Mindfulness

When you do a thing, do it with the whole self. One thing at a time. Now I sit here and eat. For me nothing exists in the world except this food, this table. I eat with the whole attention. So you must do—in everything.

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, quoted in James Moore, Gurdjieff: anatomie d'un mythe : biographie, Paris, 1991, p. 261

When our minds are incessantly preoccupied with the rewards or dangers that may await us at the end of our journey, we are cutting ourselves off from the richness of life itself, and from our ability to recognize it in the texture of each moment along the way. In any one moment, this may seem no great loss–but a whole life of lost moments is a whole life lost.

John Teasdale, The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness, New York, 2007, p. 226

When it comes right down to it, the challenge of mindfulness is to realize that “this is it.” Right now /is /my life.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, New York, 1991, p. 128