Quotes about Awareness

What does happen as we intentionally pay attention to our breathing is that we realize pretty quickly that we are

To break out of this trap of always being driven by our own desires, it is not a bad exercise to ask yourself from time to time, "What is my own way?" "What do I really want?" "Would I know it if I got it?" "Does everything have to be perfect right now, or under my total control right now, for me to be happy?

the true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." Einstein

Even the tiniest manifestation of mindfulness in any moment might give rise to an intuition or insight that could be hugely transforming.

Mindfulness has been called the heart of Buddhist meditation.

Meditation is more rightly thought of as a "Way" than as a technique. It is a Way of being, a Way of living, a Way of listening, a Way of walking along the path of life and being in harmony with things as they are.

Our lives unfold only in moments. If we are not fully present for many of those moments, we may not only miss what is most valuable in our lives but also fail to realize the richness and the depth of our possibilities for growth and transformation.

The challenge of mindfulness is to be present for your experience as it is rather than immediately jumping in to change it or try to force it to be different.

There is really only one way to do this. It takes a ruthless and, at the same time, kind and self-compassionate commitment to seeing your own impulses to go for the familiar, to fall into habitual patterns and confining mind-sets, and a willingness to let go of them in the very moments when they arise.

Meditation is the process by which we go about deepening our attention and awareness, refining them, and putting them to greater practical use in our lives.

It does provide a greater basket for tenderly holding and intimately knowing our suffering in any and all circumstances, and that, it turns out, is transformative, and can make all the difference between endless imprisonment in pain and suffering and freedom from suffering

This is the case because, as we noted earlier, it is not the breath that is most important here, but the awareness itself. And the awareness can be of any aspect of your experience, not just your breathing—because it is always the same awareness, whatever the chosen object or objects of attention.