Quotes About Meditation

The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega, it is God's brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blinded note of the ten thousand things, the whine of wings. You take a step in the right direction to pray to this silence, and even to address the prayer to World. Distinctions blur. Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing.

Whenever there is stillness there is the still small voice, God's speaking from the whirlwind, nature's old song, and dance...

Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world.

I center down - I retreat, not inside myself, but outside myself. ... Self-forgetfulness is tremendously invigorating. I wonder if we don't waste most of our energy just by spending every waking minute saying hello to ourselves.

Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark.

The silence is not suppression; instead, it is all there is.

Private life, book life, took place where words met imagination without passing through the world.

1. Only a total unself-consciousness will permit me to live with myself" (202).

You can read in the space of a coffin, and you can write in the space of a toolshed meant for mowers and spades.

She imagines herself as the long-dead Descartes, staring into his fireplace and building a world in his own mind.

How do you 'clear' your thoughts? You have only other thoughts with which to do the job; 'thoughts', therefore, are both blockage and broom. I suppose what we mean is that we should stop reasoning and try to 'feel' - which presumes that what we 'feel' is more valuable than anything we think ...

161. Chop Wood and Carry Water Layman Pang, more than a thousand years ago, wrote: My daily activities are not unusual, I'm just naturally in harmony with them. Grasping nothing, discarding nothing . . . Drawing water and chopping wood.

I prayed to trees. This was easier than praying directly to God. There was nearly always a tree nearby.

Over and over, I prayed the same thing. I prayed to trees. This was easier than praying directly to God. There was nearly always a tree nearby.

Let the breath lead the way.

As we practice meditation, we get used to stillness and eventually are able to make friends with the quietness of our sensations.

People turn to meditation because they want to make good decisions, break bad habits & bounce back better from disappointments.

Meditation is a microcosm, a model, a mirror. The skills we practice when we sit are transferable to the rest of our lives.

By practicing meditation we establish love, compassion, sympathetic joy & equanimity as our home.

The art of concentration is a continual letting go. We let go of what is inessential or distracting. We let go of a thought or a feeling, not because we are afraid of it or because we can't bear to acknowledge it as a part of our experience; but, because it is UNNECESSARY.

Buddha first taught metta meditation as an antidote: as a way of surmounting terrible fear when it arises.

Meditation can be a refuge, but it is not a practice in which real life is ever excluded. The strength of mindfulness is that it enables us to hold difficult thoughts and feelings in a different way—with awareness, balance, and love

Meditation may be done in silence & stillness, by using voice & sound, or by engaging the body in movement. All forms emphasize the training of attention.

The foundation of metta practice is to know how to be our own friend. According to the Buddha, "You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.