The approach of mindfulness of life is that if you are meditating in a room, you are meditating in a room. You don’t regard the room as a cave. If you are breathing, you are breathing, rather than convincing yourself you are a motionless rock. You keep your eyes open and simply let yourself be where you are. There are no imaginations involved with this approach. You just go through with your situation as it is. If your meditation place is in a rich setting, just be in the midst of it. If it is in a simple setting, just be in the midst of that. You are not trying to get away from here to somewhere else. You are tuning in simply and directly to your process of life. This practice is the essence of here and now. In this way, meditation becomes an actual part of life, rather than just a practice or exercise. It becomes inseparable from the instinct to live that accompanies all one’s existence. That instinct to live can be seen as containing awareness, meditation, mindfulness. It constantly tunes us in to what is happening.
Chögyam Trungpa
from the book The Sanity We Are Born With: A Buddhist Approach to Psychology
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Further quotes from the book The Sanity We Are Born With:
- Tuning in to life
- Giving up goal, aim, and object
- Just open space
- The importance of patience
- Glimpse of Enlightenment
- The freshness of not rebuilding
- Path
- These situations are the scriptures
- Working with the present situation
- Sanity on the spot
- Ego is a filter
- Emotions are part of you