Book detail: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
This book explores the principles of mindfulness meditation and offers practical techniques for applying them to everyday situations, aiming to enhance mental clarity and emotional well-being.
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“When we let go of wanting something else to happen in this moment, we are taking a profound step toward being able to encounter what is here now. If we hope to go anywhere or develop ourselves in any way, we can only step from where we are standing. If we don't really know where we are standing—a knowing that comes directly from the cultivation of mindfulness—we may only go in circles, for all our efforts and expectations. So, in meditation practice, the best way to get somewhere is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“But you cannot have harmony without a commitment to ethical behavior. It's the fence that keeps out the goats that will eat all the young shoots in your garden.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“But when we start to focus in on what our own mind is up to, for instance, it is not unusual to quickly go unconscious again, to fall back into an automatic-pilot mode of unawareness. These lapses in awareness are frequently caused by an eddy of dissatisfaction with what we are seeing or feeling in that moment, out of which springs a desire for something to be different, for things to change.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“The funny thing about stopping is that as soon as you do it, here you are.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Perhaps we just need little reminders from time to time that we are already dignified, deserving, worthy.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“"What is my job on the planet?" is one question we might do well to ask ourselves over and over again. Otherwise, we may wind up doing somebody else's job and not even know it. And what's more, that somebody else might be a figment of our own imagination, and maybe a prisoner of it as well.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“You might be tempted to avoid the messiness of daily living for the tranquility of stillness and peacefulness. This of course would be an attachment to stillness, and like any strong attachment, it leads to delusion. It arrests development and short-circuits the cultivation of wisdom.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Perhaps the most "spiritual" thing any of us can do is simply to look through our own eyes, see with eyes of wholeness, and act with integrity and kindness.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“From the perspective of meditation, every state is a special state, every moment a special moment.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to be present; inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intention to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and right now.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Discipline provides a constancy which is independent of what kind of day you had yesterday and what kind of day you anticipate today.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Concentration is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. Your mindfulness will only be as robust as the capacity of your mind to be calm and stable. Without calmness, the mirror of mindfulness will have an agitated and choppy surface and will not be able to reflect things with any accuracy.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“If we hope to go anywhere or develop ourselves in any way, we can only step from where we are standing. If we don't really know where we are standing... We may only go in circles.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“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?”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“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.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Acknowledging that sometimes, often at very crucial times, you really have no idea where you are going or even where the path lies. A the same time, you can very well know something about where you are now (even if it is knowing that you are lost, confused, enraged or without hope).”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Generosity is another quality which, like patience, letting go, non-judging, and trust, provides a solid foundation for mindfulness practice.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Meditation is simply about being yourself and knowing something about who that is. It is about coming to realize that you are on a path whether you like it or not, namely, the path that is your life. Meditation may help us see that this path we call our life has direction; that it is always unfolding, moment by moment; and that what happens now, in this moment, influences what happens next.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Stillness, insight, and wisdom arise only when we can settle into being complete in this moment, without having to seek or hold on to or reject anything.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Non-doing has nothing to do with being indolent or passive. Quite the contrary. It takes great courage and energy to cultivate non-doing, both in stillness and in activity. Nor is it easy to make a special time for non-doing and to keep at it in the face of everything in our lives which needs to be done.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Meditation means learning how to get out of this current, sit by its bank and listen to it, learn from it, and then use its energies to guide us.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“We must be willing to encounter darkness and despair when they come up and face them, over and over again if need be, without running away or numbing ourselves in the thousands of ways we conjure up to avoid the unavoidable.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Practice sharing the fullness of your being, your best self, your enthusiasm, your vitality, your spirit, your trust, your openness, above all, your presence. Share it with yourself, with your family, with the world.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“There is just this moment. We are not trying to improve or to get anywhere else.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Make a list of what is really important to you. Embody it.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“See for yourself whether letting go when a part of you really wants to hold on doesn't bring a deeper satisfaction than clinging.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It's about feeling the way you feel.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Once you have established yourself as a center of love and kindness radiating throughout your being, which amounts to a cradling of yourself in loving kindness and acceptance, you can dwell here indefinitely, drinking at this fount, bathing it in, renewing yourself, nourishing yourself, enlivening yourself. This can be a profoundly healing practice for body and soul.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Initiate giving. Don't wait for someone to ask. See what happens - especially to you. You may find that you gain a greater clarity about yourself and about your relationships, as well as more energy rather than less. You may find that, rather than exhausting yourself or your resources, you will replenish them. Such is the power of mindful, selfless generosity. At the deepest level, there is no giver, no gift, and no recipient . . . only the universe rearranging itself.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“We call the effort to cultivate our ability to be in the present moment ‘practice’ or ‘meditation practice.’”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“The awareness is not part of the darkness or the pain; it holds the pain, and knows it, so it has to be more fundamental, and closer to what is healthy and strong and golden within you.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“See If You Can Give Yourself Gifts That May Be True Blessings, Such As Self-Acceptance”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“So, in meditation practice, the best way to get somewhere is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“See if you can give yourself gifts that may be true blessings, such as self-acceptance , or some time each day with no purpose. Practice feeling deserving enough to accept these gifts without obligation - to simply receive from yourself, and from the universe.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them.... Without knowing it, we are coloring everything, putting our spin on it all.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“YOU HAVE TO BE STRONG ENOUGH TO BE WEAK
Allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling. Notice any labels you attach to crying or feeling vulnerable. Let go of the labels. Just feel what you are feeling, all the while cultivating moment-to-moment awareness, riding the waves of “up” and “down,” “good” and “bad,” “weak” and “strong,” until you see that they are all inadequate to fully describe your experience. Be with the experience itself. Trust in your deepest strength of all: to be present, to be wakeful.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Buckminster Fuller, the discoverer/inventor of the geodesic dome, at age thirty-two contemplated suicide for a few hours one night at the edge of Lake Michigan, as the story goes, after a series of business failures that left him feeling he had made such a mess of his life that the best move would be for him to remove himself from the scene and make things simpler for his wife and daughter. Apparently everything he had touched or undertaken had turned to dust in spite of his incredible creativity and imagination, which were only recognized later. However, instead of ending his life, Fuller decided (perhaps because of his deep conviction in the underlying unity and order of the universe, of which he knew himself to be an integral part) to live from then on as if he had died that night.
Being dead, he wouldn't have to worry about how things worked out any longer for himself personally and would be free to devote himself to living as a representative of the universe. The rest of his life would be a gift. Instead of living for himself, he would devote himself to asking, "what is it on this planet (which he referred to as Spaceship Earth) that needs doing that I know something about, that probably won't happen unless I take responsibility for it?”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“Simply put, meditation is the path to clarity, compassion, and a path of wisdom leading to the eradication of suffering.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“There are always waves on the water. Sometimes they are big, sometimes they are small, and sometimes they are almost imperceptible. The water’s waves are churned up by the winds, which come and go and vary in direction and intensity, just as do the winds of stress and change in our lives, which stir up the waves in our minds.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“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.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“After all, if you really aren't trying to get anywhere else in this moment, patience takes care of itself.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“There is really no natural limit to the practice of loving kindness in meditation or in one’s life. It is an ongoing, ever-expanding realization of interconnectedness. It is also its embodiment. When you can love one tree or one flower or one dog or one place, or one person or yourself for one moment, you can find all people, all places, all suffering, all harmony in that one moment. Practicing in this way is not trying to change anything or get anywhere, although it might look like it on the surface. What it is really doing is uncovering what is always present. Love and kindness are here all the time, somewhere, in fact, everywhere. Usually our ability to touch them and be touched by them lies buried below our own fears and hurts, below our greed and our hatreds, below our desperate clinging to the illusion that we are truly separate and alone. (…).
Make sure that you are not trying to help anybody else or the planet. Rather, you are simply holding them in awareness, honoring them, wishing them well, opening to their pain with kindness and compassion and acceptance.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“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. It's akin to letting your palm open to unhand something you have been holding on to.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“We tend to be particularly unaware that we are thinking virtually all the time. The incessant stream of thoughts flowing through our minds leaves us very little respite for inner quiet. And we leave precious little room for ourselves anyway just to be, without having to run around doing things all the time. Our actions are all too frequently driven rather than undertaken in awareness, driven by those perfectly ordinary thoughts and impulses that run through the mind like a coursing river, if not a waterfall. We get caught up in the torrent and it winds up submerging our lives as it carries us to places we may not wish to go and may not even realize we are headed for.
Meditation means learning how to get out of this current, sit by its bank and listen to it, learn from it, and then use its energies to guide us rather than to tyrannize us.”
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life