Quotes About Contemplation

Life works better when we know how to glance at things but gaze at God.

I spiraled slowly down the steps, the soft way a milkweed seed sometimes twirls to earth. I wanted time for any vague thought to come to mind that mind should want. No new ones came, but the pace seemed a meditative winding, and what I was winding was like yarn on an oblong skein, softly enfolding a quiet center that was myself.

Rousseau pensaba que era bueno estar solo a veces y que quizá nuestras naturalezas florecían con la máxima pureza en esas ocasiones.

The moon in all her immaculate purity hung in the sky, laughing at this world of dust. She congratulated me for my carefully considered maneuvers and invited me to share in her eternal solitude.

The world in which we live is no more real than a moon beam reflected in water drawn from the palm of the hand...

Bundled in my shawl and uniform, I might have been partaking in any one of Mrs. Westcliffe's permitted after-supper al fresco activities, like: Strolling to the edge of the rose garden to admire the sunset. Strolling to the edge of the orchard to admire the sunset. Strolling to the edge of the bridge to admire the sunset. At England's foremost educational opportunity for young women, strolling to the brink of things was allowed. Leaving the green-plunging beyond brinks-was not.

What exactly did people do when they had all the time in the world and could do whatever they liked? (p 153)

I prayed to trees. This was easier than praying directly to God. There was nearly always a tree nearby.

But I thought about all the things that had to have spun into place in order for us to be alive and for us to be right there, right then. I thought about the few thing we thought we knew and the billions of things we couldn't know, all spinning, whirling our there somewhere.

Over and over, I prayed the same thing. I prayed to trees. This was easier than praying directly to God. There was nearly always a tree nearby.

As we practice meditation, we get used to stillness and eventually are able to make friends with the quietness of our sensations.

Training attention through meditation opens our eyes.

look at the world with quiet eyes.

It is precisely faith that makes thinking possible, for faith offers the unthought ground out of which thinking can emerge. It is faith that makes moral and other decisions possible, opening to us the horizon against which our actions become meaningful.

I asked myself, again and again: 'What does it mean? What does it mean?' And you know, I finally found the answer; one answer, anyhow. It dont mean a thing. Nothing. Why should it mean anything? I stopped thinking about it is what I finally did. It's what you better do, too. Dont think about it.

Everybody likes to have a place to think, to meditate, to eat a burrito...

Instead, I woke early the next morning, before sunrise, and went out into the world. I walked past my car. I stepped onto the pavement, still warm from the previous day's sun. I started walking. In bare feet, I traveled upriver toward the place where I was born and will someday die. At that moment, if you had broken open my heart you could have looked inside and seen the thin white skeletons of one thousand salmon.

one ponders. And when one ponders, one creates theories—hypotheses, to explain the world.

I didn't know what to do or say, so I just sat as quietly as he did. The silence got so big and real that it felt like three people sat on the porch.

If I stand at this window long enough I will see the long thread of history float randomly through the breeze. This is all I know about peace.

doctor." "Maybe

still waters run deep. ~Tabitha

Hush, self, let me think.

Death is a doorway. Think before you knock on it.'