“By becoming more attentive and aware of the thoughts arising in your mind, you will create the opportunity to question and reframe them.”

“If the mind wanders, bring your awareness back to the breath as it expands and contracts, and expand your awareness in all directions around you from there.”

“Transitioning mindfully out of meditation helps you keep the relaxed state developed during your practice, thus extending the “shelf life” of the benefits of calmness, clarity, and openness.”

“Envision your awareness as a glow in all directions around you, mentally scanning all directions at once—simply witnessing the moment as it is.”

“If you’ve been thinking negative thoughts for long enough, you have probably come to believe in and identify with them.”

“Mindfulness meditation practice will help you discern which thoughts support your goals and well-being and which thoughts are destructive or unhealthy and should be discarded.”

“You should always try to meditate in a place where you will be safe and as undisturbed as possible, but keep in mind that in any meditation practice, a crucial component is to allow—even welcome—changes to the outside environment without interrupting the meditation. Simply observe, experience, and allow things to be as they are.”

“By holding an open-focus awareness, you create a larger mental “container” for your thoughts to pass through.”

“The mental perspective to hold here is that you accept and allow the dog to bark and the car to drive by, without entertaining the desire for things to be any different than they are.”

“We can compare our attention to light: If we focus our concentration on something, we might say that we are “shining a spotlight” on it. When we practice open awareness, rather than shining a spotlight on one particular thing, we might say that we allow our awareness to “shine” in all directions around us, like the glow of a candle flame.”

“When we simply notice and allow things to be as they are, we naturally disengage from the impulses that would try to control or change things. This is not a practice in passivity or ignorance—quite the opposite. This is a practice in opening your mind and allowing yourself to receive all the information you possibly can before making any moves or taking any action. Notice the word allow. We do not force ourselves to pick up on sensory input; the awareness expands naturally from a practice of calm, relaxed allowing.”

“Through practicing mindful awareness, we cultivate discernment by being more sensitive to the bigger picture and how the present moment relates to it.”