Sarah Napthali > Quotes

“Refusing to rate what we perceive helps us to cultivate feelings of acceptance rather than judgement, as we stop demanding that life be other than it is.”
― Sarah Napthali, Buddhism for Mothers: A Calm Approach to Caring for Yourself and Your Children

“The whole world is medicine'. We can learn from everything that happens to us.”
― Sarah Napthali, Buddhism for Mothers: A Calm Approach to Caring for Yourself and Your Children

“I had uncovered a widely held but overlooked attachment: our attachment to the view that every problem must have a solution. We delude ourselves that we can think our way out of a problem or we see it as a matter of finding the right person to advise us. We become beggars for our problems, asking numerous people for an opinion. So often, we refuse to relax until a problem is fixed, only to discover our inability to relax was most of the problem.”
― Sarah Napthali, Buddhism for Mothers of Young Children: Becoming a Mindful Parent

“Our responses to events are far more significant than the events themselves”
― Sarah Napthali, Buddhism for Mothers: A calm approach to caring for yourself and your children

“Buddhism helps me to see motherhood as a spiritual journey. At the worst of times, I can remind myself that parenting is practice and practice of the most rigorous kind. My children are my teachers repeatedly forcing me to live in the present moment and give up fantasising about all the exciting and stimulating things I could be doing. As a mother you constantly need to ask the questions: ‘What does this moment require?’ and ‘What is important here?’ On bad days I notice my daughters automatically repeating themselves as though they know I’m a distant zombie who’s not quite there with them. When this happens I know to yank myself back into the present and give them close attention. Following Buddhist teachings I’m likely to parent consciously and with awareness of what the present moment requires rather than allowing my children to become the victims of my automatic reactions.”
― Sarah Napthali, Buddhism for Mothers: A Calm Approach to Caring for Yourself and Your Children

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.”
― Sarah Napthali, Buddhism for Mothers: A Calm Approach to Caring for Yourself and Your Children