Mindfulness Quotes

People slip spontaneously into moments of concentration all the time—while reading a book, exercising, playing chess, or creating art. A yogi seeks to experience that same level of concentration intentionally in a practice known as dharana—the act of purposefully narrowing the mind’s focus on the breath, the sensations of the body, a mantra, or a prayer bead. This consistent and purposeful focusing of the mind while on the yoga mat or meditation cushion gives the yogi the same level of focus in life, allowing for wild creativity and unfathomable productivity.

~ Darren Main

The great paradox of life is that to fully live, we must let a piece of ourselves die.

~ Darren Main

Although you could open a can of soup with a hammer, a stone, or even your teeth if you didn’t mind making a mess or chipping a tooth, a much wiser approach would be to use a can opener. The breath is like a can opener for the soul. Can you explore the depths of your being without conscious breathing? Sure. The more relevant question is, why would you want to?

~ Darren Main

Non-attachment doesn’t mean you forgo possessions, pleasure, or comfort. It simply means you are at peace when those things fail to show up in your life. It means that while you can enjoy moments of ease, you are equally at peace when pain, hardship, and struggle define a given moment.

~ Darren Main

Instead of asking, “How can I ease my suffering?” yoga would have us ask,“How can I better serve my brothers and sisters?” Because only in answering the latter can we hope to answer the former.

~ Darren Main

The windmill doesn’t try to control the wind or demand that it blow in another direction. It simply surrenders to the wind, and in so doing becomes a source of immense power. The water wheel doesn’t attempt to change the course of the river; it simply surrenders to the flow and allows the power of the river tobe expressed through it. Most see surrender as a form of weakness, when in reality, surrender is the source of all true power.

~ Darren Main

Standing at the end of a diving board looking at the water never made the water warmer, but it will make taking the plunge unnecessarily hard.

~ Darren Main

What is it to succeed in yoga? Success in yoga means finding the smile buried deep beneath the pain and discomfort of any moment. Success in yoga is knowing that others were able to find a smile beneath their pain and discomfort because you were near. Success in yoga is speaking to yourself and others with compassion and kindness, even when you want to wield your words as weapons. Success in yoga is to listen more than you speak. Success in yoga is when mindfulness celebrates the joyful moments andbecomes a refuge for the painful ones. Success in yoga is to be grateful even for your pain, suffering, and challenges. Success in yoga is willingly taking the time to put the needs of another ahead of your own. Success in yoga is feeling fear rattle your bones and then doing it anyway. Success in yoga is not only finding your purpose in life, but also finding the courage and passion to live that purpose. Success in yoga is remembering that it was never about the number of times you fell but rather the number of times you got back up.

~ Darren Main

Once we understand cause and effect, we can stop complaining about the effects of our choices. We can start making more mindful decisions about the thoughts we entertain, the actions we perform, the people with whom weassociate, and the quality of life we want to live.

~ Darren Main

Why do we call yoga a practice? The yoga poses of life—the grief, the fear,the uncertainty—rarely offer us the option of coming to child pose or modifying the posture. The yoga mat offers us a safe and controlled environment in which we can witness our challenges, embrace our discomfort, and hold space for our struggles. A yoga practice doesn’t prevent the storms of life, but it does teach us to weather those storms more gracefully.

~ Darren Main

The mind is the only level at which any lasting change can occur—it is the soil in which we plant our hopes and fears, habits, and patterns. What we plant in the mind will grow and bear fruit. Just as it would be pointless to complain about a carrot seed failing to produce a tomato, it is equally pointless to look at the garden of your life and complain about what you see growing there. We have to be willing to plant different seeds.

~ Darren Main

Just as a hug is the only way to express yourself when words are inadequate,mudras, or gestures, convey profound spiritual experiences that cannot adequately be expressed verbally. The most powerful,universal and healing mudra is a smile. When we overflow with joy, we cannot help but smile spontaneously. And when we are mired in doubt, fear, anxiety, and depression, a smile creates a map in the mind that leads us home to that joy that is hidden in even the darkest moments of our life. It is one thing to know that joy is possible in any moment—in any situation. It is anotherskill entirely to know when to find that joy when your world is crumbling around you. The map is with you always—just smile!

~ Darren Main

Guilt is like tarnish on a piece of silver. It effectively obscures beauty and radiance, but can never lessen its true value. Just as the true beauty and value of silver is revealed with a little bit of polish, your true worth will shine with regular spiritual practice.

~ Darren Main

Just as one goes on a fast or a body cleanse you owe it to yourselves to detox your mind, it will not be easy but easy never yielded lasting results.

~ Aysha Taryam

Most people spend years trying to feng shui their lives—to decorate and reorganize life in such a way that order and peace will finally arrive. One can decorate and redecorate for years, but a fresh coat of paint is not going to patch the cracks in your foundation—the only way to do this is through the practice of non-attachment.

~ Darren Main

The truth about yourself is so near, so close, that it is very difficult to perceive. Just as it is difficult to style your hair, apply makeup, or shave without a mirror, we require a mirror of sorts to spiritually groom ourselves. For most, that mirror is relationships with others. People who wear masks of untrustworthiness, dishonesty, selfishness, and greed see those qualities reflected back from everyone they meet—even the most noble souls who cross their paths. But people who have put their masks aside are able to experience compassion, love, and wholeness in others, even in their adversaries—even in those who are still mired in a tangled web of fear, insecurity, and abrasiveness.

~ Darren Main

Meditation is good for the elderly, great for adults, even greater for children, and greater still for pregnant women. So, meditate and be well.

~ Abhijit Naskar

Silence—true silence is universal. It is the profound stillness at the center of everything, at the center of every relationship—at the center of yourself. While it is always there, it can only be experienced beyond the veil of judgment, expectation, and attachment. From time to time, a person can spontaneously enter into a perfect moment of silence when dancing, watching a sunset, holding an infant, or making love; but for most,true silence remains elusive at best. Yet through various forms of meditation and prayer this veil can be lifted, allowing that inner silence to wash through you, leaving in its wake a cleansed mind and a compassionate heart.

~ Darren Main

Mindfulness is the bedrock of all spiritual practice. With mindfulness, the simple becomes profound, and the common becomes extraordinary. Without mindfulness, even gold and silver will quickly lose their luster.

~ Darren Main

All great myths and stories follow a similar pattern. The hero gets distracted and questions his power. He struggles and flounders until he is able to face his perceived weakness. Ironically, it is the struggle that makes himstronger and enables him to meet his destiny. Without the struggle, without missing the mark, without getting lost in the mire of the journey, growth would not be possible. We tend to think of life’s struggles as the cause of oursuffering, when in fact, struggle reveals our true power and unlocks our latent potential.

~ Darren Main

Gratitude is both a vaccine and an antidote for grief. Grief may be an inevitable fact of life, but gratitude has the power to transform the experience of grief from agonizing suffering to profound joy.

~ Darren Main

Meditation is the alchemist of the soul. It transforms disappointment into acceptance, betrayal into forgiveness, scarcity into abundance, loneliness into self acceptance, fear into love, despair into hope, anxiety into peace, and apathy into compassion.

~ Darren Main

Sculpting the future and healing the past can only happen through mindful action in the present moment.

~ Darren Main

So many people confuse attachment with love. Attachment to someone implies control; loving someone assumes unconditional acceptance. Attachment leads to grief and loneliness when the person is no longernear—or even sometimes when he or she is in the very same room. Love is the realization that there is no distance between you and the other—whether they are across the room, around the world, or beyond the veil of death.

~ Darren Main

True power—not to be confused with worldly power—is found at that beautifuland sacred spot where will and surrender merge into an unstoppable force.

~ Darren Main

Meditation is a secular practice, not a religious practice.

~ Abhijit Naskar

The apparent wall between your body and the world is more like a picket fence. And between your mind and the world, it's like a line painted on the sidewalk.

~ Rick Hanson

Meditation is the vitamin for your mind.

~ Abhijit Naskar

Do not force your mind to get rid of random thoughts, because your brain is simply not capable of doing so. Instead, when you sit to practise meditation, let the thoughts come and go, just don’t serve them tea. Over time, that background noise inside your head would disappear.

~ Abhijit Naskar

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

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

There’s no denying that it takes effort to set the intention to see our fundamental connected-ness with others.

~ Sharon Salzberg

If we have nothing material to give, we can offer our attention, our energy, our appreciation. The world needs us. It doesn’t deplete us to give.

~ Sharon Salzberg

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

~ Sharon Salzberg

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

~ Sharon Salzberg

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

If we truly loved ourselves, we’d never harm another. That is a truly revolutionary, celebratory mode of self-care.

~ Sharon Salzberg

The more we practice mindfulness, the more alert we become to the cost of keeping secrets.

~ Sharon Salzberg

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

~ Sharon Salzberg

As human beings, we’re capable of greatness of spirit, an ability to go beyond the circumstances we find ourselves in, to experience a vast sense of connection to all of life.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Our minds tend to race ahead into the future or replay the past, but our bodies are always in the present moment.

~ Sharon Salzberg