"When we practice with all conditions, we gain improvisational skills for life; we learn how to creatively adapt to things outside our comfort zone, thereby widening the experience of peace that is independent of conditions."

"You know, you get a lot of people who are supposed to be hip. And they act like they're supposed to be hip, which makes a big difference. But being hip isn't a state of mind, it's a fact of life." - Cannonball Adderley

"In meditation, there's nothing to change other than one's capacity to witness and flow with the changes of experience." - Josh Summers

"The more we realize that most of our views of ourselves, of others, and of presumed limits regarding our talents, our health, and our happiness were mindlessly accepted by us at an earlier time in our lives, the more we open up to the realization that these too can change. All we need to begin the process is to be mindful." - Ellen Langer

"Life is change; and if you don't like it, it doesn't think much of you either." - Josh Summers

"Social psychologists argue that who we are at any one time depends mostly on the context in which we find ourselves. But who creates the context? The more mindful we are, the more we can create the contexts we are in. When we create the context, we are more likely to be authentic. Mindfulness lets us see things in a new light and believe in the possibility of change." - Dr. Ellen Langer

"To borrow language from music training, meditative training can be seen as a development and refinement of capacities for improvisational flow within and across the changing landscapes of rhythmic (physical), harmonic (energetic and emotional), and melodic (thinking) patterns of being." - Josh Summers

One form of drowsiness and low energy that can arise in meditative practice is the sort that stems from discouragement and disappointment. Very often, unacknowledged expectations can fuel a subtle frustration within one's practice, and that discouragement, in turn, can zap one's enthusiasm for practice. The key is to remember the simple orientation of practice: The only experience to have in mindfulness practice IS the experience that one is having, plain and simple. The encouragement is to hold and receive each and every experience with tender care.

During his junior year of college, a tragic accident during a game of pick-up basketball disrupted Howard Axelrod's course in life. As a way to make sense of himself and of life, Howard did what I've only fantasized of doing: He went to live in the woods, in utter solitude, for a very long time.

"The 'transcendent' big 'S' Self is one hundred percent present on and within each and every experience. In fact, the Self is what is conscious of every experience." - Josh Summers

"The path tends to move along a continuum from personal dukkha - or fundamental wrongness - to a transformational awakening - or unconditional rightness." - Josh Summers

"To me, the only habit worth 'designing for' is the habit of questioning one's habitual ways of seeing, and that is what artists, writers, and musicians help us to do." - Jenny Odell