Quotes About Meditation

Open the Bible, start reading it, and pause at every verse and turn it into a prayer. John Piper

fitness of the gross, or annamaya kosha, layer of the body is inferred from the inner health of the subtle body. Health, a light body, freedom from craving, A glowing skin, sonorous voice, fragrance Of body: these signs indicate progress In the practice of meditation. Shvetashvatara Upanishad 2.123

the purpose of Yoga, which is to realize a unitive state, concentrated asana practice, the third limb of Ashtanga Yoga, will naturally involve each of the other seven limbs of practice, especially the ten ethical precepts of the yamas and niyamas (the first two limbs).

Very simply, we set aside time and a quiet place to engage in inquiries that will remind us of who we really are. We do this practice as often as necessary for this understanding to become an implicit part of our being. For most of us this means practicing from the first breath to the last.

Just six hours of meditation training and eleven hours of practice have been shown to strengthen the white matter tracks in brain regions that help to govern our emotional reactivity.

The ancient path is the path of quiet. So turn off the noise. Turn off all the electronic devices. Yes. All of them. Even turn off the music. Turn off your own thoughts…harder than it sounds, by the way! But it gets easier with practice. Just be quiet for a season. Listen for that still, small voice. God has wonderful things to say to you and about you.

To really be centered and to really work well and to think about the kinds of things that I need to think about, I need to spend large amounts of time alone.

Worry never helped anything, so why turn to it during times of need? It won't nurture or heal you—quite the opposite, actually. It's so much better to put the effort into something creative as a way to quietly meditate through positive action. Create, create, create!

us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.

How Michelle spent her spare time was anybody's guess. Mostly she appeared to be marinating in a mood. "Got

That's what I wanted for myself for even just a little while-to be unaware of the rest of the world. I needed some time.

Breathing is one of the few involuntary actions of the body over which we can exercise voluntary control. That is to say, it is on the border-line between the regions of the conscious and the unconscious. The man or woman who can speak or be silent as he chooses is the individual who has self-control.

The first exercise is to spend an hour every day without saying anything except in answer to direct questions.

Knitting is very conducive to thought. It is nice to knit a while, put down the needles, write a while, then take up the sock again.

My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms.

MEDITATION ON THE BUS. Rainy and cold. Thinking gloomily of the sins and shortcomings of others, it suddenly came to me to remember my own offenses, just as heinous as those of others. If I concern myself with my own sins and lament them, if I remember my own failures and lapses, I will not be resentful of others. This was most cheering and lifted the load of gloom from my mind. It makes one unhappy to judge people and happy to love them.

If you don't have a spiritual practice in place when times are good, you can't expect to suddenly develop one during a moment of crisis.

Edwards taught that "most ... are to blame" for their "inattentive, unobservant way of reading" this gift of heaven. "The word of God contains the most noble, and worthy, and entertaining objects, ... the most excellent things that man can exercise his thoughts about." Those who had truly "tasted the sweetness" of God's Scriptural divinity ought to live out their days, he said, in "longing for more and more of it."126

He followed an ironclad rule. He NEVER WATCHED HIMSELF.

S'asseoir quelque part en compagnie de soi-même, soudain retranché de la confusion du monde, est aussi facile qu'essentiel.

There is much to be said for solitude.

The mandalas were meant to be objects of contemplation, aids to meditation, their proportions magically balanced to purify and calm the mind. To stare at a mandala was to experience, if only briefly, the nothingness that is at the heart of enlightenment.

And thinking is not like a book you can pick up when you want to, in your own time.

your readings are the trees where your fallen leaves would come from. Mind mulch. Cognitive compost.