Quotes on Mindfulness

[David Baxter PhD]

This is one of the most baffling trends I've seen in my lifetime — rejection of science which has clearly demonstrated results in favor of fads which have nothing but a catchy name, the promise of an easy cure, and grifters touting its benefits without an ounce of evidence.

 

[Daniel E.]

This is one of the most baffling trends I've seen in my lifetime — rejection of science which has clearly demonstrated results in favor of fads which have nothing but a catchy name, the promise of an easy cure, and grifters touting its benefits without an ounce of evidence.

How the U.S. Lost Its Mind

Make America reality-based again.

www.theatlantic.com

"America was created by true believers and passionate dreamers, and by hucksters and their suckers, which made America successful—but also by a people uniquely susceptible to fantasy, as epitomized by everything from Salem’s hunting witches to Joseph Smith’s creating Mormonism, from P. T. Barnum to speaking in tongues, from Hollywood to Scientology to conspiracy theories, from Walt Disney to Billy Graham to Ronald Reagan to Oprah Winfrey to Trump. In other words: Mix epic individualism with extreme religion; mix show business with everything else; let all that ferment for a few centuries; then run it through the anything-goes ’60s and the internet age. The result is the America we inhabit today, with reality and fantasy weirdly and dangerously blurred and commingled."

 

[Daniel E.]

“Self-realization means that we have been consciously connected with our source of being.”

— Swami Paramananda

Dasein - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"The opposite of this authentic self is everyday and inauthentic Dasein, the forfeiture of one's individual meaning, destiny and lifespan, in favour of an (escapist) immersion in the public everyday world."

 

[Daniel E.]

“We yearn for tomorrow and the progress that it represents. But yesterday was once tomorrow, and where was progress in it? Or we yearn for yesterday, for what was or what might have been. But as we are yearning, the present is becoming the past, so the past is nothing but our yearning for second chances.”

― Dean Koontz, Brother Odd

 

[Daniel E.]

Words of wisdom from academia

"Fear of society, mediated through the superego, renders the subject passive and blind to the schematization of experience that society performs on its behalf. This, in turn, leads to a compulsive flattening of the field of experience, where the subject's contribution to the processing of experience is to insistently (due to unconscious fear of the superego) incorporate the new and novel into what already is the case."

~ Todd Hedrick

 

[Daniel E.]

“Activity and rest are two vital aspects of life. To find a balance in them is a skill in itself. Wisdom is knowing when to have rest, when to have activity, and how much of each to have. Finding them in each other - activity in rest and rest in activity - is the ultimate freedom.”

"Dissolving the name is awareness. Dissolving the form is meditation. The world is name and form. Bliss transcends name and form."

― Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Celebrating Silence

 

[Daniel E.]

“A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”

~ Killingsworth and Gilbert (2010)

 

[Daniel E.]

“When you’re constantly tuned into Stress FM you are not actually consciously aware and available in the present moment to experience life as it is. You miss out on countless potential feelings of joy, gratitude, connection and creativity because of your relentless focus on what could go wrong, or what has gone wrong.”

― Nick Trenton, Stop Overthinking

 

[Daniel E.]

“The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.”

~ Winston Churchill

 

[Daniel E.]

"I’m not sure how much meditation would have helped me concentrate in my early Microsoft days, because I was monomaniacally focused without it. But now that I’m married, have three children, and have a broader set of professional and personal interests, it’s a great tool for improving my focus. It’s also helped me step back and get some ease with whatever thoughts or emotions are present. I like what I’m getting from my 10 minutes every few days."

~ Bill Gates (2018)

 

[Daniel E.]

"In a certain sense, enlightenment is dying into the ordinary, or into an extraordinary ordinariness. We start to realize the ordinary is extraordinary."

― Adyashanti, The End of Your World

 

[Daniel E.]

"Peace isn’t something you ultimately receive when you slow down the pace of your life. Peace is what you’re capable of being and bringing to every encounter and event in the waking moments of your life."

"Being peace is different from looking for peace."

― Wayne Dyer, PhD


“Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache: You won't be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.”

― Ajahn Chah

 

[Daniel E.]

“To think that you will be happy by becoming something else is delusion. Becoming something else just exchanges one form of suffering for another form of suffering. But when you are content with who you are now, junior or senior, married or single, rich or poor, then you are free of suffering.”

― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

 

[Daniel E.]

Quotes by the two authors of Falling is Flying:

“Instead of trying to discipline your mind with ill will, fault-finding, guilt, punishment, and fear, use something far more powerful: the beautiful kindness, gentleness, and forgiveness of making peace with life.”—Ajahn Brahm

“In free fall, nothing is solid and there is nothing to hold on to. There is no way to control the experience. You have to surrender, and with that surrender comes the taste of liberation.”—Master Guojun

 

[Daniel E.]

— Thich Nhat Hanh, At Home in the World

 

[Daniel E.]

“One of the most difficult things to remember is to remember to remember. We forget that we live in a body with senses and feelings and thoughts and emotions and ideas. We get caught up in rumination and fantasy, isolating us from the world of colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations constantly bombarding our input sensors. To stop and pay attention to the moment is one way of snapping out of these mindscapes, and is a definition of meditation. This awareness is a process of deepening self-acceptance. Whatever it observes, it embraces. There is nothing unworthy of acceptance.”

“Evasion of the unadorned immediacy of life is as deep-seated as it is relentless. Even with the ardent desire to be aware and alert in the present moment, the mind flings us into tawdry and tiresome elaborations of past and future. This craving to be otherwise, to be elsewhere, permeates the body, feeling, perceptions, will―consciousness itself. It is like the background radiation from the big bang of birth, the aftershock of having erupted into existence.”

“The true value of any dogma or belief lies in its ability to point beyond itself to a deeper reality which can not be readily articulated in a simple formula or expression.”

― Stephen Batchelor

 

[Daniel E.]

“We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.”

― Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

"Sometimes the most valuable of all talents is to be able not to seek resolution; to notice the craving for completeness or certainty or comfort, and not feel compelled to follow where it leads … Ultimately, what defines the ‘cult of optimism’ and the culture of positive thinking—even in its most mystically tinged New Age forms—is that it abhors a mystery … The greatest benefit of negative capability—the true power of negative thinking—is that it lets the mystery back in."

~ Oliver Burkeman

 

[Daniel E.]

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"I am more interested in the question than the answer. Sometimes, questioning and searching for an answer, is just a way to avoid moving on. The eternal search for the "why," which can become a way to retreat from the bridge to the other side."

~ Dr. Barry Brody

 

[Daniel E.]

“Yes, if you're looking for infinity, just close your eyes!”

― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

 

[Daniel E.]

“I’m filled with desire—to live, to write, to do everything. Desire itself is a kind of immortality.”

― Anatole Broyard, Intoxicated by My Illness