind tends to dart from one thing to another, like a monkey swinging from branch to branch without stopping to rest.

When we're sitting, we're truly there in the present moment; we have come home, we have arrived. We are present in that time and place; we're not pulled away by the past, the future, or by anger or jealousy in the present.

Walk slowly, but not so slowly that you draw too much attention to yourself. This is a kind of invisible practice. Enjoy nature and your own serenity without making others uncomfortable or making a show of it.