Quotes About Serenity

On the fences the shiny blackbirds with red epaulets clicked their dry call. The meadowlarks sang like water, and the wild doves, concealed among the bursting leaves of the oaks, made a sound of restrained grieving.

The mountains sat with their feet in the sea, and the old man's house was on the knees.

Young Adam was always an obedient child. Something in him shrank from violence, from contention, from the silent shrieking tensions that can rip at a house. He contributed to the quiet he wished for by offering no violence, no contention, and to do this he had to retire into secretness, since there is some violence in everyone. He covered his life with a veil of vagueness, while behind his quiet eyes a rich full life went on. This did not protect him from assault but it allowed him an immunity.

And then the men lay down and put their heads in the girls' laps and looked up into their faces. And they smiled at each other, a tired and peaceful and wonderful secret.

A few nights in the open, my lord, a quiet time and peace. Yes, I admit I am glad. It was good, but it is also good to be alone. We need not hurry. At the end is a tomb. Do we need to rush toward it? It will wait.

Sometimes it rose to an aching chord that caught the throat, saying this is the safety, this is warmth, this is the Whole.

A man's bathroom is his castle

THAT YEAR THE RAINS HAD COME so gently that the Salinas River did not overflow. A slender stream twisted back and forth in its broad bed of gray sand, and the water was not milky with silt but clear and pleasant. The willows that grow in the river bed were well leafed, and the wild blackberry vines were thrusting their spiky new shoots along the ground.

The sea lions felt it and their barking took on a tone and a cadence that would have gladdened the heart of St. Francis. Little girls

Noah the first-born, tall and strange, walking always with a wondering look on his face, calm and puzzled. He had never been angry in his life. He looked in wonder at angry people, wonder and uneasiness, as normal people look at the insane.

Don't worry yourself, Rosasharn. Take your breath in when you need it, an' let it go when you need to.

No more in life would that face be free of care.

kind of warm silence.

The earth contributed a light to the evening. The front of the gray, paintless house, facing the west, was luminous as the moon is. The gray dusty truck, in the yard before the door, stood out magically in this light, in the overdrawn perspective of a stereopticon. The

Your heart lifts forever through that blank sky.

Sometimes, immersed in his books, there would come to him the awareness of all that he did not know, of all that he had not read; and the serenity for which he labored was shattered as he realized the little time he had in life to read so much, to learn what he had to know.

we are simply inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intention to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and right now.

no place to go, nothing to do, nothing to attain.

Thich Nhat Hanh, the venerable and highly respected Vietnamese meditation teacher, poet, and peace activist, uses the image of cloudy apple juice settling in a glass to describe meditation. You just sit with whatever is present, even discomfort, anxiety, or confusion, with whatever is present, and the mind settles all by itself.

When we spend some time each day in non-doing, resting in awareness, observing the flow of the breath and the activity of our mind and body without getting caught up in that activity, we are cultivating calmness and mindfulness hand in hand.

It's not a matter of letting go—you would if you could. Instead of Let it go, we should probably say Let it be.

Non-doing simply means letting things be and allowing them to unfold in their own way.

The mountain is always grounded, rooted in the earth, always still, always beautiful. It is beautiful just being what it is, seen or unseen, snow-covered or green, rained on or wrapped in clouds.

La méditation consiste à s'éveiller de cet état de rêve.