Perception
"We are nothing more or less than the cumulative biological and environmental luck, over which we had no control, that has brought us to any moment."
— Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
“But whether we are distancing our self from the herd, or ingratiating our self as part of the herd, it is the existence of others that defines who we are.”
― Bruce M. Hood, The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity
"The brain is heavily influenced by genes. But from birth through young adulthood, the part of the human brain that most defines us (frontal cortex) is less a product of the genes with which you started life than of what life has thrown at you. Because it is the last to mature, by definition the frontal cortex is the brain region least constrained
... See more“You can be grateful for what you enjoy, not longing for what you are missing.”
― Daniel J. Siegel, Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence--A Complete Guide to the Groundbreaking Wheel of Awareness Meditation Practice
― Daniel J. Siegel, Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence--A Complete Guide to the Groundbreaking Wheel of Awareness Meditation Practice
Aware Quotes by Daniel J. Siegel
Yesterday, as I biked past the Seawolf Bakery on my way home from the gym I was hit, as I often am when I pass this spot in the evenings, with the rich intoxicating scent of yeasty, rising cinnamon rolls. Cinnamon rolls that aren’t quite cinnamon rolls yet. The smell filled the street. It was inescapable—so all-encompassing that that brief interstitial space, an unassuming stretch of street and sidewalk, became a place. The place where the scent of tomorrow’s cinnamon rolls balloons into a full-bodied experience. The place where this small ephemeral thing—nothing more than a particular collection of molecules in the air—can be found and savored, at about 7:30PM each evening.
But as I rode past, it occurred to me that the experience was two things. I felt a sense of pleasure in savoring the scent—and yet the pleasure was dulled by a yearning. I knew what the scent alluded to and it seemed to tease me. It conjured thoughts of those tall doughy rolls; the satisfying way that they softly tear apart, the chewy centermost fold drenched in cinnamon. The yearning made me disappointed. I wanted to eat one and I didn’t have one. I noticed the disappointment crowding out the pleasure.
What if I could just enjoy the scent for what it was? Savor it as an experience all its own? If I was not so intimately acquainted with the source of smell, I don’t think it would be so laden with yearning. I can’t un-know the connection between the scent and the cinnamon roll but perhaps I can still choose how I experience it. Perhaps I can choose to let the pleasure exist without wanting for more. I think that lies in cultivating a fuller awareness of the present and a sense of gratitude.
“There is nothing passive about mindfulness. One might even say that it expresses a specific kind of passion—a passion for discerning what is subjectively real in every moment. It is a mode of cognition that is, above all, undistracted, accepting, and (ultimately) nonconceptual. Being mindful is not a matter of thinking more clearly about
... See morethe part of the unconscious that, according to Carl Jung, is common to all humankind and contains the inherited accumulation of primitive human experiences in the form of ideas and images called archetypes and manifested in myths as well as other cultural phenomena (e.g., religion) and in dreams. It is the deepest and least
... See moreEach word is a portable cathedral in which we clarify and sanctify our experience, a reliquary and a laboratory, holding the history of our search for meaning and the pliancy of the possible future, of there being richer and deeper dimensions of experience than those we name in our surface impressions. In the roots of words we find a portal to the... See more
Maria Popova • The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: Uncommonly Lovely Invented Words for What We Feel but Cannot Name
Do we move through the world or does the world move through us?