Petrarch Quotes

Your one certainty in life, your power as a human being, is that you have a choice in every situation about what you do next and about how you take what has happened to you.

Are we our bodies? Is a small person less than a big person, then? If we were our bodies, then when we lost an arm, or a leg, would we be less, would we begin to fade from existence? No. We are the same person. We are not our bodies; we are our thoughts. As they form, they define who we are, and create the reality of our existence.

Mind is elusive, you cannot hold it in your hand. You cannot force it into a test-tube. The only way to know it is to know it from within, from your witnessing self. The more you become aware, the more you can watch your mind - its subtle functioning. The functioning is tremendously complex and beautiful. Mind is the most complex phenomenon on the earth, the most subtle flowering of consciousness. If you want to really understand what the mind is, then you will have to detach yourself from your mind, and you will have to learn how to be just a witness. That's what meditation is all about.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately... you usually don't use it at all. It uses you.

In my definition of consciousness, consciousness is the same thing as life. What wisdom traditions also call spirit.

At times I think and at times I am.

Running is the one part of my life in which I fundamentally feel like the observer instead of the observed.

I used to worry about every little thing, trying to figure out every problem. Well, I realize now how foolish that was. I was no more in control of my life than the man on the moon.

Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.

Control is not real, and I'm really understanding that every day. It's about the acceptance of relinquishing control that makes it powerful for you.

I am Walter, a body, but more important than the body is my spirit.

Focus your mind on what your Highest Self chooses to be.

We are what our thoughts have made us

When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it. The mind itself is a wonderful tool. Dysfunction sets in when you seek your self in it and mistake it for who you are.

One way we could describe the struggle of life would be to say it is a battle between agency and addiction. Agency is our power to choose, and addiction is what happens when we have lost that power and we are controlled by something else.

Our identification with the mind and body is the chief reason for our failure to know our self as we truly are.

I am not my body. My body is nothing without me.

A conscious mind is a mind with a self in it.

You can indeed be aware of your body, but you can also be aware of your mind - you can right now notice all the thoughts and ideas and images floating in front of the mind's inward eye. You can, in other words, experience your mind, be aware of your mind. And it's very important to experience your mind directly, cleanly, intensely, because only by bringing awareness to the mind can you begin to transcend the mind and be free of its limitations.

Meditation is neither of the body nor of the mind, but belongs to the third within you—your being.

Watch, witness. Your body is not you; your mind is not you. You are just a pure witness.

Self-awareness includes awareness of your body.

The ego is not a thing but a subtle effort, and you cannot use effort to get rid of effort - you end up with two efforts instead of one. The ego itself is a perfect manifestation of the Divine, and it is best handled by resting in Freedom, not by trying to get rid of it, which simply increases the effort of the ego itself

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own