Quotes About Meditation

While washing the dishes, you might be thinking about the tea afterwards, and so try to get them out of the way as quickly as possible in order to sit and drink tea. But that means that you are incapable of living during the time you are washing the dishes.

Stillness is the foundation of understanding and insight.

Breathing in, I know I have an unpleasant feeling. Breathing out, I am here for this unpleasant feeling. Breathing in, I calm the feeling in me. Breathing out, I calm the feeling in me.

Each of us is like the waves and also like the water. Sometimes we're excited, noisy, and agitated like the waves. Sometimes we're tranquil like still water. When water is calm, it reflects the blue sky, the clouds, and the trees. Sometimes, whether we're at home, work, or school, we become tired, agitated, or unhappy and we need to transform into calm water. We already have calmness in us; we just need to know how to make it manifest.

Find space in your day when you can practice mindful breathing and letting go of tensions.

Even if we have time, we don't come home to ourselves. We try to keep ourselves constantly entertained - watching television, socialising, or using alcohol or drugs - because we don't want to experience that suffering all over again.

To be truly present we have to stop our thinking. This is the secret of success.

There are four kinds of food that every person consumes every day. In Buddhism, we call these kinds of food the Four Nutriments. They are edible food; sense impressions; volition; and consciousness, both individual and collective.

Imagine one atom of that speck of dust, with electrons traveling around its nucleus at 180,000 miles per second. It is very exciting. To return to a speck of dust with be quite an exciting adventure!

We have millions of ways to lose this precious time—we turn on the TV, or pick up the telephone, or start the car and go somewhere. We are not used to being with ourselves, and we act as if we don't like ourselves and are trying to escape from ourselves. Meditation

even if you turn off the TV, the TV in your mind continues to run. So you have to also stop the TV in your head.

Don't chew your worries, your fear, or your anger. If you chew your planning and your anxiety, it's difficult to feel grateful for each piece of food. Just chew your food.

Even when we're sitting still, with no external stimuli, an endless internal dialogue may be going on in our head. we're constantly consuming our thoughts. Cows, goats, and buffalo chew their food, swallow it, then regurgitate and rechew it multiple times. We may not be cows or buffalo, but we ruminate just the same on our thoughts - unfortunately, primarily negative thoughts. We eat them, and then we bring them up to chew again and again, like a cow chewing its cud.

When I look at the full moon, I breathe in and out deeply and say, Full moon, I know you are there, and I am very happy. I do the same with the morning star. When you contemplate a beautiful sunset, if you are really there, you will recognize and appreciate it deeply. Whenever you are truly there, you can recognize and appreciate the presence of the other, whether that is full moon, the North Star, the magnolia flowers, or the person you love...

If learning is not followed by reflecting and practicing, it is not true learning.

What are you ruminating on? Old suffering?

When you have trouble sleeping, follow your breathing in and breathing out. Bring your awareness to the different parts of your body in turn, and allow them to relax.

What you read and write can help you heal, so be thoughtful about what you consume.

When a feeling or thought arises, your intention should not be to chase it away, even if by continuing to concentrate on the breath the feeling or thought passes naturally from the mind. The intention isn't to chase it away, hate it, worry about it, or be frightened by it. So what exactly should you be doing concerning such thoughts and feelings? Simply acknowledge their presence.

Violence can never bring about peace and understanding. Only by looking deeply in order to understand the true roots of violence can we achieve peace.

A guided meditation is an opportunity to look deeply into the mind, to sow wholesome seeds there, and to strengthen and cultivate those seeds so that they may become the means for transforming the suffering in us.

If we want peace, we have to be peace. Peace is a practice and not a hope.

Feeling the heat of anger right now, I close my eyes and look into the future. Three hundred years from now, where will you, where will I, be?

Breath remains the vehicle to unite body and mind and to open the gate to wisdom.