Mindfulness is attentiveness, moment to moment. What's happening right now and what's coming up in me in response to what's happening right now. Importantly, this is in the service of being able to choose wisely so that I avoid complicating my own life and the lives of others.
Interpretation
Mindfulness involves being present and aware of the current moment to make wise choices.
This quote by Sylvia Boorstein emphasizes the importance of mindfulness as a practice of being fully aware of our thoughts, feelings, and surroundings in the present moment. By understanding our reactions and the current circumstances, we can make choices that simplify our lives rather than complicate them, ultimately leading to greater wisdom in our interactions with ourselves and others.
In practice
In a workshop on stress management, this quote could illustrate the importance of being mindful to handle challenges effectively.
Heir to your own karma doesn't mean 'You get what you deserve.' I think it means 'You get what you get.' Bad things happen to good people. My happiness depending on my action means, to me, that it depends on my action of choosing compassion--for myself as well as for everyone else--rather than contention. [p.61]
If you take a deep breath and look around, 'Look what's happening to me!' can become 'Look what's happening!' And what's happening? The incredible drama of life is happening. And we're in it!
Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn't more complicated that that. It is opening to or recieving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.
The path of compassion leads to the development of insight. But it doesn't work to say, "Ready, set, go! Be compassionate!" Beginning any practice depends on intention. Intention depends on intuiting-at least a little bit-the suffering inherent in the human condition and the pain we feel, and cause, when we act out of confusion. It also depends on trusting-at least a little bit-in the possibility of a contented, satisfied mind.
Suffering is the demand that experience be different from what it is.
If we can keep at least a bit of the mind clear about temporality, we can mange complicated, even difficult, times with grace.
There's a paradox with self-improvement, and it is this: the ultimate goal of all self-improvement is to reach the point where you no longer feel the need to improve yourself.
A million people can call the mountains a fiction, yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them.
Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.
The giving way to a less sin makes way for the committing of a greater
But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience?
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