Quotes by Meditation Teachers

Women are the true maintenance class. Society is built upon their acquiescence and upon their small and necessary labours.
Sally Kempton
It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.
Sally Kempton
Perhaps we just need little reminders from time to time that we are already dignified, deserving, worthy. Sometimes we don't feel that way because of the wounds and the scars we carry from the past or because of the uncertainty of the future. It is doubtful that we came to feel undeserving on our own. We were helped to feel unworthy. We were taught it in a thousand ways when we were little, and we learned our lessons well.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Though you may feel that you cannot improve the world, you can always improve yourself. In doing so, the world becomes a better place.
John Bruna
It's our version of "me" that causes us the most stress and heartache. Which is why it comes as a relief to discover that this version is as transient as a cloud in the sky. Focus on the cloud and the result is uncertain. Focus on the sky and we discover clarity.
David Michie
Mindfulness has to do with waking up and living in harmony with oneself and with the world. It is examining who we are, constantly questioning our views of the world and our place in it, while cultivating appreciation for the fullness of each moment we are alive. It is the direct opposite of taking life for granted. It is empowering as well, because paying attention in this way opens channels to deep reservoirs of creativity, intelligence, imagination, clarity, determination, choice, and wisdom within us.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Our genuine happiness comes from doing things we feel good about, not from doing things that make us feel good.
John Bruna
It is a state of peace to be able to accept things as they are. This is to be at home in our own lives. We see that this universe is much too big to hold on to, but it is the perfect size for letting go. Our hearts and minds become that big, and we can actually let go. This is the gift of equanimity.
Sharon Salzberg
Guilt is a manifestation of condemnation or aversion towards oneself, which does not understand the changing transformative quality of mind.'Seeking the Heart of Wisdom
Joseph Goldstein
Surely you're not saying that the life of a human and the life of an animal are of the same value?' he ven
David Michie
There's no thrilling anticipation of the day's first cup of coffee...nor the eye-closing delight of that first swallow of sauvignon blanc in the evening. We cats have no access to everyday mood-enhancing substances. Apart from humble catnip, there is no pharmaceutical refuge if we're suffering from boredom, depression, existential crisis, or even an everyday headache.
David Michie
I didn't know you had a cat!' she excl
David Michie
You know, Professor, this stray kitten and you have one very important thing in common.''I can't imagine,' responded the professor coolly.'Your life is the most important thing in the world to you,' said His Holiness. 'Same for this kitten.
David Michie
Even as we live with the knowledge that each day might be our last, we don’t want to believe it.
Sharon Salzberg
Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
From the perspective of meditation, every state is a special state, every moment a special moment.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
we are simply 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.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
See for yourself whether letting go when a part of you really wants to hold on doesn't bring a deeper satisfaction than clinging.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Many strong emotions are actually intricate tapestries woven of various strands.
Sharon Salzberg
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).
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Trying to impose our personal agenda on someone else’s experience is the shadow side of love, while real love recognizes that life unfolds at its own pace.
Sharon Salzberg
Real Love for ourselves by definition includes every aspect of our lives—the good, the bad, the difficult, the challenging past, the uncertain future, as well as all the shameful, upsetting experiences and encounters we’d just as soon forget.
Sharon Salzberg
In those moments when we realize how much we cannot control, we can learn to let go.
Sharon Salzberg
As much as possible, it is useful to think of all other beings as being just like me. Every living being strives for happiness. Every being wants to avoid all forms of suffering. They are not just objects or things to be used for our benefit. You know, Mahatma Gandhi once said: 'The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
David Michie
Fearful of wasting a second, we hoard time as if it were money.
Sharon Salzberg
Some Buddhists have criticized secular Buddhism because they think it waters down Buddhism. I like to think of it as adding Buddhist flavoring to the sparkling water of secularism.
Rick Heller
The researchers summarized: "A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.". Long ago, Buddhists reached much the same conclusion.
David Michie
I have found that this is pretty radical notion for anyone who was raised with a strong Christian background. Within that religious tradition there is an emphasis on original sin, which dictates that we area bacically not good at all but must work for our salvation. Within the Buddhist tradition we are saying the opposite: actually you are basically good. You are basically wise. You are basically kind. You just need to discover that truth and develop confidence in it.
Lodro Rinzler
In Buddhism there is one word for mind & heart: chitta. Chitta refers not just to thoughts and emotions in the narrow sense of arising from the brain, but also to the whole range of consciousness, vast & unimpeded.
Sharon Salzberg
To forgive does not mean to forget.
Allan Lokos
As a friend of mine told me about Real Happiness: you wrote this one in American.
Sharon Salzberg
Support the type of thinking that leads you to feeling good, peaceful & happy.
Allan Lokos
Patience from a Buddhist perspective is not a "wait and see" attitude, but rather one of "just be there"... Patience can also be based on not expecting anything.Think of patience as an act of being open to whatever comes your way. When you begin to solidify expectations, you get frustrated because they are not met in the way you had hoped... With no set idea of how something is supposed to be, it is hard to get stuck on things not happening in the time frame you desired. Instead, you are just being there, open to the possibilities of your life.
Lodro Rinzler
After all, if you really aren't trying to get anywhere else in this moment, patience takes care of itself.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Patience is born when we create a pause between our experience of a feeling and our response to that feeling.
Allan Lokos
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.
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. It's akin to letting your palm open to unhand something you have been holding on to.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Rather than trying to control what can never be controlled, we can find a sense of security in being able to meet what is actually happening. This is allowing for the mystery of things: not judging but rather cultivating a balance of mind that can receive what is happening, whatever it is. This acceptance is the source of our safety and confidence.When we feel unhappiness or pain, it is not a sign that things have gone terribly wrong or that we have done something wrong by not being able to control the circumstances. Pain and pleasure are constantly coming and going, and yet we can be happy. When we allow for the mystery , sometimes we can discover that right in the heart of a very difficult time, right in the midst of a painful situation, there is freedom. In those moments when we realize how much we cannot control, we can learn to let go. As we begin to understand this, we move from a mode of struggling to control what comes into our lives into a mode of simply wishing to truly connect with what is. This is a radical shift in worldview.
Sharon Salzberg
Our vision becomes very narrow when we need things to be a certain way and cannot accept things the way they actually are.
Sharon Salzberg
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.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Through it all, we attempt to bring balance to the present moment,understanding that in patience lies wisdom,knowing that what will come next will be determined in large measure by how we are now.
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
First, people were not thinking about what they were doing 47 per cent of the time. Second, people were unhappier when their minds were wandering than they were not. And third, what people were thinking was a better predictor of their happiness than what they were doing.
David Michie
Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to being present. There is no "performance." There is just this moment. We are not trying to improve or to get anywhere else. We are not even running after special insights or visions. Nor are we forcing ourselves to be non-judgmental, calm, or relaxed. And we are certainly not promoting self-consciousness or indulging in self-preoccupation. Rather, we are simply inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intentino to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and now.Of course, with continued practice and the right kind of firm yet gentle effort, calmness and mindfulness and equanimity develop and deepen on their own, out of your commitment to dwell in stillness and to observe without reacting and judging. Realizatinos and insights, profound experiences of stillness and joy, do come. But it would be incorrect to say that we are practicing to make these experiences happen or that having more of them is better than having fewer of them.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
One practical way to do this is to look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them of just your thought about them. Sometimes our thoughts act like dream glasses. When we have them on, we see dream children, dream husband, dream wife, dream ob, dream colleagues, dream partners, dream friends. We can live in a dream present for a dream future...But if we take off the glasses, maybe, just maybe, we might see a little more accurately what is actually here.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
...but we're not being educated in how to be, only in how to accomplish. So it's all about acquisition, about getting stuff we don't have...As soon as you realize it's a thought pattern, you can write yourself a restraining order.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
The challenge for mindfulness is to be present for your experience as it is rather than immediately jumping in to change it or try to force it to be different.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
The challenge for each of us is to find out who we are and to live our way into our own calling.we do this by paying close attention to all aspects of life as they unfold in the present moment.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
The overarching practice of letting go is also one of gaining resilience and insight.
Sharon Salzberg
Mindfulness helps us see the addictive aspect of self-criticism— a repetitive cycle of flaying ourselves again and again, feeling the pain anew.
Sharon Salzberg
By grounding yourself in mindfulness early in the morning, you are reminding yourself that things are always changing, that good and bad things come and go, and that it is possible to embody a perspective of of constancy, wisdom, and inner peace as you face any conditions that present themselves.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
The challenge of mindfulness is to work with the very circumstances that you find yourself in - no matter how unpleasant, how discouraging, how limited, how unending and stuck they may appear to be - and to make sure that you have done everything in your power to use their energies to transform yourself before you decide to cut your losses and move on.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
There can be no resolution leading to growth until the present situation has been faced completely and you have opened to it with mindfulness, allowing the roughness of the situation itself to sand down your own rough edges. In other words, you must be willing to let itself to become your teacher.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
The virtues of getting up early have nothing to do with cramming more hours of busyness and industry into one's day. Just the opposite. They stem from the stillness and solitude of the hour, and the potential to use that time to expand consciousness, to contemplate, to make time for being, for purposefully not doing anything. The peacefulness, the darkness, the dawn, the stillness - all contribute to making early morning a special time for mindfulness practice.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
It's not that God, the environment, and other people cannot help us to be happy or find satisfaction. It's just that our happiness, satisfaction, and our understanding, even of God, will be no deeper than our capacity to know ourselves inwardly, to encounter the world from the deep comfort that comes from being at home in one's own skin, from an intimate familiarity with the ways of one's own mind and body.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
If we turn away from our own pain, we may find ourselves projecting this aversion onto others, seeing them as somehow inadequate for being in a troubled situation.
Sharon Salzberg
The next time you feel a sense of dissatisfaction, of something being missing or not quite right, turn inward as an experiment. See if you can capture the energy of that very moment. Instead of picking up a magazine or going to the movies, calling a friend or looking for something to eat or acting up in one way or another, make a place for yourself. Sit down and enter into your breathing, if only for a few minutes. Don't look for anything - neither flowers not light nor a beautiful view. Don't extol the virtues of anything or condemn the inadequacy of anything. Don't even think to yourself, "I am going inward now." Just sit. Reside at the center of the world. Let things be as they are.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
We cannot force the development of mindfulness.
Allan Lokos
[R]emain open to not knowing, perhaps allowing yourself to come to the point of admitting, "I don't know," and then experimenting with relaxing a bit into this not knowing instead of condemning yourself for it. After all, in this moment, it may be an accurate statement of how things are for you.
Jon Kabat-Zinn