awareness - awareness 2 - awareness 3

One does not need to fast for days and meditate for hours at a time
to experience the sense of sublime mystery which constantly envelops us.
All one need do is to notice intelligently, if even for a brief moment,
a blossoming tree, a forest flooded with autumn colors, an infant smiling.

Simon Greenberg

Life offers its wisdom generously.  Everything teaches.  Not everyone learns.
Life asks of us the same thing we have been asked in every class:  "Stay
awake."  "Pay attention."  But paying attention is no simple matter.  It requires
us not to be distracted by expectations, past experiences, labels, and masks.
It asks that we not jump to early conclusions and that we remain open to surprise.

Rachel Naomi Remen

How can I bring the feeling of God’s presence with me
into everyday life?  Perhaps I can make it a point, whenever
I drive on the highway, or ride a bus or subway, or travel
by air, to count the time as a gift.  Instead of fretting
about what’s ahead of me or how long it’s taking me to get there,
perhaps I can allow myself just to relax into the scene:
to open the windows of my awareness and let it all in;
to say, with my Creator, "It is very good."

Marilyn Morgan Helleberg

Iyanla Vanzant

What better way is there to make people love one another than
to make people understand one another?  True charity comes only
with clarity—just as “mercy” is but justice that understands.
Surely the root of all evil is the inability to see clearly that which is.

William Durant

I am sure it is a great mistake always to know enough
to go in when it rains.  One may keep snug and dry by
such knowledge, but one misses a world of loveliness.

Adeline Knapp

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.  Let me learn from you, love you,
bless you before you depart.  Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare
and perfect tomorrow.  Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so.
One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face into the pillow,
or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want,
more than all the world, your return.

Mary Jean Iron

When something does not insist on being noticed, when we aren't
grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event,
we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

Cynthia Ozick

We spend most of our time in a kind of horizontal thinking.
We move along the surface of things going from one quick base
to another, often with a frenzy that wears us out.
We collect data, things, people, ideas, "profound experiences,"
never penetrating any of them. . . But there are other times.
There are times when we stop.  We sit still.  We lose ourselves
in a pile of leaves or its memory.  We listen and breezes
from a whole other world begin to whisper.

James Carroll

When I found I no longer had the stamina to work long hours clearing the fallen limbs
in the woods around my house, I began to bring a lawn chair and a thermos with me.
I still work in the woods, but stop frequently to sit and have a cup of tea.  I’ve identified birds
I didn’t know lived here and evidence that a bobcat shares the property.  Since I’ve slowed
down some, I see things I never saw before and find that quiet solitude is not lonely
but nurturing, allowing my heart to open to the signs
and lessons of nature that surround me.

Sallirae Henderson

It can be tempting to blame others for our loss of direction.  We get lots of information
about life but little education in life from parents, teachers, and other authority figures,
who should know better from their experience.  Information is about facts.
Education is about wisdom and the knowledge of how to love and survive.
But no matter how much advice you get, you are the one who chooses which train to board.
As you pass through life, pay attention to the signs and stations; if you don't like the scenery,
pull the emergency cord and get off the train.  There is no other conductor in charge.
There is no one who needs to give you permission to transfer.
This is your life.  Your journey.  Your trip to conduct.

Bernie Siegel

There is only one thing about which I shall have no regrets when my life ends.
I have savored to the full all the small, daily joys.  The bright sunshine
on the breakfast table; the smell of the air at dusk; the sound of the clock ticking;
the light rains that start gently after midnight; the hour when the family come home;
Sunday-evening tea before the fire!  I have never missed one moment of beauty,
not even taken it for granted.  Spring, summer, autumn, or winter.
I wish I had failed as little in other ways.

Agnes Sligh Turnbull

HOME - contents - abundance - acceptance - achievement - action - adversity - advertising - aging - ambition - anger - anticipation
apathy - appreciation - arrogance - attitude - authenticity - awakening - awareness - awe - balance - beauty - being yourself
beliefs - body - brooding - busyness - celebration - challenges - change - character - children - choices - Christianity
coincidence - commitment - common sense - community - comparison - compassion - complaining - compliments - compromise
confidence - conformity - conscience - contentment - control - courage - covetousness - creativity - criticism - cruelty -  death
desire - determination - discouragement - diversity - doubt - dreams - earth - education - ego - encouragement - enlightenment
enthusiasm - envy - eternity - experience - failure -  faith - family - fault-finding - fear - finances - flowers - forgiveness - freedom
friendship - fun - gardening - generosity - gentleness - giving - goals - God - goodness - grace - gratitude - greed - grief - growing up
guilt - happiness - hatred - healing - health - helpfulness - home - honesty - hope - hospitality - humility - ideals -idleness  - idolatry
ignorance -  imagination - impatience - individuality - inspiration - integrity - introspection - intuition - jealousy - joy - judgment - kindness
knowledge - laughter - laziness - leadership - learning - letting go - life - listening - loneliness - love - lying - marriage - materialism - meanness
mindfulness - miracles - mistakes - mistrust - mystery - nature - negative attitude - now - oneness - open-mindedness - opportunity - optimism
pain - patience - peace - perfectionism - perseverance - perspective - pessimism - play - positive thoughts - possessions - potential - prayer
prejudice - pride - principle - purpose - relationships - religion - resentment - respect - responsibility - rest - revenge - risk - role models - sadness
safety - self - self-love - self-pity - self-respect - serving others - shame - silence - simplicity - solitude - spirit - stress - stupidity - success
thoughts - time - today - trust - truth - unfulfilled dreams - values - vanity - war - weight issues - wisdom - wonder - work - worship - youth
spring - summer - fall - winter - worry - Christmas - Thanksgiving - New Year - America - zen sayings - Native American wisdom
The Law of Attraction  - obstacles to living life fully - e-zine archives - quotations contents - our most recent e-zine - articles

When I speak about attention, I mean literally, "How much attention can we pay to ourselves?"
As children, sometimes we cannot hold our attention for more than a couple of seconds.
Over the years we are able to attend to more and more.
Yet, we're seldom schooled to hold life in respect, to enlarge our ability to love,
take care of, and be respectfully connected with all things around us.

Brooke Medicine Eagle

I shall open my eyes and ears.  Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree,
a flower, a cloud, or a person.  I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what
they are but simply be glad that they are.  I shall joyfully allow them their
"divine, magical, and ecstatic" existence.

Clyde S. Kilby

William Winter

Many of us at times, myself included, don't pay very much attention
to our senses and to the world around us; we are too busy living
in our heads and are often lost--sometimes quite literally lost--in our
thoughts.  Paradoxically, when we tune into our bodies, awaken our senses,
and pay a little bit of attention to the world around us, the obsessive
thinking that dominates us when we are upset or worried dissolves,
or at least quiets down, and consequently,
our thoughts become calmer and clearer.

Gary Egeberg

How then, do we come in contact with ourselves?  Number one,
by becoming aware.  Isn't that a nice word--aware?  It kind of hits
you right where it matters, doesn't it?  To be aware.  To be aware
of everything.  To be aware of life.  To be aware of growth, to be
aware of death, to be aware of beauty, to be aware of people,
flowers, trees.  Open your mind and begin to see and feel!  Begin
to experience, and don't be ashamed of it!  Touch, feel, chew, as
you never have before.  Keep growing!  Keep consistently growing.
Every moment that you do, you change.  Open your mind, open your
heart, open your arms, take it all in.  You can keep taking and taking
and taking, and what is, never runs out.  There's always more.  The
more that you see in a tree, the more that there is to see.  You hear
a Beethoven sonata, and it leads you to infinity.  Pick up a book of
poetry, and it leads you to beauty.  You love one person,
and that love leads you to hundreds.  Keep growing.

Leo Buscaglia

Awareness is a choice, and sometimes it takes effort.  But it’s never disappointing
if we truly put some effort into it.  The rewards for our effort already surround
us all the time, but they’re awards that we miss constantly until we make the
decision to open our eyes and our hearts to the beauty that’s always everywhere.

tom walsh

The next message you need is always right where you are.

Ram Dass

I believe that if you put fine food into a body with a crummy mind, you get
a crummy body, but if you put crummy food into a body with
expanded awareness, you get a fine body.

W. Brugh Joy

Not only should you believe in what you are doing,
but you should know what you are doing.

Mason Williams

A look filled with understanding, an accepting smile, a loving word,
a meal shared in warmth and awareness are the things which create
happiness in the present moment.  By nourishing awareness in the
present moment, you can avoid causing suffering to yourself and those
around you.  The way you look at others, your smile, and your small
acts of caring can create happiness.  True happiness
does not depend on wealth or fame.

Thich Nhat Hanh