10 Daily meditation readings to increase mindfulness

Daily meditation or mindfulness practices have many health benefits from reducing stress to improving our relationships with loved ones. However, it’s not always easy to practice mindfulness on a daily basis. How can you practice being mindful on a daily basis and incorporate these benefits into daily life? For some daily meditations readings are the answer, for others a daily mindfulness practice or brief meditation can be enough. Let’s run through a few of each so that you have the readings and practices you can do on a daily basis to make sure you stay present and mindful.

10 short daily meditation readings

Following are 10 of our favorite short daily meditation readings and quotes taken from the Alpe Audio course “Everyday Mindfulness“:

1. Viktor Frankl, Psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor, founder of Logotherapy

Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space lie our freedom and power to choose our response

2. Archilochus (Greek soldier and lyric poet)

We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.

3. Walt Whitman, American poet

Be curious, not judgmental

4. Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, Harvard researchers

The human mind is a wandering mind, and the wandering mind is an unhappy mind.

5. Miguel Ruiz

Go inside and listen to your body
Because your body will never lie to you.
Your mind will play tricks,
But the way you feel in your heart, in your guts,
Is the truth

6. Epictetus, Greek Stoic philosopher

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views they take of them

7. William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes

8. Ethics of our fathers, Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 32a

Ben Zoma said: Who is rich? Those who are happy with their portion

9. Martha Graham

Make the moment vital and worth living.
Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.

10. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

These 10 daily meditation readings are worth a review and a read throughout the day. Together with daily mindfulness readings and reflections, it’s also highly recommended to practice mindfulness practices, maybe not each day, but definitely on a regular basis. For tips on that, we’ve got you covered in our blog on Mindfulness Guided practices to reduce stress.