Quotes About Meditation

The Buddha's Four Noble Truths are: there is suffering; there is a course of action that generates suffering; suffering ceases (i.e., there is happiness); and there is a course of action leading to the cessation of suffering (the arising of happiness).

We move about life in our own corpse because we are not touching life in depth. We live a kind of artificial life, with lots of plans, lots of worries and anger. Never are we able to establish ourselves in the here and now and live our lives deeply. We have to wake up! We have to make it possible for the moment of awareness to manifest. This is the practice that will save us—this is the revolution.

As practitioners of meditation, we should never accept anything on blind faith, regarding it as absolute, unchanging truth. We should investigate and observe reality with mindfulness and concentration, so our understanding and faith can deepen day by day.

Much of our thinking is unnecessary.

Without the qualities of solidity, freedom, peace, and joy, fine manners are not really fine manners. They are just a camouflage called false Zen (a false sign of meditation practice).

Tomar refugio en nuestra respiración consciente

We need a small space where we can take care of our nervous system and restore our tranquility and peace.

Buda llamó al sufrimiento la Santa Verdad, porque nuestro sufrimiento tiene la capacidad de mostrarnos la senda de la liberación.

If we place our faith in a god, then perhaps later we will lose that faith. If we have faith in a person, then we may also lose faith in that person. We should have faith in something more steadfast and enduring. We need to have faith in ourselves and the Buddha within.

Do you have the time to be there for yourself? Do you have the time for a cup of tea, for an orange, for your in-breath, your out-breath? Do you have the time to take steps without thinking of your projects?

Abraza tu sufrimiento y deja que te revele el camino hacia la paz.

thundering silence, because it's eloquent and powerful.

If we practice conscious breathing, we will calm the turmoil and sorrow in our minds whenever they appear. If at first our practice is not successful, we continue until we see the results. When we see that the practice works, slowly our faith in it grows. Our faith is always based on empirical evidence. We do not believe it just because it has been repeated many times by others.

Our feelings are formations, impermanent and without substance. We learn not to identify with ourselves with our feelings, not to consider them as a self, not to seek refuge in them, not to die because of them.

If we practice meditation, we can generate the energies of mindfulness and concentration. These energies will lead us to the insight that there is no birth and no death. We can truly remove our fear of death. When we understand that we cannot be destroyed, we are liberated from fear. It is a great relief. Non-fear is the ultimate joy.

Some people think that to end suffering, you have to stop everything — body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness — but that is not correct

The monastic robe and eating bowl are as close to a monastic as wings are to a bird. Take them everywhere you go.

Brushing my teeth and rinsing my mouth, I vow to use truthful and loving speech. When my mouth is fragrant with right speech, a flower blooms in the garden of my heart.

The root of that craving is our habit energy.When we look deeply at it, we can begin to untie the knot.

One of the Buddha's most widely quoted phrases is attadipa saranam, which means taking refuge (saranam) in the island (dipa) of self (atta).

The first part of looking at our fear is just inviting it into our awareness without judgment.

Similarly by looking deeply into the nature of impermanence and no self, you can also touch the nature of nirvana.

Practicing mindfulness means that instead of reacting to whatever stimulus is around us or provokes us, we go back to our breathing, we calm our body, we stop our thinking, and we bring the mind home to the body in the present moment.

The Buddha has taught that body and mind are one. In order to go far on your monastic path, you need to know how to take care of your body.