When we are with people and feeling bored, can we listen a little more carefully, stepping off the train of our own inner commenting? If we are sitting in meditation and feeling uninterested, can we come in closer to the object, not with force but with gentleness and care? What is this experience we call the breath? If someone were holding your head under water, would the breath be boring? Each breath is actually sustaining our life. Can we be with it fully, just once?

Joseph Goldstein

from the book Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom

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Further quotes from the book Insight Meditation:

• Freedom Lies in the Wisdom to Choose
• Undistracted awareness
• Purpose of practice
• Like a cloud passing through the sky
• The foundation of goodwill
• The wonderful paradox about the truth of suffering
• Just sitting and watching
• Seeing impermanence deeply
• Awareness of thoughts
• Becoming aware of suffering
• The meditative journey