The only time that any of us have to grow or change or feel or learn anything is in the present moment. But we're continually missing our present moments, almost willfully, by not paying attention.
Interpretation
Growth and awareness occur in the present, yet many overlook these moments.
This quote by Jon Kabat-Zinn emphasizes the importance of being present in the moment to facilitate personal growth and learning. It highlights how often individuals miss the opportunities for change and insight because they are distracted or not fully engaged with their current experiences.
In practice
This quote can inspire mindfulness practices in a motivational talk.
Once you have established yourself as a center of love and kindness radiating throughout your being, which amounts to a cradling of yourself in loving kindness and acceptance, you can dwell here indefinitely, drinking at this fount, bathing it in, renewing yourself, nourishing yourself, enlivening yourself. This can be a profoundly healing practice for body and soul.
One way to look at meditation is as a kind of intrapsychic technology that's been developed over thousands of years by traditions that know a lot about the mind/body connection.
Meditation means learning how to get out of this current, sit by its bank and listen to it, learn from it, and then use its energies to guide us.
Practice sharing the fullness of your being, your best self, your enthusiasm, your vitality, your spirit, your trust, your openness, above all, your presence. Share it with yourself, with your family, with the world.
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.
In Asian languages, the word for mind and the word for heart are same. So if you’re not hearing mindfulness in some deep way as heartfulness, you’re not really understanding it. Compassion and kindness towards oneself are intrinsically woven into it. You could think of mindfulness as wise and affectionate attention.
You really can change. Your reality is based on the way you think.
That night I lie out under the stars again. The Pleiades are there winking at me. I am no longer on my way from one place to another. I have changed lives. My life now is as black and white as night and day; a life of fierce struggle under the sun, and peaceful reflection under the night sky. I feel as though I am floating on a raft far, far away from any world I ever knew.
When policymakers, financiers and scientists describe the world decades from now, in the throes of climatic changes that we now only model, they emphasize what might be lost.
Sometimes I hear people saying, 'Nothing has changed.' Come and walk in my shoes.
If we all act together - business, governments, NGOs and citizens and, especially, the young - just imagine the good we could create.
Because many advances have happened, we've lost the urgency (and that's just human nature) that we had before, when we couldn't vote, couldn't use mass transportation, or drink from the fountains.
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