Meditation And Mindfulness Quotes

#1. Winning has to do with gaining personal power through the practice of meditation and mindfulness; not draining your energy on ridiculous things and people.

Frederick Lenz

#2. You can't control the universe, but if you learn to practice meditation and mindfulness you may be able to control yourself.

Debasish Mridha

#3. Meditation and mindfulness are tools for working with the mind, but where they have led me is to a blossoming of the heart...

Narissa Doumani

#4. If you want to experience the unalloyed ecstasy of life, you can accomplish this through the twin Buddhist practices of meditation and mindfulness.

Frederick Lenz

#5. You are moving in and out of different advanced states of mind through your practice of meditation and mindfulness. It's that level of excellence that gives you joy in life, not the fact that you won or lost.

Frederick Lenz

#6. When even one virtue becomes our nature, the mind becomes clean and tranquil. Then there is no need to practice meditation; we will automatically be meditating always. (151)

Swami Satchidananda

#7. Kindness is really at the core of what it means to be and feel alive.

Sharon Salzberg

#8. When we approach the journey acknowledging what we do not know and what we can't control, we maintain our energy for the quest.

Sharon Salzberg

#9. The costs of keeping secrets include our growing isolation due to fear of detection and the ways we shut down inside to avoid feeling the effects of our behavior. We can never afford to be truly seen and known - even by ourselves.

Sharon Salzberg

#10. We are all trying to find a path back to the present moment. And good enough reason to just be happy here ... Mindfulness meditation is just a trick for doing that. It's a trick for setting aside your to-do list, if only for a few moments, and actually locate a feeling of fulfilment in the present

Sam Harris

#11. Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.

Thich Nhat Hanh

#12. The environment we create can help heal us or fracture us. This is true not just for buildings and landscapes but also for interactions and relationships.

Sharon Salzberg

#13. If we harm someone else, we're inevitably also hurting ourselves. Some quality of sensitivity and awareness has to shut down for us to be able to objectify someone else, to deny them as a living, feeling being - someone who wants to be happy, just as we do.

Sharon Salzberg

#14. We have to know ourselves to know where we end and another person begins, and we have to develop the skills to navigate the space between us. Or else we will seek wholeness through false means that honor neither us nor those we love.

Sharon Salzberg

#15. Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what's happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what's happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.

Sharon Salzberg

#16. We're in charge of our own forgiveness, and the process takes time, patience, and intention.

Sharon Salzberg

#17. In the freshness of the present moment, past is gone, future is not yet born, and - if one remains in pure mindfulness and freedom - disturbing thoughts arise and go without leaving a trace. That is basic meditation.

Matthieu Ricard

#18. Meditation is not to escape from society, but to come back to ourselves and see what is going on. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. With mindfulness, we know what to do and what not to do to help.

Nhat Hanh

#19. With silence comes mindfulness, and thus we become better at choosing our words with kind intent before we express them.

Alaric Hutchinson

#20. Body scan meditation is mentally scanning through each part of the body with presence. It helps us be one with the body. Thus, we can feel if we are holding on to any tension or heaviness or any static emotions. And by doing so, we can find relief and internal freedom.

Christopher Dines

#21. We do not want to deny existence. Yet we also do not want to limit existence. Thus, we observe and honor without forming opinion, labeling, or adding a story to the object of our observation.

Alaric Hutchinson

#22. When you recognize and reflect on even one good thing about yourself, you are building a bridge to a place of kindness and caring.

Sharon Salzberg

#23. In mindfulness one is not only restful and happy, but alert and awake. Meditation is not evasion; it is a serene encounter with reality.

Thich Nhat Hanh

#24. Study yourself; it should be the first subject you learn and the one you revise each and every day

Evan Sutter

#25. We need to maintain an awareness of our awareness, of what we are paying attention to, in order to discriminate between higher and lower forms of love.

Paul O'Brien

#26. Once I was running and there was someone on the treadmill next to me who stopped running to answer a question I asked and flew of the back of the treadmill. Being fully engaged has many benefits.

Sakyong Mipham

#27. When we feel conflicted about a particular decision or action, our bodies often hold the answer - if we take the time to stop and tune in.

Sharon Salzberg

#28. Sanskrit has different words to describe love for a brother or sister, love for a teacher, love for a partner, love for one's friends, love of nature, and so on. English has only one word, which leads to never-ending confusion.

Sharon Salzberg

#29. Step into the center of the center of the center - right into your Now - and see: how elegant and honest this moment is. Just being yourself, a world to hold your feet, a universe to lift your gaze, a heart beating - constant, in the center of it all.

Laurie Perez

#30. What we learn in meditation, we can apply to all other realms of our lives.

Sharon Salzberg

#31. This is what it means to be mindful. To watch the thoughts as they come and go without judgment while completely accepting what arises in the present moment.

Chris Matakas

#32. Meditation gives you more inner strength and confidence, and if you don't feel vulnerable, you can put that to the service of others. So it's not just about sitting and cultivating caring mindfulness. It's building up a way of being and then using it for the service of others.

Matthieu Ricard

#33. We're capable of much more than mediocrity, much more than merely getting by in this world.

Sharon Salzberg

#34. Meditative thoughts assist people escape a vapid fantasy life and reconnect with ultimate reality.

Kilroy J. Oldster

#35. There is a wager that we must all make; for the small stake of some rewarding mental training, we can attain lasting contentment and contribute to a positive outcome for our planet.

Neil Hayes

#36. if we really look at our actions with eyes of love, we see that our lives can be more straightforward, simpler, less sculpted by regret and fear, more in alignment with our deepest values.

Sharon Salzberg

#37. The innumerable phenomena of life are temporary manifestations of LifeParticles.Once we know that everything comes and goes in a flux of LifeParticles, we can watch ourselves and the world with tranquility.

Ilchi Lee

#38. Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.

Eckhart Tolle

#39. You might have extensive bouts of thinking exceedingly nasty thoughts, but because you are relating to those thoughts with mindfulness and compassion, that's considered good meditation.

Sharon Salzberg

#40. ...after much practice and struggle, you come to feel for yourself that enlightenment is not only possible, but in process.

Narissa Doumani

#41. Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to be present; inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intention to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and right now.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

#42. Any time we find ourselves relying on the ideas of an absolute, frozen state of right and wrong - or fairness versus unfairness - that we are used to, we can compare the habit to distraction during meditation.

Sharon Salzberg

#43. A man sitting still is alone, often, with the memory of all he doesn't have. And what he does have can look very much like nothing.

Pico Iyer

#44. Patience is both the tool for and the result of, our efforts.

Allan Lokos

#45. 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

#46. Mindfulness is so much wiser and more robust than our inner critic.

Sharon Salzberg

#47. When we learn to respond to disappointments with acceptance, we give ourselves the space to realize that all our experiences - good and bad alike - are opportunities to learn and grow.

Sharon Salzberg

#48. Clinging to our ideas of perfection isolates us from life and is a barrier.

Sharon Salzberg

#49. If you meditate in perfect peace and then flash someone an irritable look because they make noise or their child cries, you are entirely missing the point.

Khandro Rinpoche

#50. The ultimate expression of meditation comes when we can feel all the pains of the world, experience them with mindfulness and equanimity so they dissolve into energy, and then recolor that energy and radiate it out as unconditional love, moment by moment, through every pore of our being.

Shinzen Young

#51. Choiceless awareness - at every moment and in all the circumstances of life - is the only effective meditation.

Aldous Huxley

#52. If every day you practice walking and sitting meditation and generate the energy of mindfulness and concentration and peace, you are a cell in the body of the new Buddha. This is not a dream but is possible today and tomorrow.

Nhat Hanh

#53. Through practising body scan awareness meditation, we can greatly reduce the detrimental effects of stress and make our working lives pleasant and enjoyable.

Christopher Dines

#54. Mindfulness is both a state of being and a daily spiritual practice, a form of meditation.

David Richo

#55. Cultivation of positive emotions, including self-love and self-respect, strengthens our inner resources and opens us to a broader range of thoughts and actions.

Sharon Salzberg

#56. Most of our healing occurs during quiet moments of rest when we are in contact with unconscious feelings and experiences. I can't imagine life without the peaceful, insightful moments I have during meditation.

Janet Gallagher Nestor

#57. With 70,000 thoughts a day and 95% of our activity controlled by the subconscious mind, no wonder that it feels as though we are asleep most of the time. To awake, we need to train Self-Remembering and Mindfulness.

Natasa Nuit Pantovic

#58. We have nothing to fear from others because approval and acceptance lies within ourselves.

from Chapter 4

Mare Chapman

#59. Meditation is to be aware of what is going on: in your body, in your feelings, in your mind, and in the world.

Thich Nhat Hanh

#60. Meditate five minutes each morning and see it wake up your entire life.

Waylon H. Lewis

#61. Meditation is, first of all, a tool for surveying our territory so we can know what is going on. With the energy of mindfulness, we can calm things down, understand them, and bring harmony back to the conflicting elements inside us.

Nhat Hanh

#62. 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

#63. Enlightenment comes when you understand the language of heart - the language of tree, birds and the nature.

Amit Ray

#64. Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be. We do not need to fear anything. We are whole: our deepest happiness is intrinsic to the nature of our minds, and it is not damaged through uncertainty and change.

Sharon Salzberg

#65. 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

#66. Mindfulness practice helps create space between our actual experiences and the reflexive stories we tend to tell about them.

Sharon Salzberg

#67. Mindfulness practice begins to open up everything. We open our mind to memories, to emotions, to different sensations in the body. In meditation this happens in a very organic way, because we are not searching, we are not pulling or probing, we are just sitting and watching.

Joseph Goldstein

#68. Your spiritual heart imbibes in the primordial light and, as you dance towards infinity, you begin to see all things are held together by the power of love.

Earthschool Harmony

#69. When you look at the sun during your walking meditation, the mindfulness of the body helps you to see that the sun is in you; without the sun there is no life at all and suddenly you get in touch with the sun in a different way.

Thich Nhat Hanh

#70. You who are journalists, writers, citizens, you have the right and duty to say to those you have elected that they must practice mindfulness, calm and deep listening, and loving speech. This is universal thing, taught by all religions.

Nhat Hanh

#71. Be mindful 24 hours a day, not just during the one hour you may allot for formal meditation or reading scripture and reciting prayers. Each act must be carried out in mindfulness.

Nhat Hanh

#72. The overarching practice of letting go is also one of gaining resilience and insight.

Sharon Salzberg

#73. Seeking happiness is not the problem. The problem is that we often do not know where and how to find genuine happiness and so make the mistakes that cause suffering for ourselves & others.

Sharon Salzberg

#74. They say practice mindfulness, practice meditation, practice kindness, practice breathing. I found no answers and wanted to practice driving a tank through a department store.

Jon Konrath

#75. Mindfulness is passive meditation. It is passive because your energy and your attention are divided between your actions and your practice, your meditation.

Frederick Lenz

#76. The immense distance between God and humanity is the indispensable backdrop to a Christian idea of revelation. To reduce God to the level of human thought and human imagination, so that we can comprehend God, is to lose a sense of the very thing that distinguishes God as God.

A.J. Conyers

#77. It starts with a single breath and the present moment, but where it takes you is into the vast radiance of your true nature, into a magical, spacious life.

Narissa Doumani

#78. There are many good forms of meditation practice. A good meditation practice is any one that develops awareness or mindfulness of our body and our sense, of our mind and heart.

Jack Kornfield

#79. Though it may sound paradoxical, identifying our thoughts, emotions, and habitual patterns of behavior is the key to freedom & transformation.

Sharon Salzberg

#80. No connection is always easy or free of strife, no matter how many minutes a day we meditate. It's how we relate to conflict, as well as to our differing needs and expectations, that makes our relationships sustainable.

Sharon Salzberg

#81. Yoga is an integral part of my daily routine. That definitely helps me approach all aspects of my life from a place of mindfulness and clarity, through the meditation that usually accompanies this practice.

Christy Turlington

#82. early stress increases the size of the amygdalae. One study found that an eight-week program of mindfulness meditation reduced the volume of the right basolateral amygdala, and these changes were correlated with a subjective decrease in stress.

Sam Harris

#83. All is in the word "know." To know is to realize. Realization is mindfulness. All the work of meditation is aimed at awakening us in order to know one and only one thing: birth and death can never touch us in any way whatsoever.

Thich Nhat Hanh

#84. The sage is still not because he takes stillness to be good and therefore is still. The ten thousand things are insufficient to distract his mind - that is the reason he is still.

Zhuangzi

#85. Compassion is a fundamental principle of meditation. Meditation is not a narcissistic, self-interested path. It provides the foundation for love, integrity, compassion, respect and sensitivity (Feldman, 1998, p.2).

Christina Feldman

#86. Mindfulness is the capacity to shine the light of awareness onto what's going on here and now. Mindfulness is the heart of meditation practice.

Thich Nhat Hanh

#87. Meditation can be a refuge, but it is not a practice in which real life is ever excluded. The strength of mindfulness is that it enables us to hold difficult thoughts and feelings in a different way - with awareness, balance, and love

Sharon Salzberg

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

Stephen Richards

#89. Loving ourselves calls us to give up the illusion that we can control everything and focuses us on building our inner resource of resilience.

Sharon Salzberg

#90. Wherever the responsibility lies, shame creates a solid and terrible feeling of unworthiness that resides in our bodies: the storehouse of the memories of our acts, real or imagined, and the secrets we keep about them.

Sharon Salzberg

#91. The key in letting go is practice. Each time we let go, we disentangle ourselves from our expectations and begin to experience things as they are.

Sharon Salzberg

#92. When we do our best to treat others with kindness, it's often a struggle to determine which actions best express our love and care for ourselves.

Sharon Salzberg

#93. Don't think the purpose of meditation is to go deep into consciousness, wrap a blanket around yourself, and say, 'How cozy! I'm going to curl up in here by myself; let the world burn.' Not at all. We go deep into meditation so that we can reach out further and further to the world outside.

Eknath Easwaran

#94. You can see your thoughts and emotions arise & create space for them even if they are uncomfortable.

Sharon Salzberg

#95. Mindfulness allows us to shift the angle on our story and to remember that we have the capacity to learn and change in ways that are productive, not self-defeating.

Sharon Salzberg

#96. I believe that there is only one kind of love - real love - trying to come alive in us despite our limiting assumptions, the distortions of our culture, and the habits of fear, self-condemnation, and isolation that we tend to acquire just by living a life.

Sharon Salzberg

#97. Non-doing simply means letting things be and allowing them to unfold in their own way.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

#98. Attention can be trained very naturally, with affection, just as you train a puppy. When something distracts your attention, you say "Come back" and bring it back again. With a lot of training, you can teach your mind to come running back to you when you call, just like a friendly pup.

Eknath Easwaran

#99. In sitting meditation, we train in mindfulness and unconditional friendliness: in being steadfast with our bodies, our emotions, our thoughts.

Pema Chodron

#100. Mindfulness meditation is the embrace of any and all mind states in awareness, without preferring one to another.

Jon Kabat-Zinn