Dan Millman Quotes

You cannot force the Now. — But can you neither condemn nor justify and yet be extraordinarily alive as you walk on? You can never invite the wind, but you must leave the window open.

It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.

Meditation is not concentration. It is simple awareness. You simply relax and watch the breathing. In that watching, nothing is excluded. The car is humming - perfectly okay, accept it. The traffic is passing - that's okay, part of life. The fellow passenger snoring by your side, accept it. Nothing is rejected. You are not to narrow down your consciousness.

Do not pursue what should be, but understand what is.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought.

Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.

I'm in a space of surrendering and being open and seeing. It's a good place to be - the only place to be.

When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life.

Do you really need to mentally label every sense perception and experience? Do you really need to have a reactive like/dislike relationship with life where you are in almost continuous conflict with situations and people? Or is that just a deep-seated mental habit that can be broken? Not by doing anything, but by allowing this moment to be as it is.

You need not even listen, just wait...the world will offer itself freely to you, unmasking itself.

Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of it's own accord.

Don't observe yourself too closely. Don't be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen.

Be very very still and allow every new experience to take place in your life without any resistance whatsoever. You do not have to do anything, you simply have to be and let things happen.

Don't worry about achieving. Don't worry about perfection. Just be there each moment as best you can. When you realize you've wandered off again, simply very lightly acknowledge that. This light touch is the golden key to reuniting with our openness.

We can't control what thoughts and emotions arise within us, nor can we control the universal truth that everything changes. But we can learn to step back and rest in the awareness of what's happening. That awareness can be our refuge.

Accept everything just the way it is.

Acceptance is the embracing of what happens. Acceptance is a way of getting in touch with the deeper, timeless dimension of aware presence, simply through accepting that this is what is happening or this is what I am feeling or thinking.

We can stop struggling with what occurs and see its true face without calling it the enemy. It helps to remember that our spiritual practice is not about accomplishing anything - not about winning or losing - but about ceasing to struggle and relaxing as it is. That is what we are doing when we sit down to meditate. That attitude spreads into the rest of our lives.

Do not strive for things occurring to occur as you wish, but wish the things occurring as they occur, and you will flow well.

Mindfulness does not mean pushing oneself toward something or hanging on to something. It means allowing oneself to be there in the very moment of what is happening in the living process - and then letting go.

If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.

The position that I take partly as a result of living in Asia is where you stop living according to your expectations and you become available to experience things as they are.

I'm just dealing with what's happening, with what is. Joy, happiness, good, bad, all those terms are meaningless to me.

When I try to go with what's happening and embrace that as much as I can, it seems to be a much smoother journey for me.