Quotes About Contemplation

Wordsworth phrase I'd learned in English class as a high school junior: emotion recollected in tranquillity.

RESIST no thought; RETAIN no thought; REACT to no thought; RETURN to the sacred word.

It's very, very simple. You sit, either in a chair or on a prayer stool or mat, and allow your heart to open toward that invisible but always present Origin of all that exists.

Somewhere in those depths of silence I came upon my first experiences of God as a loving presence that was always near, and prayer as a simple trust in that presence.

Centering Prayer is not about developing concentration, attaining clear mind, conscious presence, a strong witnessing "I," some desired state. In Centering Prayer you merely practice and practice the core kenotic motion: "let go, make space, unclench"—thought by thought by thought.

The air in the library rooms was silent, full of ideas, the thinking of the writers of books, the thinking of the readers of books.

Looked at from where she sat unsleeping, the sky seemed walled in by forest. It looked as if there was a river of sky matching the water river below.

As best she could, in her secluded position, she was considering how she might secure further choices, and what they might be — once this, her first free choice, had played itself out.

If only there weren't so many other people in the world,' he said lugubriously.

She was half watching, half musing. It was her constant state. Her eyes were keen and observant, but her inner mind took no notice of what she saw.

These sentences, evidently the ripened grain of many dark hours, took Gerald by surprise.

I can never decide whether my dreams are the result of my thoughts or my thoughts the result of my dreams.

She lived a good deal by herself, to herself, working, passing on from day to day, and always thinking, trying to lay hold on life, to grasp it in her own understanding. Her active living was suspended, but underneath, in the darkness, something was coming to pass. If only she could break through the last integuments!

The army leaves me time to think, and saves me from the battle of life.

One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be a mere rushing on.

She, who was bored almost to agony, and who had nothing at all to do, she had not time to think even, seriously, of anything. Time being, after all, only the current of the soul in its flow.

All our troubles, says somebody wise, come upon us because we cannot be alone.

He gazed at the book in his hand, did not see it for some moments, thinking of her, then saw it again.

It is far, far better to read one book six times, at intervals, than to read six several books. Because if a certain book can call you to read it six times, it will be a deeper and deeper experience each time, and will enrich the whole soul, emotional and mental. Whereas six books read once only are merely an accumulation of superficial interests , the burdensome accumulation of modern days, quantity without real value.

She waited patiently till she could go upstairs and think her own thoughts.

In the end, the soul is alone brooding on the face of the uncreated flux, as a bird on a dark sea...

To contemplate the extermination of the human species and the long pause that follows before some other species crops up, it calms you more than anything else.

See the pot as your own head; see the water as your lifeblood.

jijuy?-zammai, or zazen