Blogging Book Club

I am going to blog about the rest of this book a little differently. Honestly, just to get it over with, so I can move on to the next book. I'm just going to share a few quotes from each chapter that I liked and would want my children to learn someday too.

Chapter 7 - MINDFULNESS - The only time is now

"To be in the present with someone else is a gift. The gift of attention is perhaps the most precious and envied of all, even though we do not always realize it. To be there. To be totally available." (p.101)

"Inattention has a disruptive, depressing aspect, which saps our vitality and robs us of our self-confidence. It can arouse all our latent feelings of inferiority and make us feel like nothing." (p.102)

Isn't it annoying to be carrying on a conversation with someone and you can tell they are only half listening? I'm sorry if I've ever done it to you.

"Attention is thus a form of kindness, and lack of attention is the greatest form of rudeness." (p.104)

"Think of your best moments with others: I am sure you were right there, fully attentive." (P.106)

Chapter 8 - EMPATHY - Expansion of Consciousness

"A person who tries to jump the line, or drops rubbish in the street, or makes a noise when others are trying to sleep is doing so because he is incapable of conceiving others' reactions." (p.109)

Ignorance is bliss right? For example, if today I started smoking, I would never smoke around someone else unless I asked, "do you mind?" first. Or I would smoke far away from other people, because I know it makes me ill when people do it around me, so I couldn't turn around and do it to someone else. It's like, for some people they have to have something happen to them before they can have empathy. Thankfully, not everyone is like that.

"It is no coincidence that, according to many psychotherapists, empathy is the essential ingredient of the successful therapeutic relationship. Suffering individuals do not need diagnoses, advice, interpretations, manipulations. They need genuine and total empathy. When at last they feel that someone identifies with their experience, in that moment they are able to let go of their suffering and are healed." (p. 112)

"How do you face pain? It is not easy. Some pretend not to feel it, smiling the whole way through: "It's nothing." Some are proud of it: "My headache is worse than yours." Some like to show it off, describing all their woes in detail: "Let me tell you the history of my cavities." Some blame God or destiny, believing themselves to be the target of divine wrath or of adversity: "It always happens to me!" And some are always complaining, even when the pain is over, not only about real pain but also about possible pain, as though not wanting to be taken by surprise. Some fight the whole time, whether there is cause to or not. And finally, some simply become discouraged and depressed, and withdraw from life: "I give up."

These are all ineffective ways of dealing with suffering. They can perhaps give some illusory comfort, but mostly they just perpetuate or increase suffering instead of eliminating it. They best way to face pain is directly, with sincerity and courage. To enter into it, as into a tunnel, then to come out the other side." (P. 114-115)

And, I think sometimes we might have to hang out in that tunnel longer than at other times.

"Compassion is the final and noblest result of empathy." (p. 120)

CHAPTER 9 - HUMILITY - You are not the only one around

"If I do not try to be what I am not, I give myself permission to be what I am." (p. 126)

I love that!

"Only a humble person can be kind, because, not playing any one-upmanship game, she is able to enjoy a relationship in which no one triumphs, and therefore all win." (p. 128)

"I am one among many, mortal and limited, a human being among human beings. I do not have to prove myself superior to anyone." (p. 133)

A few more chapters to go...