Benjamin W. Decker > Quotes

“Every time the mind wanders away from the awareness of the breath, notice that it has wandered and bring your awareness back to the breath. This can be likened to a rep in the gym—every time you bring your mind back, you are building your "muscle" of attention.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“Mindfulness practice can teach us about the nature of thinking, and perhaps even more importantly, it can teach us that we are not our thoughts.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“Christ is the perfect embodiment of the Spirit of God. He is the Son of God, the miracle worker, the overcomer, the way maker, and our brother. As fellow children of God, our task is to learn more about His character and to become more like Him.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Meditations on Christ: A 5-Minute Guided Journal for Christians

“Count on your beginner's mind to help you through any times when you might feel resistant or self-conscious about your practice.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“Through us, the Spirit moves through the Earth, and an important part of the journey of individual spiritual development is learning to create a sacred place with our faith and reverence.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Meditations on Christ: A 5-Minute Guided Journal for Christians

“The monks find comfort, contentment, and even joy in the simplest of tasks, living each moment to its fullest by grounding themselves in the present.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“Zazen can ultimately retrain your mind to see the world from an entirely new perspective.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“By choosing to become aware, you choose to take back control of your attention and perspective, which can transform even mundane tasks, such as washing dishes or making coffee, into something joyful and beautiful.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“In zazen, you create the conditions for your mind to “decompress” from its habitual mode of thinking and open up to new perspectives and insight.”
― Benjamin W. Decker

“Achieving the advanced state of no-thought is not about stopping the thinking process, but rather, it’s about cultivating an expansive sensitivity to a level above the thinking mind.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“Mindfulness meditation practice will help you discern which thoughts support your goals and well-being and which thoughts are destructive or unhealthy and should be discarded.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“You should always try to meditate in a place where you will be safe and as undisturbed as possible, but keep in mind that in any meditation practice, a crucial component is to allow—even welcome—changes to the outside environment without interrupting the meditation. Simply observe, experience, and allow things to be as they are.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“Meditation is a sacred, ancient practice that people of all world traditions practice in some form or another.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Meditations on Christ: A 5-Minute Guided Journal for Christians

“Stop thinking—about anything other than what you are doing right now. Notice your breath. Enjoy all that there is to this moment.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“During his early ministry in Galilee, Christ taught us that we would do greater things than the miracles he performed.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Meditations on Christ: A 5-Minute Guided Journal for Christians

“Do a mindful check-in at work—Take a brief moment to mindfully experience the workplace from your usual spot. Mentally scan in all directions around you.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“In Matthew 7:20 (KJV), we are taught a profound secret for discerning of the Spirit: "Where-fore by their fruits ye shall know them." This means that we look to the health of the part (the fruit) to gauge the health of the whole. A healthy tree will bear good fruit; an unhealthy tree will bear low-quality fruit.”
― Benjamin W. Decker

“Just because you think something doesn’t mean it’s true, or even particularly important.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“Thoughts provide important information, but they are not fundamentally different from or more important than, say, the taste of a pear or hearing a Mozart symphony.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“The chronic tension the average person experiences in modern life finds its way deep into the body, and we live most of our lives in the “whiplash” of past experiences—mentally rehashing and physically re-experiencing past stressors.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“The greatest priority when it comes to prayer and meditation is that we open our hearts as a temple to Christ and welcome the Spirit from within.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Meditations on Christ: A 5-Minute Guided Journal for Christians

“Yin is the feminine aspect of all things and is associated with that which is expansive, open, and receptive, while yang is the masculine aspect of all things and is associated with that which is precise, active, and specific. Every person has both yin qualities and yang qualities,”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“Open Awareness Meditation, also known as “open attention,” “open monitoring,” or “soft focus,” is a form of mindfulness meditation in which you allow the many things present in your consciousness (sounds and other sensory input, as well as your thoughts and emotions) to arise in your awareness and then naturally fall away as they are replaced by different sounds, thoughts, etc.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“By becoming more attentive and aware of the thoughts arising in your mind, you will create the opportunity to question and reframe them.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“Zazen practice develops our understanding of our connectedness to the world into which we were born, the world in which we live—which is also the world we are creating together, moment by moment.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“Our meditation practice, as Christians, is dedicated to three main priorities: welcoming the Holy Spirit, living a more Christlike life, and building His kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Meditations on Christ: A 5-Minute Guided Journal for Christians

“Unlike many other traditions, in Zen, emphasis is placed on the direct experience of enlightenment—experiencing insight through meditation—rather than on the study of the sacred texts of Eastern traditions.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“Zen is an especially intriguing school of Buddhism because it brings to mind paradoxical images of monks happily living quiet lives, meditating on mountaintops, as well as powerful martial artists.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You

“The Bible teaches us that prayer is about our own inner relationship with the one true source of all things, our Heavenly Parents. This is essentially true about meditation as well.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Meditations on Christ: A 5-Minute Guided Journal for Christians

“A beginner’s mind allows you to remain flexible and open, even as you encounter new things that may seem strange or even uncomfortable at first. It also allows you to experience something mundane from an entirely new perspective, whereas an expert might approach something believing they “already get it.”
― Benjamin W. Decker, Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You