Meditation is neither shutting things out nor off. by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Meditation is neither shutting things out nor off.
by Jon Kabat-Zinn

The mind constantly chatters.
That chatter winds up being the force
that drives us much of the day in terms of what we do,
what we react to, and how we feel.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

In meditation practice, the best way to get somewhere
is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Simply put, mindfulness is moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Any change that comes about in your life
will be primarily because of your own efforts.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way:
on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Patience is a form of wisdom.
It demonstrates that we understand and accept
the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

All the suffering, stress, and addiction
comes from not realizing you already are what you are looking for.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

At the deepest level, there is no giver, no gift, and no recipient...
only the universe rearranging itself.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Just watch this moment, without trying to change it at all.
What is happening? What do you feel?
What do you see? What do you hear?
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness means being awake.
It means being aware of what you are doing.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

We take care of the future best by taking care of the present now.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Look at other people and ask yourself
if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

There is just this moment.
We are not trying to improve or to get anywhere else.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Dwell in stillness.
Observe without reacting and without judging.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

If you really aren't trying to get anywhere else in this moment,
patience takes care of itself.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

To let go means to give up coercing, resisting, or struggling,
in exchange for something more powerful and wholesome
which comes out of allowing things to be as they are
without getting caught up in your attraction to or rejection of them,
in the intrinsic stickiness of wanting, of liking and disliking.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Patience is an ever present alternative
to the mind's endemic restlessness and impatience.
Scratch the surface of impatience and what you will find
lying beneath it, subtly or not so subtly, is anger.
It's the strong energy of not wanting things to be the way they are
and blaming someone (often yourself) or something for it.
This doesn't mean you can't hurry when you have to.
It is possible even to hurry patiently, mindfully,
moving fast because you have chosen to.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger,
regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue.
Let go of the need for approval.
- Lama Surya Das

When you become centered, suddenly there is great freedom
because you know you are not the mind and you are not the body.
- Osho

Move to your heart, Breathe.
Close your eyes and breathe deeply - slowly -
fill your lungs with love and gratitude -
exhale each and every trouble -
again and again - gratitude in, troubles out.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We can live without religion and meditation,
but we cannot survive without human affection.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Being wakeful in each and every moment of your life is meditation.
The simplest definition of meditation is:
when seeing, just see; when hearing, just hear.
- Josh Baran

Do the small things of life with a relaxed awareness.
When you are eating, eat totally -
chew totally, taste totally, smell totally.
Touch your bread, feel the texture.
Smell the bread, smell the flavor.
Chew it, let it dissolve into your being.
- Osho

He who is persistent will realize God.
So try your best to make meditation
a regular experience in your life.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

When you are eating, eat totally -
chew totally, taste totally, smell totally.
Touch your bread, feel the texture.
Smell the bread, smell the flavor.
Chew it, let it dissolve into your being,
and remain conscious - and you are meditating.
And then meditation is not separate from life.
- Osho

The soul loves to meditate,
for in contact with the Spirit lies its greatest joy.
If, then you experience mental resistance during meditation,
remember that reluctance to meditate comes from the ego;
it doesn't belong to the soul.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

Beyond mind, there is an awareness that is intrinsic,
that is not given to you by the outside, and is not an idea -
and there is no experiment up to now
that has found any center in the brain
which corresponds to awareness.
The whole work of meditation is
to make you aware of all that is "mind"
and disidentify yourself from it.
That very separation is the
greatest revolution that can happen to man.
Now you can do and act on only that
which makes you more joyous, fulfills you,
gives you contentment, makes your life a work of art, a beauty.
But this is possible only if the master in you is awake.
- Osho

The Master teaches that the way of qigong cannot be hurried.
Wuji refers to the time before the creation -
when everything was formless.
Standing in the wuji position, my feet are parallel
to each other, shoulder-width apart.
My knees are slightly bent,
and the tip of my tongue touches the roof of my mouth.
My arms are held in front of me with my elbows bent
and my palms parallel to each other - about four inches apart.
At first I focus on my breathing, and only my breathing.
Later, I visualize the energy or "Qi" between my palms.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is best when I wish neither to hurry the future nor to slow it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Know that life is most joyful when you
neither attempt to hurry the future nor to slow it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white.
Neither need you do anything but be yourself.
- Lao Tzu

True love is a process of co-creation
in which neither feels ownership or superiority.
Jealousy is a highly destructive force
for love and relationships.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor,
nor should life rest on a single hope.
- Epictetus

Where there is charity and wisdom,
there is neither fear nor ignorance.
- St. Francis of Assisi

People often say that motivation doesn't last.
Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.
- Zig Ziglar

They who can give up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
- William Shakespeare

Cheer for endings - whether goals have been met or not -
whether the ending is tidy or ragged.
Without endings, there would be neither the opportunity
nor the incentive to think new thoughts,
and to begin great new projects.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Service which is rendered without joy
helps neither the servant nor the served.
But all other pleasures and possessions
pale into nothingness before service
which is rendered in a spirit of joy.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it BECAUSE it is right.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Far better is it to dare mighty things,
to win glorious triumphs,
even though chequered by failure,
than to take rank with those poor spirits
who neither enjoy much nor suffer much,
because they live in the grey twilight
that knows not victory or defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt

Friendship is all about Mutuality,
neither Individuality nor Singularity.
- Aparna Chatterjee

We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone -
but paradoxically, if we cannot trust,
neither can we find love or joy.
- Walter Anderson

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation
can be trusted to act humanely
or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
- Bertrand Russell

No stream rises higher than its source.
Whatever man might build, could never
express or reflect more than he was.
He could record neither more nor less
than he had learned of life.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

It is neither wealth nor splendor;
but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson

To accuse others for one's own misfortunes
is a sign of want of education.
To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun.
To accuse neither oneself nor others
shows that one's education is complete.
- Epictetus

The "stories" we choose to tell about our past
are never what a video camera would have recorded.
We can tell a sad story or a happy story,
and neither story is either
more accurate or "better" than the other story.
The difference is that one story causes us to suffer,
while the other brings us joy. I choose joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable...
Every step toward the goal of justice
requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle;
the tireless exertions and
passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,
"it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
- Lewis Carroll

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort
of feeling safe with a person;
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but to pour them all out, just as they are,
chaff and grain together,
knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping, and then,
with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.
- George Eliot

You are not your mind. You, a Spiritual BEing,
are neither your mind nor your body.
Mind and body are your tools - to use as you choose.
Sometimes your body appears to have a will of its own,
as when it twitches or pains.
Likewise, your mind often appears to have its own will.
That incessant chattering of regret, disappointment, guilt,
shame, foreboding, worry, and fear
is your Rattlesnake Mind striking off on its own.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The unpredictable and irregular happenings
of life's cycles are an inherent part of their nature.
There are droughts and heat waves, injuries occur.
The lion eats the zebra -
one is nourished, one dies - neither failed.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish
there was less immaturity in political thinking.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Use heroes as a springboard for inquiry
into the identity and nature of admirably human qualities.
Do not judge heroes -
neither to put them unquestioningly on a pedestal
nor to unkindly probe their flaws.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down
on the tracks of history
to wait for the train of the future to run over him.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Prayer does not use up artificial energy,
doesn't burn up any fossil fuel, doesn't pollute.
Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.
- Margaret Mead

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves
to recognize how good things really are.
- Marianne Williamson

Quotes and Sayings

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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Meditation is neither shutting things out nor off.by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Quotes and Sayings

Meditation is neither shutting things out nor off.
by Jon Kabat-Zinn