What is mindfulness?

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is energy. This energy helps us enjoy what is happening right now. Mindful energy can bring us a lot of joy. It helps us suffer less and learn from our suffering. A good way to get some mindful energy is to close your eyes and breathe easily. Just pay attention to your breath. If you can enjoy your in-breath and out-breath, you are creating mindful energy.

- Thich Nhat Hanh, in ”Is Nothing Something?”.
Photo: Teruo Araya

Letting Go

 "If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. And if you let go completely, you will have complete peace."

 -Ajahn Chah

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Patience

"The more we can be patient with ourselves and with the practice in our living situations, the more we can open to whatever it is that comes our way and use it as a tool for learning about ourselves."

 -Ajahn Karunadhammo (from "Beginning Our Day, Volume 2")

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Mind Moments

"Even though the thoughts we have are all just random thoughts and moods flashing through the mind, we take them as 'me' and 'mine.' And either we are fascinated by them and we create a whole story, or we get fed up with them and want to get rid of them. So we're always in a struggle. But it's the reaching out with 'me' and 'mine' which creates the basis for the sticky quality of experience. If it is just seen as another ephemeral inconsequential mind moment, as a thought arising and passing away, the mind is left unshaken and clear. It doesn't have that sense of 'me' and 'mine.' "

 

-Ajahn Pasanno (from "A Dhamma Compass") 

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