Mindfulness Quotes

Working rightly, the brain is the highest form of instinctual wisdom. Thus it should work like the homing instinct of pigeons and the formation of the foetus in the womb - without verbalizing the process of knowing how it does it. The self-conscious brain, like the self-conscious heart, is a disorder, and manifests itself in the acute feeling of separation between I and my experience.

~ Alan W. Watts

Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child - our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I felt like I wasn’t living thoroughly enough — I was distracted in ways I wouldn’t be if I’d been born in 1929.

~ Miranda July

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

Everything can turn around in a moment, if you just change your thoughts, and make different decisions. Listen to your heart.

~ Stacie Hammond

Our work and educational institutions reinforce this preference for later over now throughout our lives. In school we focus on the ends — passing the semester, making the grade, or otherwise getting it all behind us — rather than the present-moment experience of actually learning. As employees, we want the work to be over as soon as it begins. Work culture is driven by quotas, billable hours, budgets, and Gantt charts — bottom lines of any sort. The value is always somewhere ahead of you, rather than here right now, in the room with you. We’re perpetually looking ahead to a payday or a weekend or some other kind of finish line. Virtually every day of our lives, we’re trained to lean towards something we don’t have, which essentially trains us to be dissatisfied with where we already are.

~ David Cain

My experience is that many things are not as bad as I thought they would be.

~ Mary Doria Russell

The standard way of reducing stress in our culture is to put as much energy as possible into trying to arrive at a moment that matches our preferences. This ensures that we feel some level of stress until we get there (assuming we ever will) and worse, it makes the present moment into an unacceptable place to be.

~ David Cain

By learning to allow different types of discomfort to simply stay in the room with you, without your scrambling for a button to push (real or metaphorical), you make discomfort matter less.The pool of things you’re afraid of shrinks. It becomes a lot less important to control circumstances, because you know you can handle moments of uncertainty or awkwardness or disappointment without an escape plan.

~ David Cain

You have more power over your mind than you realize. The time to strengthen it is now.

~ Aimee Halpin

Do what you are doing. Monastic motto

~ Rick Perlstein

Avoid having to pump your brakes by keeping your flow on cruise control.

~ T.f. Hodge

He made me question what was, when for a whole lifetime up till that moment, I accepted the world’s excuses.

~ Walter Mosley

Stay present, stay conscious.

~ Eckhart Tolle

What is it you really want? Are you really going to be happy when you get the object? What will it bring you? Is what you’re telling yourself really true? You have the choice, you can keep on getting hit by the wave or you can get the courage to run towards it and dive right through it - everything starts with you.

~ Evan Sutter

This inability to just do nothing is a direct result of our habit of externalisation. As children we are never taught in schools, or in social settings, to look within ourselves for answers. Whether it is that our answers are found in some sort of religion, or another person, or in something else, we start to make this common practice. We are indecisive in life looking to friends, family, counsellors, teachers, and even strangers for advice. We are never taught or, better yet, shown how to look after our number one relationship in life, which is the relationship with one’s self.

~ Evan Sutter

The worlds high on doing and distracting and as result we need to keep doing and it doesn’t really matter what we are doing, as long as it is distracting.

~ Evan Sutter

Either you 'are' in your mind, or you are where you are. Fully present.

~ Matthew Donnelly

When you're one with being you're one with god.

~ Matthew Donnelly

Traffic is more of the in between time where we think more about where we are going than where we are at the moment.

~ Tom Vanderbilt

Mindless fear is greater than mindful fear.

~ Idowu Koyenikan

Collaboration is the essence of life. The wind, bees and flowers work together, to spread the pollen.

~ Amit Ray

It is easier to act your way into a better feeling than to feel your way into a better way of acting. When certain feelings hinder you, look for other feelings to feel. Supplant your fear with a greater motivation. The more frequently we feel and do not act, the less often we will feel. Act genially in the face of rancor; you may be the only angel in that person’s life. What you practice projecting you are projecting and you become.

~ Kare Anderson

We become more devoted to pleasing other people than establishing a relationship with ourselves. We believe we are what we have and what we do and we believe we are what other people think we are. Ego is in many ways the primary cause of most of our misconception and woe.

~ Evan Sutter

To find signals in data, we must learn to reduce the noise - not just the noise that resides in the data, but also the noise that resides in us. It is nearly impossible for noisy minds to perceive anything but noise in data.

~ Stephen Few

You are a miracle. Remind yourself often.

~ Charnita Arora

Living closer to the center of our being is the practice of a lifetime, but so, too, is skillfully living on the horizontal plane-the surface of life-where our purpose for being on the planet is uniquely expressed. Redefining moments are simply energy vortexes that draw the authentic self up (vertically) and out (horizontally) and into present moment awareness, revealing it to the light of day and the gifts it holds.

~ Dennis Merritt Jones

We must realise that cognitive hygiene is as important subject as oral hygiene for healthy and happy existence.

~ Aditya Ajmera

To be self-compassionate is not to be self-indulgent or self-centred. A major component of self-compassion is to be kind to yourself. Treat yourself with love, care, dignity and make your wellbeing a priority. With self-compassion, we still hold ourselves accountable professionally and personally, but there are no toxic emotions inflicted upon and towards ourselves.

~ Christopher Dines

The human brain is incredible in its capacity to heal and rewire itself. The human brain can be shaped and trained to be more resilient, calm, compassionate and alert—we can condition ourselves to be successful. Through mindfulness meditation, we can literally re-wire our brains through new experiences, which modify our neural network and our neural chemistry. Mindfulness also enhances gamma synchrony and improves the function of the human brain.

~ Christopher Dines

Things sometimes go our way and sometimes they don’t. All we can do is apply ourselves to our profession, giving our very best effort but emotionally letting go of the outcome. Why? Because if we obsess about an outcome, we cannot possibly honour the present moment.

~ Christopher Dines

First and foremost, if we maintain healthy emotional boundaries and direct love and kindness inwards, we are taking care of ourselves and secondly we are giving a subliminal message to others about how we wish to be treated. People tend to subconsciously treat us how we treat ourselves.

~ Christopher Dines

It is impossible to control outcomes or results, although most of us have been programmed from a very young age to believe otherwise. The idea that we can perform actual ‘magic’ causes tremendous dysfunction, unnecessary suffering and prevents the development of emotional resilience.

~ Christopher Dines

Maybe (Taoist story)A classic ancient story illustrates the importance of equanimity and emotional resilience beautifully. Once upon a time, there was a wise old farmer who had worked on the land for over 40 years. One morning, while walking to his stable, he noticed that his horse had run away. His neighbours came to visit and sympathetically said to the farmer, “Such bad luck”.“Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following morning, however, the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “Such good luck,” the neighbours exclaimed.“Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following afternoon, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses and was thrown off, causing him to break his leg. The neighbours came to visit and tried to show sympathy and said to the farmer, “how unfortunate”. “Maybe,” answered the farmer. The following morning military officials came to the farmer’s village to draft young men into the army to fight in a new war. Observing that the farmer’s son’s leg was broken, they did not draft him into the war. The neighbours congratulated him on his good luck and the farmer calmly replied, “Maybe”.

~ Christopher Dines

Conscious breathing anchors us into the nowness of life and gives us a fresh outlook, no different from how a baby observes reality without mental commentary. The baby enjoys watching the world and human activity without any limiting mental concepts spoiling his or her perception. Naturally, we all have to evolve from the helpless state of babyhood, but to be able to tap into that wonderful ability and truly BE in the moment is immensely liberating.

~ Christopher Dines

I step outside, easy at first... there is noise; I don't hear it. There are people; I don't see them... I see the water; I am alongside it. There is a big hill; I conquer it. A mile of grass; I fly across it. With each step I am stronger, and then faster. My body engages; I am really flying; I am one with the road, but I no longer feel it. With every step forward I am faster and freer. Nothing can touch me; no one can find me. What I find is the truth. I find myself... I am a runner.

~ Jacqueline Simon Gunn

Stress, burnout and strain on the human heart are all increasingly taking their toll for millions of hardworking people. However, even someone who is working in a job that simply ‘pays the bills’ can turn mundane and stressful tasks into pleasant activities with a slight adjustment in attitude and by adopting a daily mindful practice.

~ Christopher Dines

I used to think that life was only about progress, getting to a destination, the final outcome. But this isn’t quite right. Life is more of a process, and as much as goals are important, the in-the-moment experiences along the way are really where authentic living takes place. Running has taught me this. In fact, running has been my greatest teacher of life.

~ Jacqueline Simon Gunn

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

The word ‘pranayama’, often referred to as alternate breathing, comes from the Sanskrit meaning ‘extension of life force’ or ‘extension of breath’. At times, we are going to have days where we are bombarded with one task after another. This simple yet effective meditation only takes a couple of minutes and its calming qualities can be felt almost immediately. It is one of the easiest meditation techniques to apply. This practice is well worth applying at least three or four times a day (somewhere private) to develop emotional balance and evenness of mind, especially in the working environment.

~ Christopher Dines