“The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds and makes of all political and social life a mass illness. Without this housecleaning we cannot begin to see. Unless we see we cannot think.”
"By giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose."
"I feel a little alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. I would fain forget all my morning’s occupation, my obligations to society. But sometimes it happens that I cannot easily shake off the village; the thought of some work, some surveying, will run in my head, and I am not where my body is, I am out of my senses like a bird or beast. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?"
“Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.”
"The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers."