Focusing our consciousness brings our concentration into the present moment

A New Consciousness 1.

There is a famous saying: "If the mind is not contrived, it is spontaneously blissful, just as water, when not agitated, is by nature transparent and clear." I often compare the mind in meditation to a jar of muddy water: The more we leave the water without interfering or stirring it, the more the particles of dirt will sink to the bottom, letting the natural clarity of the water shine through.

The very nature of the mind is such that if you only leave it in its unaltered and natural state, it will find its true nature, which is bliss and clarity. So take care not to impose anything on the mind, or to tax it. When you meditate there should be no effort to control, and no attempt to be peaceful.

Don't be overly solemn or feel that you are taking part in some special ritual; let go even of the idea that you are meditating. Let your body remain as it is, and your breath as you find it. Think of yourself as the sky, holding the whole universe.

Sogyal Rinpoche, in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

A New Consciousness 2.

Only the walker who sets out toward ultimate things is a pilgrim. In this lies the terrible difference between tourist and pilgrim. The tourist travels just as far, sometimes with great zeal and courage, gathering up acquisitions (a string of adventures, a wondrous tale or two) and returns the same person as the one who departed.

There is something inexpressibly sad in the clutter of belongings the tourist unpacks back at home. The pilgrim is different. The pilgrim resolves that the one who returns will not be the same person as the one who set out. Pilgrimage is a passage for the reckless and subtle.

The pilgrim--and the metaphor comes to us from distant times--must be prepared to shed the husk of personality or even the body like a worn out coat. A Buddhist dictum has it that "the Way exists but not the traveler on it." For the pilgrim the road is home; reaching your destination seems nearly inconsequential.

Andrew Schelling, Meeting the Buddha

A New Consciousness 3.

Literature gives us the great gift of the present moment. As we read we enter the author's mind and follow it like a train on its tracks... she is taking us far out or far in and we're there! --no place else. Mind to mind...

But you ask, isn't the present moment just this: the sun coming in through the window, me leaning on a wooden desk, my eyes darting along the page, my legs crossed--not trucking along, my mind deep in the author's story?

Yes, that also is the present moment, but usually if I'm sitting there without reading, I am a divided person. Half of me is there, the other half is out the window, down the block shopping for wild rice, thinking about supper or how mad I am at a friend. But when I'm reading and I love what I'm reading, I'm totally connected, whole. Me and Shakespeare, me and Milton--no time or space between us. We are one--not two, not split.

Then with that oneness, full of concentration and presence, I look up and can really see and experience through my whole body the light coming in through the glass pane and how it plays on the desktop where my book is, and I can feel my legs crossed underneath.

Natalie Goldberg, from 365 Nirvana, Here and Now by Josh Baran

A New Consciousness 4.

The Buddha compared faith to a blind giant who meets up with a very sharp-eyed cripple, called wisdom. The blind giant, called faith, says to the sharp-eyed cripple, "I am very strong, but I can't see; you are very weak, but you have sharp eyes. Come and ride on my shoulders. Together we will go far."

The Buddha never supported blind faith, but a balance between heart and mind, between wisdom and faith. The two together will go far. The saying that blind faith can move mountains unfortunately omits the fact that, being blind, faith doesn't know which mountain needs moving. That's where wisdom is essential, which means that a thorough understanding of the teaching is crucial.

Ayya Khema, When the Iron Eagle Flies

A New Consciousness 5.

We must have beginner's mind, free from possessing anything, a mind that knows everything is in flowing change. Nothing exists but momentarily in its present form and color. One thing flows into another and cannot be grasped. Before the rain stops we hear a bird. Even under the heavy snow we see snowdrops and some new growth. In the East I saw rhubarb already. In Japan in the spring we eat cucumbers.

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

A New Consciousness 6.

If I am holding a cup of water and I ask you, "Is this cup empty?" you will say, "No, it is full of water." But if I pour out the water and ask you again, you may say, "Yes, it is empty." But, empty of what? . . . My cup is empty of water, but it is not empty of air. To be empty is to be empty of something. . . .

When Avalokita [Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion] says that the five skandhas are equally empty, to help him be precise we must ask, "Mr. Avalokita, empty of what?" The five skandhas, which may be translated into English as five heaps, or five aggregates, are the five elements that comprise a human being. . . .

In fact, these are really five rivers flowing together in us: the river of form, which means our body, the river of feelings, the river of perceptions, the river of mental formations, and the river of consciousness. They are always flowing in us. . . . Avalokita looked deeply into the five skandhas . . . and he discovered that none of them can be by itself alone. . . . Form is empty of a separate self, but it is full of everything in the cosmos. The same is true with feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of Understanding

A New Consciousness 7.

When we sit down to meditate, we are trying to transcend our everyday consciousness: the one with which we transact our ordinary business, the one used in the worlds market-place as we go shopping, bring up our children, work in an office or in our business, clean the house, check our bank statements, and all the rest of daily living.

That kind of consciousness is known to everyone and without it we can't function. It is our survival consciousness and we need it for that. It cannot reach far enough or deep enough into the Buddha's teachings, because these are unique and profound; our everyday consciousness is neither unique or profound, it's just utilitarian.

In order to attain the kind of consciousness that is capable of going deeply enough into the teachings to make them our own and thereby change our whole inner view, we need a mind with the ability to remove itself from the ordinary thinking process. That is only possible through meditation. There is no other way. Meditation is therefore a means and not an end in itself. It is a means to change the mind's capacity in such a way that we can see entirely different realities from the ones we are used to.

Ayya Khema, When the Iron Eagle Flies

A New Consciousness 8.

The secret of beginning a life of deep awareness and sensitivity lies in our willingness to pay attention. Our growth as conscious, awake human beings is marked not so much by grand gestures and visible renunciations as by extending loving attention to the minutest particulars of our lives. Every relationship, every thought, every gesture is blessed with meaning through the wholehearted attention we bring to it.

In the complexities of our minds and lives we easily forget the power of attention, yet without attention we live only on the surface of existence. It is just simple attention that allows us truly to listen to the song of a bird, to see deeply the glory of an autumn leaf, to touch the heart of another and be touched. We need to be fully present in order to love a single thing wholeheartedly. We need to be fully awake in this moment if we are to receive and respond to the learning inherent in it.

Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, in Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart

A New Consciousness 9.

A great distraction at times are so-called "running commentary" thoughts such as, "Now I am not thinking of anything," "Things are going very well now," "This is dreadful; my mind just won't stay still" and the like . . . . All such thoughts should simply be noted as "Thinking," and, as Huang Po says, just "dropped like a piece of rotten wood." "Dropped," notice, not thrown down.

A piece of rotten wood is not doing anything to irritate you, but is just of no use, so there is no point in hanging on to it. . . . Nor is there any need to try to retrace the links in a chain of associated thoughts, nor to try to ascertain what it was that first started the chain.

Any such impulse should itself be noted simply as "Thinking," and the mind should revert to the breathing. However badly things have just been going, one should take up again at the only place one can--where one is--and go on from there.

Bhikkhu Mangalo, The Practice of Recollection

A New Consciousness 10.

In the broadest conception of the path, in the vast context of spiritual practice, we cultivate and nourish certain qualities that support and propel us forward into freedom. The Pali word parami refers to ten wholsome qualities in our minds and the accumulated power they bring to us: generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, resolve, lovingkindness, and equanimity. . . .

Parami does not come from some being outside ourselves; rather, it comes from our own gradually accumulated purity. A Buddhist understanding of reliance on a higher power would not necessarily involve reliance on some supernatural being. It is, rather, a reliance on those forces of purity in ourselves that are outside our small, constricted sense of I, and that constitute the source of grace in our lives.

Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation

A New Consciousness 11.

It's impossible to take note of your mind all of the time. You would tie yourself up in knots and run off the road. Instead of going to an extreme, begin by concentrating on one particular emotion in yourself. Choose the emotion that bothers you the most, or the one that is most prominent in you.... For many people, anger is a good starting point because it is easily noticed and dissolves faster than most other emotions.

Once you begin to watch your anger, you will make an interesting discovery. You will find that as soon as you know you are angry, your anger will melt away by itself. It is very important that you watch without likes or dislikes. The more you are able to look at your own anger without making judgments, without being critical, the more easily the anger will dissipate.

Thynn Thynn, Living Meditation, Living Insight