Quotes About Meditation

By meditating on death, we paradoxically become conscious of life.

these practices began to yield unorthodox results. Meditation on impermanence, suffering, and no-self, for example, did not—as the Buddha insisted it would—lead me to disenchantment, dispassion, and a resolve not to be born again but to an ever-deepening awareness of life's infinitely poignant beauty.

Nanamoli Thera (Osbert Moore). The Life of the Buddha. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publishing Society, 1992 (1st edition 1972). Shantideva. The Bodhicaryavatara. (1) Translated from Sanskrit by Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton. Oxford/New York:

The apparently unthreatening act of settling the mind on the breath and observing what is occurring in the body and mind exposes a contradiction between the sort of person we wish to be and the kind of person we are.

The Four are presented in that order because that is the order in which they occur as tasks to be performed: fully knowing suffering leads to the letting go of craving, which leads to experiencing its cessation, which leads to the cultivation of the path.

The world is here to surprise us. My most lasting insights have occurred off the [meditation] cushion, not on it.

This deep not-knowing, in this case the Second Patriarch's inability to find his anguished mind, takes the notion of agnosticism down to another depth. One might call it a contemplative depth. Such deep agnostic metaphors are likewise found in such terms as wu hsin (no mind), and wu nien (no thought), as well as in the more popular "don't know mind" of the Korean Zen master Seung Sah?

I was in my bed trying to figure out why sometimes you can wake up and go back to sleep and other times you can't

Then, I turned around and walked to my room and closed my door and put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.

I put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.

and let the quiet put things where they're supposed to be

I was in my bed trying to figure out why sometimes you can wake up and go back to sleep and other times you can't.

I put the book down and went to the window. I stared at my reflection and the trees behind it for a long time. Not thinking anything. Not hearing the record.

I guess Zen is a day like this when you are part of the air and remember things.

I stared at my reflection and the trees behind it for a long time. Not thinking anything. Not feeling anything. Not hearing the record. For hours.

So, I guess Zen is a day like this when you are part of the air and remember things.

Du coup, je me dis que le zen, c'est un jour comme aujourd'hui, quand on fait partie de l'air et qu'on se rappelle des trucs

Do you always thinks this much, Charlie

Also, when I write letters, I spend the next two days thinking about what I figured out in my letters.

Then, I turned and walked to my room and closed my door and put my head under a pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.

The trance happens when you don't focus on anything.

What we see here is becauselessness itself.

The goal of human life, says Ramakrishna, is to meet God face to face. But the magic is this: if we look deeply into the face of all created things, we will find God. Therefore, savor the world, the body. Open it, explore it, look into it. Worship it.

Nestor considered awhile before speaking, a habit of his that irked many but which guaranteed that nothing foolish ever came from his mouth.