Quotes About Meditation

They knew that Pascal's room, Thoreau's hut, and especially their own den was a dark chamber, an unhealthy space full of resentment; they knew that one is nothing when alone, that one thinks most often of nothing at all, and that hell is not other people, but the self.

Work, he tells them one night, is a kind of prayer.

Let me give you a wonderful Zen practice. Wake up in the morning...look in the mirror, and laugh at yourself.

Zazen is the elimination of distance between subject and object.

We have deep depth.

Pray all verses of Psalm 145 once each day for a week.

Thinking is one of the greatest pleasures of the human race.

Sitting. Sitting is the hardest, Mr Ui. Yes, some people can walk, and some people can stand; but show me the man who knows how to sit.

The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about others things.

Religion should be a personal and private thing between a soul and God.

Meditation means this opening out of the soul to the Divine and letting the Divine shine in without obstruction from the personal self. Therefore it means renunciation. It means throwing away everything that one has, and waiting empty for the light to come in.

For all the practical purposes of Yoga, the man, the working, conscious man, is so much of him as he cannot separate from the matter enclosing him, or with which he is connected. Only that is body which the man is able to put aside and say: "This is not I, but mine."

That is one reason for thinking hard—in order to think better. And the harder you think, the more will your thinking instrument improve.

In concentration, the consciousness is held to a single image; the whole attention of the Knower is fixed on a single point, without wavering or swerving.

The habit of quiet, sustained, and sequential thought, directed to non-worldly subjects, of meditation, of study, develops the mind-body and renders it a better instrument; the effort to cultivate abstract thinking is also useful, as this raises the lower mind towards the higher, and draws into it the subtlest materials of the lower mental plane.

Worship is focus.

I took my time, running my fingers along the spines of books, stopping to pull a title from the shelf and inspect it. A sense of well-being flowed through me as I circled the ground floor. It was better than meditation or a new pair of shoes- or even chocolate. My life was a disaster, but there were still books. Lots and lots of books. A refuge. A solace. Each one offering the possibility of a new beginning.

Lists are the butterfly nets that catch my fleeting thoughts...

When I stopped to pay attention to where my breathing was deep and settled, the truth began to emerge from the mist.

perfectly quiet

Seeking out the Word helps immensely, I've found. It helps to push out the distractions that can cause confusion.

Yoga is difficult for the one whose mind is not subdued.

The state of severance of union with sorrow is known by the name of yoga.

Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace.