Quotes About Stillness

The world around them was as still as if it had used up all the words, as if all the tales there were to tell in this world had now been told.

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

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.

Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.

The officer sat with his long, fine hands lying on the table, perfectly still, and all his blood seemed to be corroding. - The Prussian Officer

Man is a column of blood, with a voice in it, he said. And when the voice is still, and he is only a column of blood, he is better.

There is nothing to save, now all is lost, but a tiny core of stillness in the heart like the eye of a violet.

It was such peace and heavenly freedom, just to fold her and kiss her gently, and not to have any thoughts or any desires or any will, just to be still with her, to be perfectly still and together, in a peace that was not sleep, but content in bliss. To be content in bliss, without desire or insistence anywhere, this was heaven: to be together in happy stillness.

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

Time went on. Whatever happened, nothing happened, because she was so beautifully out of contact . . . Time went on as the clock does, half-past eight instead of half-past seven.

To him now, life seemed a shadow, day a white shadow; night, and death, and stillness, and inaction, this seemed like BEING. To be alive, to be urgent and insistent--that was NOT-TO-BE. The highest of all was to melt out into the darkness and sway there, identified with the great Being.

In the country all was dead still. Little stars shone high up; little stars spread far away in the floodwaters, a firmament below. Everywhere the vastness and terror of the immense night which is roused and stirred for a brief while by the day but which returns, and will remain at last eternal, holding everything in its silence and its living gloom. There was no Time, only Space.

It is so still and transcendent, the cypress trees poise like flames of forgotten darkness, that should have been blown out at the end of the summer. For as we have candles to light the darkness of night, so the cypresses are candles to keep the darkness aflame in the full sunshine.

The days go by, through the brief silence of winter, when the sunshine is so still and pure, like iced wine, and the dead leaves gleam brown, and water sounds hoarse in the ravines.

jijuy?-zammai, or zazen

shikan-taza (just doing zazen)

Zazen doesn't give you something—it's the complete opposite!

The second I left my old life's cowpath, I discovered I didn't need a drink. It became possible to stand still in the dark under the oaks, hands at my sides, and watch and wait.

A historical materialist cannot do without the notion of a present which is not a transition, but in which time stands still and has come to a stop. For this notion defines the present in which he himself is writing history.

the calm in the vortex.

The Germans think that strength must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty; then they submit with fervor and admiration: they are suddenly rid of their pitiful weakness and their sensitivity for every naught, and they devoutly enjoy terror. That there is strength in mildness and stillness, they do not believe easily. They miss strength in Goethe …!—XI, 112.

For time to pass it would have to go somewhere, and where would that be? Time sits. We move, it sits. Sometimes it trembles slightly, but that's all.

By not wanting, there is calm

Blaise Pascal, who said, "All man's troubles derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.