The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently
Pema Chodron
Tag: Be fully present
The power of the past and the future
If my happiness at this moment consists largely in reviewing happy memories and expectations, I am but dimly aware of this present. I shall still be dimly aware of the present when the good things that I have been expecting come to pass. For I shall have formed a habit of looking behind and ahead, making it difficult for me to attend to the here and now. If, then , my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.
Alan Watts
When you are centered
You’re very busy doing your practices……and you get into a state of mind where you accept that whatever is happening is happening. Even the most awful things that happen, if you’re centered, you’ll be O.K. If not, the most trivial thing will send you off. It has nothing to do with the experience or the circumstance: it is the attitude that’s important. We have to stop clinging to the conditioned path and learn to be open to the unconditioned path.
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
Where suffering begins
The origin of suffering – the idea that we need to have something, become something or get rid of something – has the power to get any of us heated up.
It is the mind’s relationship to the senses that is the problem
Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth
How to be master of your own happiness
Everything can be used as an invitation to meditation. A smile, a face in the subway, the sight of a small flower growing in the crack of cement pavement, a fall of rich cloth in a shop window, the way the sun lights up flower pots on a windowsill. Be alert for any sign of beauty or grace. Offer up every joy, be awake at all moments “to the news that is always arriving out of silence”.
Slowly, you will become a master of your own bliss, a chemist of your own joy, with all sorts of remedies always at hand to elevate, cheer, illuminate and inspire your every breath and movement.
Sogyal Rinpoche
Teens Day 1: Use the breath to center yourself
There will be some posts over the next four weeks to accompany the Introductory Mindfulness Course which I am running with teenagers.
Breath is the bridge that connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold again.
In our community, where people are practicing the mindfulness of doing laundry, washing dishes, eating, walking and so forth, everybody learns to use breath as a tool for restoring mindfulness.
Thich Nhat Hahn
