Adyashanti “As human beings we maybe spend 10% of our time thinking about things we really need to think about – we spend the other 90% of our time imagining, fantasising and becoming involved in all sorts of internal stories and dramas that have no basis in truth” Kalama Sutra (from Buddha’s teachings) “Do not believe in something just because it is upheld by tradition or written in scriptures. Do not believe in something just because it is spoken by a teacher or upheld through history. Do not believe in something because it appears logical or is in concordance with your own views. When you know in yourselves that a teaching is wholesome, blameless, wise and when put into effect leads to happiness and well-being, that teaching you can believe” Christina Feldman “We feel helpless in the face of our high expectations and in our inability to attain them. We look inward for peace, compassion and clarity. We feel despondent when we discover chaos, disharmony and confusion” Vanda Scaravelli “Do not kill the instinct of the body for the glory of the pose” Vanda Scaravelli on practicing yoga “a new life came into my body…the intelligent heart” on her approach to yoga “you become intelligent and at the same time you are happy” Rick Hanson (psychologist author of ‘Buddha’s Brain’): “you really can nudge your whole being in a better direction every day” Rick Hanson “The pangs of living range from subtle loneliness and dismay to moderate stress, hurt and anger and then to intense trauma and anguish. The whole range is what we mean by the word suffering John Lennon “When I was 5, my teacher asked me, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I said "Happy." She told me that I didn't understand the assignment. I told her she didn't understand life.” Dhiravamsa “Meditation is the means by which we sharpen our awareness and develop our insight – meditation is to be aware, to be alert, to be awake” Dhiravamsa “The Buddhist teaching emphasises the full living in the present – fully living in the present is the whole point of Buddhism” Dhiravamsa “What is the goal of meditation? A zen master said there is no goal because meditation is the goal itself. The goal of meditation is meditation as the goal of life is living” Bruce Lloyd “We mistakenly believe that happiness is something to be acquired when in reality it is something to be realized” 1 Grace Schireson “From the zen perspective three forces drive practice to a deeper level and may help you to develop confidence in your perception: faith, effort and doubt. Practice develops through the dynamic interaction between these three forces” Lerab Lingpa (19th century Tibetan meditation teacher) “Whenever you meditate bear in mind the phrase ‘without distraction and without grasping’ and put this into practice” Navasana ”It is one of the oldest words in European languages and it has been kept in most of them. It shows that the Old people's of Europe had boats before the current languages were formed as they are. It is also, with numbers and members of the family, (and other words of daily life) one of the words that was compared in different languages in support of the theory that all the languages in Europe (except for Hungarian, Etrurian and Basque), come from the same original language. So, the word navasana, comes from the old Indoeuropean word ‘nau’. It Latin there is navis (boat) and nauta (sailor), which in English give to navigate, navy and nautical. In Sanskrit the word naus (ship) - the "u" is called a semivowel, which means that it changes into a v in front of another vowel, that's why there is nautical, but navy and navasana. In Greek, it is also naus. In German there is the verb navigiren. In Russian there is navigatzia”. Rick Hanson “The brain’s negative bias intensifies unpleasant emotions such as anger, sorrow, depression, guilt and shame. It highlights past losses and failures, it downplays present abilities and it exaggerates future obstacles. Consequently the mind continually tends to render unfair verdicts about a person’s character and conduct. The weight of these judgments can really wear you down”. Henry Thoreau “I make myself rich by making my wants few” Native American “In my heart there are two wolves: a wolf of love and a wolf of fear. It all depends on which one I feed each day”. Matthieu Ricard “Benevolence and compassion pervade the mind as a way of being”. Rick Hanson “Modern life takes the jumpy distractable monkey mind we all started with and feeds it steroids”. Rick Hanson “Paradoxically, the less your ‘I’ is here, the happier you are”. Buckminster Fuller “I seem to be a verb”. Sarah Ban Breathnach "Both abundance and lack exist simulataneously in our lives as parallel realities. It is always our own conscious choice which secret garden we will tend. When we choose not to focus on what is missing 2 from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that is present - love, health, food, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure - the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth” Christopher Germer (psychologist) – described mindfulness as “an awareness of present moment experience with acceptance” Pema Chodron “The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new” Christopher Willard “Our neural pathways form into ruts that are not always helpful. Imagine a dirt road that ambles across a meadow. The road is worn down over the years by trucks repeatedly driving over the same tracks. We continue to drive on this path because it has been worn down and it becomes more firmly established with each pass. This is exactly why we get stuck in old thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Now imagine for a moment that a gentle rain comes and softens the whole field. With soft ground creating a fresh and more direct path is that much easier. Mindfulness is like the rain that falls on the meadow, softening the ground to make blazing a new path easier”. Cambodian proverb “Patience in a moment of anger will save one hundred days of tears” Moby “Yoga has certainly turned the volume down on the more desperate thoughts” Emilie Conrad “Sensation is not just the messenger of pain, discomfort and other emotions but is the link to an extraordinary aesthetic landscape that is our birthright… Stress and speed will rigidify tissue, compromising flow and adaptability, the very nutrients required to enjoy a healthy life and vibrant society” Emilie Conrad “Nose breathing activates movement at several head and neck joints” Julie Hill (spent two years up a tree, a 1000 year old redwood tree in California – protesting against logging – in early 1998 after she had been up the tree for two months, she heard radio warnings of a 70 mph storm winds coming her way – her first reaction was to climb down the tree but if she left the tree, then it would be cut down). “I was trying to hold onto life so hard that my teeth were clenched, my fists were clenched, everything in my body was clenched completely and totally tight….I knew I was going to die…Had I remained tensed for the sixteen hours that the storm raged, I would have snapped. Instead…as I started to picture the trees in the storm, the answer began to dawn on me.The trees in the storm don’t try to stand up straight and tall and erect. They allow themselves to bend and be blown with the wind. They understand the power of letting go….Those trees and those branches that try too hard to stand up strong and 3 straight are the ones that break….Learn the power of the trees. Let it flow. Let it go. That is the way you are going to make it through the storm. And that is the way to make it through the storms of life”. Richard Freeman “The truth has been hidden very successfully in front of our eyes…there is no storyline in enlightenment: it is the end of the story” Richard Freeman “When mula bandha occurs the thoughts stop”. Richard Freeman “Right beneath the surface of experience is anxiety: dukkha”. Buddha (in the words of Richard Freeman) “the whole path Is the sangha”. Hatha Yoga Pradipika (14th century text) “Success comes to him who is engaged in practice. How can one get success without practice; for by merely reading books on yoga, one never gets success…Success cannot be attained by adopting a particular dress. It cannot be gained by telling tales. Practice alone is the means to success. This is true, there is no doubt” (Chapter 1 verses 67/68). Joni Mitchell “They paved paradise to put up a parking lot” Robert Bateman “The findings are that if children play in nature…they have less obesity, less attention deficit disorder, less depression, less suicide, less alcohol and drug abuse and less bullying and higher marks” Yoshifumi Miyazaki (at Chiba University in Japan) “The purpose of forest therapy is to provide preventive medical effects by relieving stress and recovering the immune system diminished by stress…Stressful states can be relieved by forest therapy”. Indian saying “Forests precede civilization. Deserts follow it”. Richard Freeman “The one thing that will completely ruin all your happiness is your self”. HY Pradipika “Respiration being disturbed, the mind becomes disturbed. By restraining respiration, the Yogi gets steadiness of mind” (2.2) Norman Fischer “There is more suffering than we can know.