Quotes About Meditation

The past no longer exists, and the future is not here yet.

If you always sit in expectation, you're not in the present moment. The present moment contains the whole of life.

Buddhist meditation is based on the principle of nonduality. This means that if we are mindfulness, if we are love, we are also ignorance, we are also suffering, and there is no reason to suppress anything at all.

Buddha said, "The past no longer is, the future is not yet here; there is only one moment in which life is available, and that is the present moment." To meditate with mindful breathing is to bring body and mind back to the present moment so that you do not miss your appointment with life.

With mindful walking, our steps are no longer a means to arrive at an end.

Whatever the tasks, do them slowly and with ease, in mindfulness. Don't do any task in order to get it over with. Resolve to do each job in a relaxed way, with all your attention.

As a practitioner, you can create holiness. Holiness cannot be bestowed on us by someone else. ... We are a saint when we can produce holiness.

We need to stop and ask, "Can I realize my deepest aspiration if I pursue this path?" "What is really preventing me from taking the path I most deeply desire?" DEVELOPING

Make the practice pleasant, that is what I beg you to do.

You have to train yourself, to learn how to go home to the present moment, to the here and now

Buddhist meditation has two aspects — shamatha and vipashyana. We tend to stress the importance of vipashyana ("looking deeply") because it can bring us insight and liberate us from suffering and afflictions. But the practice of shamatha ("stopping") is fundamental. If we cannot stop, we cannot have insight.

The first function of meditation — shamatha — is to stop.

Now I see that if one doesn't know how to die, one can hardly know how to live - because death is a part of life.

Meditation means being aware of what is going on – in our bodies, in our feelings, in our minds, and in the world. Each day thousands of children die of hunger. … Yet the sunrise is beautiful, and the rose that blossomed this morning along the wall is a miracle. Life is both dreadful and wonderful. To practice meditation is to be in touch with both aspects of life.

Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile.

Sitting meditation is a way to practice letting go of the things we carry needlessly. These things are nothing but obstacles to our happiness. Ease in our sitting and ease in our breathing nourishes the body and mind.

We must look death in the face, recognize and accept it, just as we look at and accept life.

Everything is in your own heart.

Contemplating a beautiful sunrise, you're not distracted by thinking about the past or the future. The more concentrated you become, the more you see the beauty all around you. So concentration is a source of happiness.

When anger manifests in us, we must recognize and accept that anger is there and that it needs to be tended to. At this moment we are advised not to say anything, not to do anything out of anger. We immediately return to ourselves and invite the energy of mindfulness to manifest also

The Buddha told him, When we sit, we know we are sitting. When we walk, we know we are walking. When we eat, we know we are eating

Whenever a painful feeling or emotion arises, we should be able to be present with it, not fight it, but recognize it

We can also explore four additional concentrations on impermanence, non-craving, letting go, and nirvana. These four practices are found in Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing, a wonderful text from early Buddhism.

Only by looking deeply into the nature of your fear can you find the way out.