"Mindfulness requires effort and discipline for the simple reason that the forces that work against our being mindful, namely, our habitual unawareness and automaticity, are exceedingly tenacious. They are so strong and so much out of our consciousness that an inner commitment and a certain kind of work are necessary just to keep up our attempts to capture our moments in awareness and sustain mindfulness. But it is an intrinsically satisfying work because it puts us in touch with many aspects of our lives that are habitually overlooked and lost to us.
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It is also enlightening and liberating work. It is enlightening in that it literally allows us to see more clearly, and therefore come to understand more deeply, areas in our lives that we were out of touch with or unwilling to look at. This may include encountering deep emotions--such as grief, sadness, woundedness, anger and fear--that we might not ordinarily allow ourselves to hold in awareness or express consciously. Mindfulness can also help us to appreciate feelings such as joy, peacefulness, and happiness which often go by fleetingly and unacknowledged. It is liberating in that it leads us to new ways of being in our own skin and in the world, which can free us from the ruts we so often fall into. It is empowering as well, because paying attention in this way opens channels to deep reservoirs of creativity, intelligence, imagination, clarity, determination, choice, and wisdom within us."
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Jon Kabat-Zinn from his book Wherever You Go There You Are (1994) (pages 8-9)
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Sharon Salzberg in her book Real Love says:
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"I saw I couldn't flourish as a human being as long as I saw myself as the passive recipient of love. (There's an awful lot of waiting in that position, and then damage control when it doesn't work out, and also numbness.) But I could certainly flourish as love's embodiment. ... I believe that there is only one kind of love---real love---trying to come alive in us despite our limiting assumptions, the distortions of our culture, and the habits of fear, self-condemnation, and isolation that we tend to acquire just by living a life. All of us have the capacity to experience real love. When we see love from this expanded perspective, we can find it in the smallest moments of connection: with a clerk in the grocery store, a child, a pet, a walk in the woods. We can find it within ourselves."
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Sharon Salzberg from her book Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection (2017) (pages 3-4)
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Jon Kabat-Zinn writes:
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"Cultivating mindfulness can lead to the discovery of deep realms of well-being, calmness, clarity, and insight within yourself. It is as if you were to come upon a new territory, previously unknown to you or only vaguely suspected, which contains a veritable wellspring of positive energy for self-understanding and healing. Moreover, it is easy to familiarize yourself with this territory and learn to inhabit it more frequently. The path to it in any moment lies no further than your own body and mind and your own breathing. This domain of pure being, of wakefulness, is always accessible to you. It is always here, independent of your problems."
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From Kabat-Zinn's book Full Catastrophe Living (2013) page lxi
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