Mindfulness gives you time. Time gives you choices. Choices, skillfully made, lead to freedom. You don’t have to be swept away by your feeling. You can respond with wisdom and kindness rather than habit and reactivity.
View all problems as challenges. Look upon negativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow. Don’t run from them, condemn yourself, or bury your burden in saintly silence. You have a problem? Great. More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in, and investigate.
When you have learned compassion for yourself, compassion for others is automatic.
The process of becoming who you will be begins first with the total acceptance of who you are.
The you that goes in one side of the meditation experience is not the same you that comes out the other side.
But look within and watch the stuff coming up-restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain-just watch it come up and don’t get involved. Much to your surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As simple as that. There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience.
Meditation changes your character.
The purpose of meditation is personal transformation.
The brain does not manufacture thoughts unless we stimulate it with habitual verbalizing. When we train ourselves by constant practice to stop verbalizing, the brain can experience things as they are.
Watch the functioning of your own mind in a calm and detached manner so you can gain insight into your own behavior.