Mindfulness in Action Quotes

“Someone who is seriously interested in meditation should not expect any feedback or promises from the practice. Most”
― Chogyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness

“Why do you need to reassure yourself? That need for reassurance is precisely the point: We feel that something is leaking, but we don’t want to acknowledge it as such. There is a hole somewhere in our life that we try to plug up. All our posturing is a sign that we are just about to realize that we don’t exist in the way we thought we did. We actually know that intuitively. Yet we keep on trying to prove ourselves to ourselves, to ensure that we will survive.”
― Chogyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness

“such understanding might be extremely boring. Also, such understanding might include seeing some things you don’t want to see.”
― Chögyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness

“When you have softness and precision at the same time, the lotus of awakened heart is blossoming within you. The lotus always blooms in the mud. You are willing to give birth to this beautiful lotus flower in the muddy waters of your life. For the first time, you realize that you are a candidate to be a wakeful person.”
― Chögyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness

“I was taught that only about 25 percent of your concentration should be put on the breath when you’re meditating. This is just a rough estimate, so please don’t fixate on the percentage. The point is that in this approach, working with breath is just touching the highlights of the breathing. You don’t remain completely one with it all the time.”
― Chögyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness

“The basis for the practice of meditation is appreciation. Every breath we take is a gift, naturally pure and good. We appreciate every pebble in the riverbed, every apple on the tree. Ordinary activities are in themselves powerful and worth appreciating.”
― Chögyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness

“Meditation practice is not an exotic or out-of-reach approach. It is immediate and personal, and it involves an intimate relationship with ourselves. It is getting to know ourselves by examining our actual psychological process without being ashamed of it.”
― Chögyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness

“Everything in life is literal, direct, and personal—and very demanding. But that demand seems to be necessary. Your commitment is to be present. You’re going to experience life as it is, rather than your expectations from the past or your desires for the future. You’re going to relate with life in the fullest sense.”
― Chogyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness

“The purpose of the practice of meditation is to experience the gaps. We do nothing, essentially, and see what that brings—either discomfort or relief, whatever the case may be. The starting point for the practice of meditation is the mindfulness discipline of developing peace. The peace we experience in meditation is simply this state of doing nothing, which is experiencing the absence of speed.”
― Chogyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness

“The outbreath is like a whetstone, and the mind is like the knife or sword that is being sharpened on that stone. When you sharpen a knife, you draw the blade of the knife across the sharpening stone. Following your outbreath is like drawing the blade of mind across the breath. Then”
― Chogyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness

“When you are meditating, whether you are alone or sharing the space with others, you always hold your seat properly. Then you feel that you are doing the practice with dignity. When you sit down to meditate, you are making a connection with the earth, whether you sit in a chair or on a cushion. It’s almost as if a message is coming from the earth, encouraging you to hold your seat properly.”
― Chogyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness

“Many people have discovered that mindfulness offers them a down-to-earth yet immediate way to connect with themselves. It is simple acceptance, described here as making friends with yourself. It is, as well, a means to unlock creativity and compassion. Meditation is a powerful technique for developing mindfulness, which can help us discover a way of being that is authentic, relaxed, and gentle. Meditation”
― Chogyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action: Making Friends with Yourself through Meditation and Everyday Awareness