Quotes on Mindfulness

[Daniel E.]

"For so long, I had anxiously tried to avoid my thoughts by overworking, refraining from eating, or harming myself in some way through bad decisions. Now I let my thoughts come and go without judgement, a technique I learned in DBT. I observed all the bottled-up thoughts that, in busy daily life, were never allowed to simmer or be observed. I observed them -- then let them go."

- Leslie Contreras Schwartz

How I escaped suicidal depression - Houston Chronicle

 

[Daniel E.]

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth.

- Carl Jung

 

[Daniel E.]

"Driving while anxious or sad raises the risk of crash by nearly 10 times."

Which emotion raises the risk of a car crash by nearly 10 times? - Telegraph

 

[Daniel E.]

"In today's rush, we all think too much, seek too much, want too much - and forget about the joy of just being."

- Eckhart Tolle

 

[Daniel E.]

"Beyond a given point man is not helped by more “knowing,” but only by living and doing in a partly self-forgetful way. As Goethe put it, we must plunge into experience and then reflect on the meaning of it. All reflection and no plunging drives us mad; all plunging and no reflection, and we are brutes."

“Modern man tries to replace vital awe and wonder with a “How to do it” manual.”

- Ernest Becker

 

[Daniel E.]

 

[Daniel E.]

 

[Daniel E.]

“We are going to/work on the first mindfulness skill, which is observing,” drawls [Marsha] Linehan, a native of Oklahoma, in a voice equal parts authority and honey. “Usually we think of meditation as relaxation, as feeling better. But it’s not necessary to get calm, comfortable, and soothed. The idea is to try to do only one thing at a time. Just notice the sound.” She strikes the bell gently, drawing out a warm, velvety hum that vibrates heart and stomach from the inside. Then she rattles her wooden striker across its dimpled surface and strikes again, hard, with a clattering clang, so that people nearly jump. Wake up, wake up, the bell says. Pay attention.

On the Borderline | Katy Butler

 

[Daniel E.]

“To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.”

– Eckhart Tolle

 

[Daniel E.]

Even the mundane task of washing dishes by hand is an example of the small tasks and personal activities that once filled people's daily lives with a sense of achievement.

- B. F. Skinner

 

[Daniel E.]

The darkest-hour thought “My life has no meaning” is just another arising thought.

- Julie Nelson

Chronic fatigue opened up my Buddhist meditation practice

 

[Daniel E.]

"The research suggests that certain mindfulness-based strategies may help prevent or interrupt cravings by occupying a part of our mind that contributes to the development of cravings."

- Katy Tapper

Mindfulness may help reduce cravings for food and drugs, says review -- ScienceDaily

 

[Daniel E.]

We mold clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that makes the vessel useful.

— Tao Te Ching

 

[Daniel E.]

"If you can observe your own experience with a minimum of interference, and if you don't try to control what you experience, if you simply allow things to happen and you observe them, then you will be able to discover things about yourself that you did not know before. You can discover little pieces of the inner structures of your mind, the very things that make you who you are."

"Mastery is the natural result of mindfulness."

- Ron Kurtz

 

[Daniel E.]

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

― William Blake

 

[Daniel E.]

There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. The boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "How terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his legs all messed up. And everybody in the village says, "How wonderful." Now the Zen master says, "We'll see."


- Charlie Wilson's War

 

[Daniel E.]

“Training your mind to be in the present moment is the #1 key to making healthier choices.”

– Susan Albers

 

[Daniel E.]

"A second characteristic of the process which for me is the good life, is that it involves an increasingly tendency to live fully in each moment. I believe it would be evident that for the person who was fully open to his new experience, completely without defensiveness, each moment would be new."

- Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (1961)

 

[Daniel E.]

Mindfulness can help us all be less concerned with what happens to this me. Worries about my health, wealth, beauty, and self-esteem fall into perspective. Having a cold, the car breaking down, a bad hair day, and being afraid I just sounded like an idiot all become easier to bear. Becoming less preoccupied with me is a great relief - especially given what we know will inevitably happen to each of us.

Ronald D. Siegel

 

[Daniel E.]

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment; Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition.

- Rumi