Tag: Be fully present

Sunday Quote: Look

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I shut my eyes in order to see.

Paul Gauguin

Problems as opportunities

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View all problems as challenges.
Look upon negativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow.
Don’t run from them, condemn yourself, or bury your burden in saintly silence. 
You have a problem? Great. 
More grist for the mill.

Rejoice, dive in, and investigate.

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

More on letting go in autumn

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There are so many things that hold us back from our dreams

Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice.

By freedom I mean freedom from afflictions, from anger, and from despair.

Thich Nhat Hanh,  Be Free Where You Are

Settle

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Just listen to whatever surrounds you. Sound is a good object of meditation because we generally do not try to control it as much as we do other things. People often have a more difficult time settling into their bodies than they do paying attention to the sounds that appear naturally. Just listen and try to let whatever sounds are around you pass through you.

The fundamental purpose of meditation is not to create a comfortable hiding place for oneself; it is to acquaint the mind, one a moment-to-moment basis, with impermanence….When the mind is settled, the underlying ephemeral nature of things can be more clearly perceived. Resistance diminishes, the flight to past and future recedes, and the sense that it might be possible to respond consciously rather than react blindly to events begins to emerge.

Mark Epstein,  Advice not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself

Slowly, evenly

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Drink you tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Live in the moment

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The interesting thing about this work is that we don’t really do anything for them. If we tried, I think we would fail miserably. Instead we invite them to do something radically new for themselves, namely to experiment with living intentionally from moment to moment. When I was talking to a reporter, she said, “Oh, you mean to live for the moment:” I said “No, it isn’t that. That has a hedonistic ring to it. I mean to live in the moment.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living