Look again

nose

“If the breath seems an exceedingly dull thing to observe over and over, you may rest assured of one thing: you have ceased to observe the process with true mindfulness. Mindfulness is never boring. Look again. Don’t assume that you know what breath is. Don’t take it for granted that you have already seen everything there is to see. If you do, you are conceptualizing the process. You are not observing its living reality. When you are clearly mindful of the breath or of anything else, it is never boring. Mindfulness looks at everything with the eyes of a child, with a sense of wonder. Mindfulness sees every moment as if it were the first and the only moment in the universe. So look again.”

~ Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
from “Mindfulness in Plain English” (pages 106, 107). Wisdom Publications (2002). http://wisdompubs.org/author/bhante-gunaratana

Note: This quote comes from the very active and rich Facebook page of the Bhavana Society Therevadan Forest Monastery in the mountains of West Virginia. If you have an interest in Buddhism, mindfulness and meditation, you can follow the page here.

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