Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Book Overview: In the rush of modern life, we tend to lose touch with the peace that is available in each moment. World-renowned Zen master, spiritual leader, and author Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how to make positive use of the very situations that usually pressure and antagonize us. For him a ringing telephone can be a signal to call us back to our true selves. Dirty dishes, red lights, and traffic jams are spiritual friends on the path to “mindfulness”—the process of keeping our consciousness alive to our present experience and reality. The most profound satisfactions, the deepest feelings of joy and completeness lie as close at hand as our next aware breath and the smile we can form right now.
Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
- How To Live More Mindfully – The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing
- How to Handle Your Anger – A Mindfulness Exercise from Thich Nhat Hanh
- Pillow Punching – Good or Bad for Anger Management?
- Thich Nhat Hanh Quote on the Present Moment and Appreciating the Flower When It’s Shown To You (Beyond the Quote 238/365)
“Breathing in and out is very important, and it is enjoyable. Our breathing is the link between our body and our mind. Sometimes our mind is thinking of one thing and our body is doing another, and mind and body are not unified. By concentrating on our breathing, ‘In’ and ‘Out,’ we bring body and mind back together, and become whole again. Conscious breathing is an important bridge.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step
A Meditation on Anger from the Dalai Lama [Excerpt]
![A Meditation on Anger from the Dalai Lama [Excerpt]](https://movemequotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Dalai-Lama-930x620.jpeg)
The following meditation is an excerpt from the book, The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama.
Read More »A Meditation on Anger from the Dalai Lama [Excerpt]
“People who study others are wise but those who study themselves are enlightened.” ~ Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
“It may be more important to be awake than to be successful, balanced, or healthy. What does it mean to be awake? Perhaps to be living with a lively imagination, responding honestly and courageously to opportunity and avoiding the temptation to follow mere habit or collective values. It means to be an individual, in every instance manifesting the originality of who we are. This is the ultimate form of creativity – following the lead of the deep soul as we make a life.”
Thomas Moore, Original Self | ★ Featured on this book list.
The Art of Stillness [Book]
Book Overview: Why might a lifelong traveler like Pico Iyer, who has journeyed from Easter Island to Ethiopia, Cuba to Kathmandu, think that sitting quietly in a room might be the ultimate adventure? Because in our madly accelerating world, our lives are crowded, chaotic and noisy. There’s never been a greater need to slow down, tune out and give ourselves permission to be still.
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Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
“It takes courage, of course, to step out of the fray, as it takes courage to do anything that’s necessary, whether tending to a loved one on her deathbed or turning away from that sugarcoated doughnut. And with billions of our global neighbors in crying need, with so much in every life that has to be done, it can sound selfish to take a break or go off to a quiet place. But as soon as you do sit still, you find that it actually brings you closer to others, in both understanding and sympathy. As the meditative video artist Bill Viola notes, it’s the man who steps away from the world whose sleeve is wet with tears for it.” ~ Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness
“It’s only by taking myself away from clutter and distraction that I can begin to hear something out of earshot and recall that listening is much more invigorating than giving voice to all the thoughts and prejudices that anyway keep me company twenty-four hours a day. And it’s only by going nowhere – by sitting still or letting my mind relax – that I find that the thoughts that come to me unbidden are far fresher and more imaginative than the ones I consciously seek out. Setting an auto-response on my e-mail, turning off the TV when I’m on the treadmill, trying to find a quiet place in the midst of a crowded day (or city) – all quickly open up an unsuspected space.” ~ Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness
“When friends ask me for suggestions about where to go on vacation, I’ll sometimes ask if they want to try Nowhere, especially if they don’t want to have to deal with visas and injections and long lines at the airport. One of the beauties of Nowhere is that you never know where you’ll end up when you head in its direction, and though the horizon is unlimited, you may have very little sense of what you’ll see along the way. The deeper blessing is that it can get you as wide-awake, exhilarated, and pumping-hearted as when you are in love.” ~ Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness
“Going nowhere, isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.” ~ Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness
“Not many years ago, it was access to information and movement that seemed our greatest luxury; nowadays it’s often freedom from information, the chance to sit still, that feels like the ultimate prize. Stillness is not just an indulgence for those with enough resources – it’s a necessity for anyone who wishes to gather less visible resources. Going nowhere is not about austerity so much as about coming closer to one’s senses.” ~ Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness
“It is well known that expert meditators develop the capacity to see life in slow motion, observing objects (including their own thoughts) in minute detail, as if seeing every individual frame of a movie. It turns out that masters in every field develop the same capacity. Master baseball players, for example, when at bat, see the ball coming at them as if in slow motion – even though the ball is actually traveling 90 miles an hour. Not only can the master batter see the ball in ‘individual frame’ detail, but he can at the same time see the meaning of those details. How low is the ball to the ground? Over what quadrant of the plate will it pass? Is it spinning? In what direction? How will all of this detail influence my decision about how and where I want to hit the ball? This is mastery.”
Stephen Cope, The Great Work Of Your Life
“When we get so wrapped up in our heads, we miss out on what’s available to us right now in the moment. Stop and notice how you feel right now. Feel your breath moving in and out of your body. Feel the air on your skin. Feel your heart beating. Your eyes seeing. Your ears hearing. Notice the energy inside and outside of you buzzing. Shut off your thoughts and feel your connection to Source. B-r-e-a-t-h-e. Even if you’ve got bone-chilling credit card debts or you haven’t spoken to your mother in six years, right now, in this moment, you can find peace and joy in that which simply is.” ~ Jen Sincero, You Are a Badass
“If we want to be high-functioning and happy, we need to re-learn how to be still. When we feel like there isn’t enough time in the day for us to get everything done, when we wish for more time… we don’t actually need more time. We need more stillness. Stillness to recharge. Stillness so that we can feel whatever it is that we feel. Stillness so that we can actually enjoy this life that we are living.” ~ Christine Carter, Greater Good
“Being mindful does not mean that we just sit for hours on our meditation cushion in a retreat or monastery. There are many ways to practice mindfulness that can be fully integrated into our daily living. Besides conscious breathing, we can do walking meditation, sitting meditation, smiling, mindful listening, mindful speaking, and mindful working. We can practice concentration and looking deeply in all the activities of our daily life. Even while walking, we can practice stopping. We can walk in such a way that we arrive with each step – not walking just to get somewhere else. We can walk to enjoy each step. If we practice stopping while attending to e-mails, surfing the web, attending meetings or appointments, folding the laundry, washing the dishes, or taking a shower, we are living deeply. If we do not practice this way, the days and months will fly by without our awareness, and we will lose many precious moments of our life. Stopping helps us live fully in the present.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Savor