Quotes About Stillness

Anyway, one of the first things you learn in space is not to thrash. If you have nothing constructive to do, the most constructive thing you can do is often nothing at all. In a mindful sense, I mean. Thrashing is the thing that gets people killed. Not sitting still.

Around me, a seemingly transfinite number of leaves chimed in a space without a wind.

The mantid was one of those creatures you could just hand around with, not saying anything and not notice the quiet because it felt natural.

Nothing in space is ever really standing still, so all visitors and accelerations are, not to put too fine a point on it, relative.

I didn't reach out. I just…sat still. Held to myself. And let the universe come to me.

The moment is stillness, utter and heartless, and that stillness continus when I step into the water again and wade back to shore, sodden trouser cuffs, clinging to my ankles.

The place gave out a look of hollow desuetude, as though its desertion would last forever.

There's a gentleness about April that made me ache. It seemed like I was always on the run, always working and chasing some goal or another, but April had a way of holding me still. And then I'd begin to hurt and yearn for something I couldn't describe, something I hadn't known yet. All I knew was the ache itself and the strange, sweet feeling it was.

Fall, not spring, is the time in this region to clear away dead leaves and branches, to renovate the borders, to start new gardens.... And even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.

She had forgotten how many minutes of motherhood were devoted to this question, even before Edith's accident. Alive now? And now? The deeper Edith's sleep the shallower her life, it seemed. The extraordinary stillness of a sleeping baby! Look for a breath at the stomach, flush at the cheeks. Then Luetta would leave the room, come back. She lost hours to the question. Alive now, now, now?

He forced his mind clear of other thoughts and waited. Stillness, he had learned, did not come naturally. He practiced it. Sometimes, as he waited, he heard the Lord's voice coursing through his spirit almost audibly. Other times he heard nothing, but he felt filled up and satisfied and understood.

Come se l'anima potesse far silenzio in quei momenti.

A child's spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back.

semejante a una droga tranquila.

Por eso estaba callado y quieto, que era una forma tan buena como otra cualquiera de estar desesperado.

When the urge arises in your mind To feelings of desire or angry hate, Do not act! Be silent, do not speak! And like a log of wood be sure to stay.

Patience is also a form of action.

Not unconsciousness, but a ceasing of perception and feeling is experienced.

Again and again, counteract the agitation and turbulence of the mind by relaxing more deeply, not by contracting the body or mind.

Settling your mind in its natural state entails releasing all grasping, grasping onto the future, and the past, grasping onto cogitations about the present. Letting your awareness rest in its own place, naturally luminous and still.

Within Tibetan Buddhism, shamatha practice maps on to the nine stages of attentional development wherein thoughts gradually subside as concentrative power is increased to the point at which one can effortlessly maintain single-pointed focus on a chosen object for at least four hours. The accomplishment of shamatha is accompanied by a powerful experience of bliss, luminosity, and stillness.

Notice your eyes as well, as you hold the stretch. Tenseness of the eyes also affects the brain. If the eyes are still and silence the brain is still and passive.

When you cannot hold the body still, you cannot hold the brain still. If you do not know the silence of the body, you cannot understand the silence of the mind. Action and silence have to go together.

Don't search for anything except peace. Try to calm the mind. Everything else will come on its own.