Frequently, in the journey of the soul, the most precious moments are the mistakes. They have brought you to a place which you would otherwise have always avoided. You should bring a compassionate mindfulness to your mistakes and wounds. If you visit this configuration in your heart, it will fall into place itself. When you forgive yourself your inner wounds begin to heal. You come in, out of the exile of hurt into the joy of inner belonging.
John O Donohue, Anamchara
“This is boring” or “This is not working”, or “I can’t do this”.
These are judgments. Actually they are just thoughts.
It is important to recognize them as judgmental thinking and remind yourself that the practice involves suspending judgment and just watching whatever comes up, without pursuing them or acting in any way
Jon Kabat Zinn
Mindfulness encourages us to pay attention and rest in what is happening in the present moment. However, we often prefer to be elsewhere, or that the present moment be other than what it actually is. What we learn through our practice is the key to finding contentment is to be fully present with whatever we are doing, no matter how ordinary. This realization that the fulness of our lives is right in front of us, and not to be found in the future, is an insight found in all wisdom traditions and leads to true contentment .
The everyday tedium of our lives is the desert we wander, looking for the Promised Land. Our relationships, our work, and all the little necessary tasks we don’t want to do are all the gift. We have to brush our teeth, we have to buy groceries. we have to do the laundry, we have to balance our checkbook. This tedium — this wandering in the desert — is in fact the face of God. Our struggles, the partner who drives us crazy, the report we don’t want to write — these are the Promised Land.
Charlotte Joko Beck
The secret of health for both mind and body is
not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles,
but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.
Buddha
In our dally lives, we should be mindful. What does it mean to be mindful? It means to be fully aware right here, concentrating on what is going on inside. We are looking at something, for instance, and we try to concentrate on that; then a sound comes, and then a smell, then this and then that-distractions, changes. We say: ‘I can’t be mindful of this environment; it’s too confusing. I have to have a special environment where there are no distractions, then I can be mindful. If I go to one of those retreats, then I can be mindful; no distractions there-peace and quiet-noble silence! I can’t be mindful in Edinburgh or London – too many distractions. And I’ve got family, children, too much noise!’
But mindfulness is not necessarily concentrating on an object. Being aware of confusion is also being mindful. If we have all kinds of things coming at our senses-noises, people demanding this and that-we cannot concentrate on any one of them for very long. But we can be aware of the confusion, or the excitement, or the impingement; we can be aware of the reactions in our own minds. That is what we call being mindful. We can be mindful of confusion and chaos. And we can be mindful of peace and tranquillity.
Ajahn Sumeho
The foundation practice for mindfulness is the development of a steady concentration which is able to then hold all things in awareness, both pleasant and unpleasant, without necessarily identifying with them:
The practice of concentration (samadhi) trains the mind’s capacity for being present in the moment,
thus augmenting our ability to bring wise attention to bear as much as possible on the experience.
Andrew Olendzki.
Mindfulbalance 