It is possible to enjoy every step you make at any time you want, whenever you feel the need to move from one place to another, no matter how short the distance. If you make five steps, then make those five steps into a walking meditation. Every step will bring you joy and stability. — location: 186 ^ref-51613 --- when you are walking, you do not think. If you think, the thinking will steal your walking from you. You don’t talk, because talking will take the walking away from you. Walking like this is a pleasure. When mindfulness and concentration are alive in you, you are fully yourself. You don’t lose yourself. You walk with grace and dignity. Without mindfulness, you may think of walking as an imposition, a chore. With mindfulness, you see walking as life. — location: 195 ^ref-4108 --- The practice of non-thinking is the secret of success in meditation. When thinking settles in, you lose the first impression of contact and a chance to be in the here and the now, to be in touch with what’s inside and around you. Instead, just become aware of contact and feelings. Then you can be in touch with the elements of nourishment and healing available in your body and the environment, both physical and mental. — location: 322 ^ref-46799 --- The spot you are standing on includes the whole earth. When you practice walking meditation, you realize that with each step you take, you are touching the whole earth. When you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything. The same is true of time. When you touch one moment with deep awareness, you touch all moments. — location: 429 ^ref-22288 --- Maybe you have the desire to do many things, to help many people. The Buddha also had the desire to help many people. But he was capable of being fully present with one person, in order to understand them deeply enough that he could offer them the best teaching and solution. So we, as a teacher, as a therapist, as a parent, have to practice the same way, focusing our attention on one object in the here and the now. — location: 568 ^ref-64763 --- Impermanence is what makes transformation possible. Thanks to impermanence, we can change suffering into joy. When we practice the art of mindful living, then when things change, we won’t have any regrets. — location: 621 ^ref-36186 --- The concentration on impermanence brings you the insight right away that your loved one is impermanent, that you are impermanent, and that it’s silly to make each other suffer like this in the present moment. — location: 641 ^ref-18661 --- We all have the capacity of living with the wisdom of nondiscrimination, but we have to train ourselves to see in that way, to see that the flower is us, the mountain is us, our parents and our children are all us. When we see that everyone and everything belongs to the same stream of life, our suffering will vanish. Nonself is not a doctrine nor a philosophy, but an insight that can help us live life more deeply, suffer less, and enjoy life much more. — location: 680 ^ref-54870 --- Nirvana means taking the time to enjoy where we are. — location: 695 ^ref-12041 --- As you breathe in, say the first sentence silently; as you breathe out say the second sentence. As you continue to breathe in and out, you can use just the key words “in, out.” Breathing in, I know I’m breathing in. Breathing out, I know I’m breathing out. In. Out. — location: 735 ^ref-19553 --- Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I release the tension in my body. — location: 770 ^ref-39350 --- Breathing in, I’m aware of a feeling of joy. Breathing out, I’m aware of a feeling of joy. We tend to lose ourselves in our work and in our worries, and we can’t see the wonders of life. Now we’re coming back to be in touch with the clear air, the cup of tea, the flowers and grass, with the wonderful planet earth. We see that our senses allow us to be in touch with these things, and joy comes easily. — location: 790 ^ref-9449 --- All the mental formations are in our consciousness in the form of seeds. Every time one of them manifests as energy, we want to have enough awareness to recognize it and call it by its true name. “Hello there, my mental formation. Your name is jealousy. I know you. I will take good care of you.” — location: 842 ^ref-49001 --- Breathing in, I observe the impermanent nature of all things. Breathing out, I contemplate the impermanent nature of all things. The thirteenth breathing exercise sheds light on the ever-changing, impermanent nature of all that exists. Our breathing itself is also impermanent. The insight into impermanence opens the way for us to see the interrelated and selfless nature of all that exists. Nothing has a separate, independent self. — location: 918 ^ref-18120 --- Imagine a wave rising and falling on the surface of the ocean. Observing the wave, we can see it has a beginning and an end; it comes up and it goes down. But when the wave looks into herself, she sees that she is water. She’s a wave, but she is also water, and water cannot be described in terms of being and nonbeing, coming and going, up and down. The wave is water right in the here and now. — location: 953 ^ref-4647 --- Does the rose have to do something? No, the purpose of a rose is to be a rose. Your purpose is to be yourself. You contain the whole cosmos. You don’t have to run after anything or become someone else. You are wonderful just as you are. Aimlessness allows us to enjoy ourselves, the blue sky, and everything that is refreshing and healing in the present moment. — location: 997 ^ref-13654 ---