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Jan Chozen Bays Quotes

Several times a day, stop and just listen. Open your hearing 360 degrees, as if your ears were giant radar dishes. Listen to the obvious sounds, and the subtle sounds—in your body, in the room, in the building, and

Several times a day, stop and just listen. Open your hearing 360 degrees, as if your ears were giant radar dishes. Listen to the obvious sounds, and the subtle sounds—in your body, in the room, in the building, and outside. Listen as if you had just landed from a foreign planet and didn’t know what was making these sounds. See if you can hear all sounds as music being played just for you. Even in what is called silence there is sound. To hear such subtle sound, the mind must be very quiet.

Jan Chozen Bays
Silence, Listening, Mind

The problem is not in the food... The problem lies in the mind. It lies in our lack of awareness of the messages coming in from our body... Mindful eating helps us learn to hear what our body is telling us about hunger and satisfaction. It helps us become aware of who in the body/heart/ mind complex is hungry, and how and what is best to nourish it.

Jan Chozen Bays
Lying, Heart, Mind

Mindfulness is deliberately paying full attention to what is happening around you-in your body, heart and mind. Mindfulness is awareness without criticism or judgment.

Jan Chozen Bays
Heart, Mind, Criticism
Jan Chozen Bays (2011). “How to Train a Wild Elephant: And Other Adventures in Mindfulness”, p.2, Shambhala Publications

Mindful eating is a way to become reacquainted with the guidance of our internal nutritionist.

Jan Chozen Bays
Way, Guidance, Eating

When you are unhappy, discover what you are clinging to and let it go.

Jan Chozen Bays
Unhappy, Let It Go, Clinging
Jan Chozen Bays (2011). “How to Train a Wild Elephant: And Other Adventures in Mindfulness”, p.110, Shambhala Publications

We wouldn't pay to rent and watch the same painful movie two hundred fifty times, but somehow we let our mind replay a bad memory over and over, each time experiencing the same distress and shame.

Jan Chozen Bays
Memories, Two, Mind
Jan Chozen Bays (2011). “How to Train a Wild Elephant: And Other Adventures in Mindfulness”, p.6, Shambhala Publications

Except that it’s not really 'now' that the inner critic attacks. It’s a few seconds or a minute ago. The inner critic depends upon comparison, and when we are fully aware in the present moment, when there is no past or future in our mind’s awareness, there is nothing to compare. There is only what is, as it is. The inner critic disappears.

Jan Chozen Bays
Past, Mind, Moments
Jan Chozen Bays (2009). “Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food”, p.110, Shambhala Publications

If we practice stepping into the unknown, moment by moment, hour by hour, millions of times, then death is just the next step into the unknown. It loses its terror.

Jan Chozen Bays
Practice, Next Steps, Moments

Resting in this moment, we have no age.

Jan Chozen Bays
Age, Moments

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