Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

Would getting our way solve anything at all, or would it only make more of a mess of our lives were it possible to realize our wishes on impulse out of our so frequently mindless states of mind?

The old fairy tales, we are told by their modern interpreters, Bruno Bettelheim, Robert Bly, Joseph Campbell, and Clarissa Pinkola Estes, are ancient maps, offering their own guidance for the development of full human beings.

Experiment with being soft when your impulse is to be hard, generous when your impulse is to be withholding, open when your impulse is to close up or shut down emotionally. When there is grief or sadness, try letting it be here. Allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling.

Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty inside the body and out of it, before gardens and after gardens. KABIR The heavy is the root of the light. The unmoved is the source of all movement. Thus the Master travels all day without leaving home. However splendid the views, she stays serenely in herself. Why should the lord of the country flit

What looks like weakness is actually where your strength lies. And what looks like strength is often weakness, an attempt to cover up fear; this is an act or a facade, however convincing it might appear to others or even to yourself.

Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more.

Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again.

The kings and queens, princes and princesses, dwarfs and witches, are not merely personages “out there.” We know them intuitively as aspects of our own psyches, strands of our own being, groping toward fulfillment.

Dwelling inwardly for extended periods, we come to know something of the poverty of always looking outside ourselves for happiness, understanding, and wisdom.