Quotes About Contemplation

Solitude is not the absence of company, but the moment when our soul is free to speak to us and help us decide what to do with our life. Therefore, blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse themselves with, something to judge. If you are never alone, you cannot know yourself.

The established religions no longer ask fundamental questions about our identity and our reason for living. Instead, they concentrate purely on a series of dogmas and rules concerned only with fitting in with a particular social and political organization. People in search of real spirituality are, therefore, setting off in new directions, and that inevitably means a return to the past and to primitive religions, before those religions were contaminated by the structures of power.

Work is a blessing when it helps us to think about what we're doing; but it becomes a curse when its sole use is to stop us thinking about the meaning of our life.

Gradually, the anxiety gives way to contemplation, and I start to listen to my soul. It has been longing to speak to me, but I'm always too busy.

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that's where I renew my springs that never dry up.

To take each day as a separate page, to be read carefully, savoring all of the details, this is best for me, I think.

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that's where I renew my springs that never dry up. ~Pearl Buck

And as she had learned to do, while she pondered on large things, she acted on small ones.

From the stars," she thought, "doubtless all things are seen.

don't know what to tell you," he said slowly. "I have not had time to think much about myself. Wherever I have been—at least until now, I have been mostly alone. The others were always much bigger—much older." He paused to consider himself in the past. "Older in years, that is," he amended. "I've always been too old for myself." She looked at him thoughtfully. "Then you have an old soul.

and looked sharply across the street. There was only one house

steadily for a few minutes because Leah was so beautiful. She looked at herself in the mirror on her dressing table, and it seemed to her that all

But she would not be hastened. Words were to her things to be caught one by one and released with difficulty.

inquired. She

THE GARDEN WAS QUIET. Beyond its walls no echo of footsteps could be heard above the soft incessant splash of the waterfall. The silence was planned, as everything in the garden was planned, though all seemed nature itself.

It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately filling up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness.

When we start to ask ourselves, "Does it matter?" we realize how many aspects there are to every situation. We begin to appreciate how interconnected we are to the rest of the world, and how even our thought patterns can lead to a whole series of consequences

Whether we're eating or working or meditating or listening or talking, the reason that we're here in this world at all is to study ourselves. In fact, it has been said that studying ourselves provides all the books we need.

We're here to get to know and study ourselves. The path, the way to do that, our main vehicle, is going to be meditation, and some sense of general wakefulness.

The towns and countryside that the traveler sees through a train window do not slow down the train, nor does the train affect them. Neither disturbs the other. This is how you should see the thoughts that pass through your mind when you meditate. —DILGO KHYENTSE RINPOCHE

We can connect with that openness at any time. For instance, right now, for three seconds, just stop reading and pause. If

A turn or two I'll walk To still my beating mind.

He wondered what his heart would look like if he could pluck it from his chest and inspect it.