I finished reading through Carol Kelly-Gangi's nice little book "Quotes for Mindfulness: Timeless Wisdom For the Modern World." Though mindfulness is a practice rooted in Buddhism, it is not specific to it. The book contains quotes from a broad spectrum of people of faith - from Gandhi to Mother Teresa, the Pope, Oprah Winfrey, and even the Christian Bible.
Basically the book is a collection of quotes grouped into different categories. I liked using it as a devotional guide each morning, reading through one chapter of quotes on a specific topic each day. I always found at least one quote to center my thoughts around as a sort of guidepost for the day.
Below are some of the quotes I highlighted while reading, if for no other reason than to have them written down for later remembering. If you're reading here, feel free to contemplate and meditate upon them as well - though there are many more in the book that I did not include here.
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MINDFULNESS IS...
"Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, no-judgmentally." ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn
"Mindfulness is often spoken about as the heart of Buddhist meditation. It's not about Buddhism, but about paying attention. That's what all meditation is, no matter what tradition or particular technique is used." ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn
LIVE EACH DAY
"Nothing is worth more than this day." ~ Seneca
THIS IS THE MOMENT
"Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future; live the actual moment. Only this moment is life." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
"Living in the present moment creates the experience of eternity." ~ Deepak Chopra
FREE YOUR MIND
"If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?" ~ Confucius
"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another." ~ William James
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
FIND YOUR INNER PEACE
"Between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies our power and our freedom." ~ Viktor E. Frankl
"Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment." ~ Henry David Thoreau
"If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having." ~ Henry Miller
"With all the demands places on our time and energy by the world around us, it might seem counterintuitive to think that seeking stillness, rather than picking up the pace, is the key to become better people, friends, citizens of the world, and business-people." ~ Russell Simmons
"Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It's a way of entering into the quiet that's already there - buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day." ~ Deepak Chopra
"Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already." ~ Pema Chodron
"Peace is joy at rest and joy is peace on its feet." ~ Anne Lamott
NOURISH YOUR MIND, BODY AND SPIRIT
"I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. I should not be ungrateful to these teachers." ~ Kahlil Gibran
"When you discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough to make room for it in your life." ~ Jean Shinoda Bolen
SEEK SIMPLICITY
"How many things are there which I do not want." ~ Socrates
"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." ~ William Morris
"How many things can I do without?" ~ Socrates
"Besides the noble are of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials." ~ Lin Yutang
"Beware the barrenness of a busy life." ~ Socrates
LOVE AND KINDNESS
"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved for yourself, or, more correctly speaking, loved in spite of yourself." ~ Victor Hugo
"Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation." ~ Osho
"Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone." ~ Mitch Albom
"Perfect love means putting up with people's shortcomings, feeling no surprise at their weaknesses, finding encouragement even in the slightest of good qualities in them." ~ St. Therese of Lisieux
"My feelings of love may be unbounded, but my capacity to be loving is limited. I therefore must choose the person on whom to focus my capacity to live, toward whom to direct my will to love. True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision." ~ M. Scott Peck
"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity." ~ George Bernard Shaw
"The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person's life." ~ William Wordsworth
"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?" ~ George Eliot
"One kind word can warm three winter months." ~ Japanese proverbCOMPASSION AND FORGIVENESS
"Compassionate people are geniuses in the art of living, more necessary to the dignity, security, and joy of humanity than the discoverers of knowledge." ~ Albert Einstein
"Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to places where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it." ~ Henri Nouwen
"To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless." ~ G.K. Chesterton
"Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me." ~ Audre Lorde
"Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat." ~ Audre Lorde
"The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world." ~ Marianne Williamson
JOY AND HAPPINESS
"Do anything, but let it produce joy." ~ Walt Whitman
"There is a very simple secret to being happy. Just cease your demand on this moment." ~ Buddha
"Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing." ~ William Butler Yeats
"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." ~ Albert Camus
"The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is." ~ Erasmus
"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim
FAMILY AND FRIENDSHIP
"Parents must provide not only outer warmth for their child but also inner warmth. They must create an atmosphere with a sense of security in which the child feels love and acceptance." ~ Dalai Lama
"Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade." ~ Leo Buscaglia
"There's only one thing we can be sure of, and that is the love that we have for our children, for our families, for each other. The warmth of a small child's embrace, that is true." ~ Barack Obama
"Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend." ~ Albert Camus
OBSTACLES AND CHALLENGES
"My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure." ~ Abraham Lincoln
"A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing another mistake." ~ Confucius
"Inside of a ring or not, ain't nothing wrong with going down. It's staying down that's wrong." ~ Muhammad Ali
SUFFERING, HARDSHIP AND LOSS
"When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
"If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart." ~ Socrates
"The world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." ~ Helen Keller
"You are not your illness. You have an individual story to tell. You have a name, a history, a personality. Staying yourself is part of the battle." ~ Julian Seifter
"I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable." ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow." ~ Mary Anne Radmacher
"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." ~ Ernest Hemingway
"It isn't for the moment you are stuck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security." ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
GRATITUDE AND HOPE
"Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into." ~ Wayne Dyer
"We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude." ~ Cynthia Ozick
"The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don't wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope." ~ Barack Obama
OUR SHARED HUMANITY
"You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
"One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is to mind your own business. Nothing is more suspicious, in a man who seems holy, than an impatient desire to reform other men." ~ Thomas Merton
"Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude." ~ William James
THE BEAUTY AND WONDER OF LIFE
"Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet." ~ Bob Marley
"Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood...
Let me keep my distance, always from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads." ~ Mary Oliver
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." ~ Albert Einstein
COMMUNE WITH NATURE
"An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day." ~ Henry David Thoreau
SPIRITUALITY AND PRAYER
"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"That is the religious experience: the astonishment of meeting someone who is waiting for you." ~ Pope Francis
"Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes." ~ Alan Watts
"Faith does not contradict reason but transcends it." ~ Mahatma Gandhi
"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible." ~ St. Thomas Aquinas
"Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith." ~ Paul Tillich
"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
"Praying is not asking. It is a longing of the soul." ~ Mahatma Gandhi
"God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer." ~ Mother Teresa
BECOMING YOUR BEST SELF
"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer." ~ Henry David Thoreau
"Experience life in all possible ways - good/bad, bitter/sweet, dark/light, summer/winter. Experience all the dualities. Don't be afraid of experience, because the more experience you have, the more mature you become." ~ Osho
"How can you know what you're capable of if you don't embrace the unknown?" Esmeralda Santiago
"We do the best we can with what we have and when we know better, we do better." ~ Maya Angelou
"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself." ~ Rumi
MINDFUL WISDOM
"All of man's difficulties are caused by his inability to sit, quietly, in a room by himself." ~ Blaise Pascal
"You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day -- unless you are too busy -- then you should sit for an hour." ~ Buddhist proverb
"Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward." ~ Soren Kierkegaard
"We do not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the short for a very long time." ~ Andre Gide
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~ Anne Frank
"You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how your'e going to live. Now." ~ Joan Baez
"There is more to life than increasing its speed." ~ Mahatma Gandhi
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