Quotes About Meditation

The meditative journey is not about always feeling good. Many times we may feel terrible. That's fine. What we want is to open to the entire range of what this mind and body are about. Sometimes we feel wonderful and happy and inspired, and at other times we deeply feel different aspects of suffering.

let the breath draw the mind down to its own level of subtlety. It is like listening to someone playing a flute as they walk off into the distance.

In the second training, we develop energy, concentration, and mindfulness. These are the meditative and life tools that enable us to awaken. Without them we simply act out the patterns of our conditioning.

An interviewer once asked Mother Teresa what she says to God when she prays. "I don't say anything," she replied. "I just listen." Then the interviewer asked her what God says to her. "He doesn't say anything," said Mother Teresa. "He just listens. And if you don't understand that, I can't explain it to you.

and the liberating insight into how suffering in our lives is born from ignorance and ends through wisdom.

No one can practice for us. The Buddhas just point the way.

The last of these wholesome actions is meditation, the development of tranquillity and insight.

But in their deeper meaning, these refuges always point back to our own actions and mind states. Although there may be many false starts and dead ends as we begin our journey, if our interest is sincere, we soon make a life-changing discovery: what we are seeking is within us.

Do no harm, act for the good, purify the mind." The flowering of all the great traditions of Buddhism derives from the teachings in this one simple verse.

Some people think the longer you can sit, the wiser you must be. I have seen chickens sitting on their nests for days on end. Wisdom comes from being mindful at all times."3

Mindfulness practice begins to open up everything. We open our mind to memories, to emotions, to different sensations in the body. In meditation this happens in a very organic way, because we are not searching, we are not pulling or probing, we are just sitting and watching.

When the momentum of mindfulness is well developed, it works like a boomerang; even if we want to distract ourselves, the mind naturally rebounds to a state of awareness.

Munindra-ji, one of my first Dharma teachers, used to say that in spiritual practice, time is not a factor. Practice cannot be measured in time, so let go of the whole notion of when and how long. The practice is a process unfolding, and it unfolds in its own time. It is like the flowers that grow in the spring. Do you pull them up to make them grow faster?

Through mindful attention in the moment, we see the impermanent nature of phenomena and understand the happiness of nongrasping.

the five aggregates" (khandhas, in Pali) of experience: material elements, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness.

There is a revealing phrase in English regarding this mind state: we say someone is "plagued by doubt." Doubt is like a plague that weakens us. When doubt is strong, instead of making the experiment, whether in meditation or anything else, and engaging fully in the experience so that we can see for ourselves whether it is beneficial or not, the mind simply gets lost in endless speculation.

In short, the five aggregates of clinging are dukkha.

Whenever we are mindful of a physical sensation — hardness, softness, pressure, vibration, heat, cold, lightness, heaviness — we are contemplating the first aggregate.

When the mind is silent, relaxed and attentive, pain is experienced not as a solid mass but as a flow, arising and vanishing moment to moment.

For a long time in my meditation practice I felt embarrassed and ashamed when I saw unwholesome states in my own mind, states like pride or jealousy, ill will or selfishness; and instead of examining them and working free of them, I would judge myself and dig the hole I was in even deeper.

An interviewer once asked Mother Teresa what she says to God when she prays. "I don't say anything," she replied. "I just listen." Then the interviewer asked her what God says to her. "He doesn't say anything," said Mother Teresa. "He just listens. And if you don't understand that, I can't explain it to you."1

The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, expressed it well: Live, you say, in the present; Live only in the present. But I don't want the present. I want reality; . . . I only want reality, things without time present.3 And the Buddha

Generosity, morality, respect, service, listening to the Dharma, and meditation—these are actions for the good. Each one is a practice that can be cultivated and further refined, becoming the causes for our own happiness and the happiness of others.

When we can settle back into the moment, realizing that past and future are simply thoughts in the present, then we free ourselves from the bondage of "time.