Mindfulness Quotes

Life is very simple. Just sometimes put your head away, sometimes behead yourself, sometimes look with no clouds in the eyes - just look. Sometimes sit by the side of a tree - just feel. By the side of a waterfall - listen. Lie down on the beach and listen to the roar of the ocean, feel the sand, the coolness of it, or look at the stars, and let that silence penetrate you. Or look at the dark night and let that velvety darkness surround you, envelop you, dissolve you. This is the way of the simple heart.

~ Osho

It is good to stop by the track for a space, put aside the knapsack, wipe the brows, and talk a little of the upper slopes of the mountain we think we are climbing, would but the trees let us see it.

~ H.g. Wells

In the 1991 movie City Slickers, Jack Palance gives Billy Crystal some profoundly simple advice. When Crystal asks him the secret of life, Palance holds up a forefinger, answers with a single word: One.Choose one thing. Do it to the best of your ability. Let it go. Pick something else. Repeat endlessly.

~ Lionel Fisher

Mindfulness describes a state of becoming that places the individual beyond judgment and definition.

~ Celeste Cooper

We are, all of us, always only one breath or softening of our thought away from an invasion of divine wonder and fresh miracles. Soul waits for any small opening of our hearts to steal into everyday life.

~ Jacob Nordby

...there is something very vital happening when we breathe—without it we die—but trying to speed it up, force it, grasp it, push it away or control it tends to get in the way. As in breathing, so in life—we can learn a lot from the natural rhythm, pace, and un-fussiness of the way breath continues its work, without making a big deal out of it.

~ Ed Halliwell

Much of the time the mind is wandering, either drawn to focus, ruminate, or push away unpleasant experiences, or chasing after stuff we like. But if we don’t practise being still, we are prone to get blown about by every wind, buffeted by the ups and downs of life. By training to pay attention precisely and gently to the breath, coming back again and again, we cultivate a resilience that allows us to be present when difficulty and temptation arises. Distractions still come, but we don’t get so lost in them.

~ Ed Halliwell

There is no work-life balance. We have one life. What's most important is that you be awake for it.

~ Janice Marturano

Every moment is utterly unique and will not be continued in eternity. This fact gives life its poignancy and should concentrate your attention on what you are experiencing now.

~ Joseph Campbell

The mystical perception (which is only “mystical” if reality is limited to what can be measured by the intellect and senses) is remarkably consistent in all ages and all places. All phenomena are processes, connections, all is in flux…have the mind screens knocked away to see there is no real edge to anything, that in the endless interpenetration of the universe, a molecular flow, a cosmic energy shimmers in all stone and steel as well as flesh…

~ Peter Matthiessen

The daily mindfulness, consistency, and discipline is ultimately more important than the amount of time. In other words, it’s more about quality than quantity. If you use 15 minutes effectively, you’ll accomplish more than you would be able to with two hours of unfocused, random actions.

~ Simon S. Tam

I was unprepared for the firsthand experience of mindfulness. The way that awareness … revealed a sense of well-being right there in the heat of my emotions.

~ Dawn Downey

Awareness is bliss.

~ Francy Pillo-Blocka

I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.

~ Emo Philips

Speaking to people does not have the same personal intensity as listening to them. The question I put to myself is not 'How many people have you spoken to about Christ this week?' but 'How many people have you listened to in Christ this week?

~ Eugene H. Peterson

The leaves that remain are only a very small part of the tea. The tea that goes into me is a much bigger part of the tea. It is the richest part.We are the same; our essence has gone into our children, our friends, and the entire universe. We have to find ourselves in those directions and not in the spent tea leaves.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

We should live every day like people who have just been rescued from the moon.

~ No Death

If I don't understand you, I may be angry at you, all the time. We are not capable of understanding each other, and that is the main source of human suffering.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The son needs the father to have access to his source, and the father needs the son to have access to the future and the infinite.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The 'peace' the gospel brings is never the absence of conflict, but an ineffable divine reassurance within the heart of conflict; a peace that surpasses understanding.

~ Walter Wink

There will always be more questions. Every answer leads to more questions. The only way to survive is to let some of them go.

~ David Levithan

What often matters more than the activity we're doing at a moment in time is how we feel about it.

~ Brigid Schulte

But work is life only when done in mindfulness. otherwise, one becomes life the person who lives as though dead. We need to light our own torch in order to carry on. But the life of each one of us is connected with the life of those around us. If we know how to live in mindfulness, if we know how to preserve and care for our own mind and heart then thanks to that our brothers and sisters will also know how to live in mindfulness.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

We don't practice hospitality to point other people to ourselves, our church, or even our beliefs. We practice hospitality to point people toward the ultimate welcome that God gives every person through Christ.

~ Holly Sprink

Through it all, we attempt to bring balance to the present moment,understanding that in patience lies wisdom,knowing that what will come next will be determined in large measure by how we are now.

~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

WHY PARADIGMS MATTERIdeas drive results. People's beliefs drive their actions. Actions that stem from a simple, complete and accurate paradigm result in personal fulfillment, harmonious relationships, and economic prosperity.Actions based on false, incomplete and inaccurate paradigms, however well intended or passionately defended, are the cause of widespread misery, suffering and deprivation.As detailed in Rethinking Survival: Getting to the Positive Paradigm of Change, a fatal information deficit explains the worldwide leadership deficit and related budget deficits. In a dangerous world where psychological and economic warfare compete with religious extremism and terrorism to undo thousands of years of incremental human progress, a healing balance is urgently needed. Restoring a simple, complete and accurate paradigm of leadership and relationships now could make the difference between human survival on the one hand, and the extinction of the human race (or the end of civilization as we know it), on the other. p. 7.

~ Patricia E. West

Praise be to God that hope is much more than how we feel on a given day. It exists outside of us, it is an entity in itself.

~ Holly Sprink

We must work for the good and commit ourselves to postures of global selflessness, even if we can't figure out all the details surrounding the foreign dictators, food shortages, and fair trade. We're called to lean in, to work as hard as we can toward the good, and then trust in God who says, 'The way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.' We're called to be witnesses of how God is at play in the world.

~ Holly Sprink

There are two ways to wash dishes: One is to wash them in order to make them clean, the other is to wash them in order to wash them.

~ Anthony De Mello

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on earth.

~ Línjì Yìxuán

Like some homeopathic cure, our very sense of imprisonment can be a step toward liberation. We need not rebel against our temporally determined roles. Merely to recognize them is to limit their power over us. The liberation implied by such awareness is threefold. To understand one’s own temporal determinism is to establish, above and beyond what one says and does, an analytic posture toward the present as history; it is to achieve, amid the earnest vanities of contemporary society, an easing humility; it is to mark off, as territory precious and imperiled, the moments and pursuits that are left to our choice.

~ Robert Grudin

Global citizenship means simply being willing to focus on the game, to notice the world and the people in it. It does not mean noticing your world, but the world. It means being conscious of the fact that you, and your country, are not the center of God's universe. It is the recognition that the world is made up of people with similar needs, desires, responsibilities, and dreams. It is the willingness to connect to people all over the world, realizing that the choices you make each day affect them and that their decisions affect you. It is noticing that the world is your family.

~ Holly Sprink

While the opportunity to improve yourself and your situation is a great thing, our striving to build perfect lives seems to have morphed into perfectionism so focused on itself that we forget about others in the world. We work so hard to build the ultimate luxury sedan, to embody society's standard of beauty, and to achieve historical scientific breakthroughs that we conveniently forget our family members in other parts of the world who must walk miles each day in their only set of clothing for the opportunity to go to school.

~ Holly Sprink

If we allow our American mindset of consumption to spill into our understanding of what a Christian is, we are in danger of living irrespective of world family.

~ Holly Sprink

Patience is a form of wisdom. It demonstrates that we understand and accept the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time.

~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Everyone's life changes when they meet their Obi-Wan & their Yoda, or their Morpheus & their Oracle; those who help remove the veil.

~ Brandi L. Bates

When life is good do not take it for granted as it will pass. Be mindful, be compassionate and nurture the circumstances that find you in this good time so it will last longer. When life falls apart always remember that this too will pass. Life will have its unexpected turns.

~ Ajahn Brahm

Be selective in your battles...

~ Brandi L. Bates

This is today! What will tomorrow bring? Life arrives and departs on its own schedule, not ours; it's time to travel light, and be ready to go wherever it takes us.

~ Meg Wolfe

Judgement is poverty.

~ Ursula K. Le Guin