Quotes About Meditation

There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them.

There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them.

I am alone in my room, between two worlds

I need not to be more with others, but to be more and more deeply, richly alone. Recreating worlds.

If I slept, it was with my eyes wide open, for I had followed the green, luminous course of the second hand and the minute hand and the hour hand of the bedside clock through their circles and semicircles, every night for seven nights, without missing a second, or a minute, or an hour.

I decided to take a hot bath. There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them.

it gives me such a sense of peace to draw; more than prayer, walks, anything.

If I didn't think, I'd be much happier.

Why am I obsessed with the idea I can justify myself by getting manuscripts published? Is it an escape-an excuse for any social failure-so I can say No, I don't go out for many extracurricular activities, but I spend a lot of time writing. Or is it an excuse for wanting to be alone and meditate alone, not having to brave a group of women? (Women in numbers has always disturbed me.)

Meanwhile, read Hopkins for solace.

O teach me how I should forget to think

i took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart

And yet I feel that sleep somehow

Began another big one, more abstract, written from the bathtub:

There is a certain unique and strange delight about walking down an empty street alone. There is an off-focus light cast by the moon, and the streetlights are part of the spotlight apparatus on a bare stage set up for you to walk through. You get a feeling of being listened to, so you talk aloud, softly, to see how it sounds:

Descend lower, descend only Into the world of perpetual solitude, World not world, but that which is not world, Internal darkness, deprivation And destitution of all property, Desiccation of the world of sense, Evacuation of the world of fancy, Inoperancy of the world of spirit;

You are not here to verify, instruct yourself, or inform curiosity or carry report. You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more than an order of words, the conscious occupation of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.

I liken a life without daily spiritual practice to a house built on sand.

A life that includes daily spiritual practice is a house built on a strong foundation.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

The name that no human research can discover-- But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

But above and beyond there's still one name left over, And that is the name that you never will guess; The name that no human research can discover-- But the cat himself knows, and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

At the still point, there the dance is.