Quotes About Meditation

Leaders should determine to spend a minimum of half an hour a day reading books that feed the soul and stimulate the mind.

Mindfulness could also be described as "heartfulness" because it is really about a compassionate awareness.

We simply have to learn how to skillfully get out of our own way. Getting out of our own way allows the deep reservoirs of peace and happiness within us to reveal themselves so we may gain more ready access to them.

put yourself in the experienced hands of Mark Williams and Danny Penman, and give yourself over to their guidance and to the programme that they map out. The programme provides a coherent structure, an architecture if you will, within which you can observe your own mind and body and life unfolding, and a systematic and trustworthy approach for working with whatever arises.

Is your speaking an improvement on silence?

The evidence is clear: brooding is the problem,not the solution.

Mindful awareness—or mindfulness—spontaneously arises out of this Being mode when we learn to pay attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment, to things as they actually are.

Numerous psychological studies have shown that regular meditators are happier and more contented than average.1 These are not just important results in themselves but have huge medical significance as such positive emotions are linked to a longer and healthier life.

Everyday life offers endless opportunities for you to stop, to focus, to remind yourself to be fully awake and present to what is happening right now

Thirdly, the breath provides a natural, gently moving target to focus on in your meditation; it grounds you in the here and now. You cannot take a breath for five minutes ago, or for five minutes' time. You can only take a breath for now

use your restless and churning mind as an opportunity to look more deeply into it, rather than as an immediate reason to conclude that the meditation is "not working.

A typical meditation consists of focusing your full attention on your breath as it flows in and out of your body (see "A one-minute meditation" on the opposite page). Focusing on each breath in this way allows you to observe your thoughts as they arise in your mind and, little by little, to let go of struggling with them

Scientific studies have shown that mindfulness not only prevents depression, but that it also positively affects the brain patterns underlying day-to-day anxiety, stress, depression, and irritability so that when they arise, they dissolve away again more easily. Other studies have shown that regular meditators see their doctors less often and spend fewer days in the hospital. Memory improves, creativity increases and reaction times become faster

Meditation is not about accepting the unacceptable. It is about seeing the world with greater clarity so that you can take wiser and more considered action to change those things that need to be changed.

Mindfulness meditation encourages us to become more patient and compassionate with ourselves and to cultivate open-mindedness and gentle persistence

Mindfulness meditation teaches you to recognize memories and damaging thoughts as they arise. It reminds you that they are memories. They are like propaganda, they are not real. They are not you.

You can learn to observe negative thoughts as they arise, let them stay a while and then simply watch them evaporate before your eyes. And when this occurs, an extraordinary thing can happen: a profound sense of happiness and peace fills the void.

You come to realize that thoughts come and go of their own accord; that you are not your thoughts.

You come to the profound understanding that thoughts and feelings (including negative ones) are transient.

The mind seems to have a mind of its own.

Nothing can be gained by extensive study and wide reading. Give them up immediately.

One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.

Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.

Every man possesses the Buddha-nature. Do not demean yourselves.