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While the primary function of formal Buddhist meditation is to create the possibility of the experience of "being," my work as a therapist has shown me that the demands of intimate life can be just as useful as meditation in moving people toward this capacity. Just as in formal meditation, intimate relationships teach us that the more we relate to each other as objects, the greater our disappointment. The trick, as in meditation, is to use this disappointment to change the way we relate.
Mark EpsteinWhen I use the words 'inner journey', I simply mean that you have looked at one aspect of the journey in your life called 'outer', now try to look at another aspect of the journey called 'inner'. You have been running after money, now run after meditation. You have been running after power, now run after God. Both are running. Once you start running after meditation then one day I will tell you, 'Now drop meditation too. Now stop running.' And when you stop running then real meditation happens.
RajneeshIf you want to simplify your life, meditation is the answer. If you want to fulfil your life, meditation is the answer. If you want to have joy and offer joy to the world at large, then meditation is the only answer.
Sri ChinmoyThe greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material conditions and feel our divine nature. We do not depend upon any external help in meditation. The touch of the soul can paint the brightest color even in the dingiest places; it can cast a fragrance over the vilest thing; it can make the wicked divine-and all enmity, all selfishness is effaced.
Swami VivekanandaMeditation is a sort of prayer and prayer is meditation. The highest meditation is to think of nothing. If you can remain one moment without thought, great power will come.
Swami VivekanandaWhen you are free of form and not confused, you are focused. To be free of form externally is 'Zen.' Not to be confused internally is 'meditation.' External Zen and internal meditation, this is what we mean by 'Zen meditation.
Bill PorterThe power of meditation gets us everything. If you want to get power over nature, [you can have it through meditation]. It is through the power of meditation all scientific facts are discovered today. They study the subject and forget everything, their own identity and everything, and then the great fact comes like a flash.
Swami VivekanandaTranscendental meditation is one particular form of mantra meditation that allows your mind to experience progressively abstract fields of awareness. And ultimately you settle down in the space between your thoughts. The space between your thoughts is pure consciousness, and it's a field of possibilities. It's a field of creativity. It's a field of correlation. It's also a field of uncertainty. It's also a field where intention actualizes its own fulfillment. So that meditation allows you to contact this field, which is very primordial - the ground state of our existence.
Deepak ChopraThe more your meditation goes deep, the less and less you will feel the burden of the mind. The more and more meditation goes deep, the less and less you will be a mind. Thoughts will become rare, and ultimately they cease. That doesn't mean you become unthinking; it only means that your consciousness becomes clear, transparent, without thoughts moving continuously as clouds. Whenever you need to think you can think; but now thought becomes an instrument to you, not an obsession as it is presently. Thoughts are an obsession without meditation.
RajneeshI have been challenged by the concept of meditation ... I decided recently to accept the invitation of a friend to experience the sheer silence of meditation-undirected prayer. ... I had before only sensed intellectually ... But by going deep into prayer I could almost feel it.
Laurie Beth JonesIn the practice of sitting meditation you relate to your daily life all the time. Meditation practice brings our neuroses to the surface rather than hiding them at the bottom of our minds. It enables us to relate to our lives as something workable.
Chogyam TrungpaI can't say it strongly enough; to integrate meditation in action is the whole ground and point and purpose of meditation
Sogyal RinpocheMindfulness is a quality that's always there. It's an illusion that there's a meditation and post-meditation period, which I always find amusing, because you're either mindful or you're not.
Richard GereI want people to look at themselves. I want people to go into a space for meditation. It's funny to use a word like meditation as the music is fairly brutal but there is a hypnotic element to it and the way that I try and create that for someone just happens to be through a fairly heavy form of music. You are constantly barraged and beaten down with a lot of bullshit and I find that heavy and extreme music helps me to go into a very tranquil place and I hope, more than anything, that the music does create a space for people to go inward with.
David W. MarsdenMeditation is the short path to happiness. Meditation takes you beyond the desire-aversion operating system that offers very limited happiness and a great deal of frustration.
Frederick LenzThe silence is there within us. What we have to do is to enter into it, to become silent, to become the silence. The purpose of meditation and the challenge of meditation is to allow ourselves to become silent enough to allow this interior silence to emerge. Silence is the language of the spirit.
John MainAll too often people come to meditation in the hope of extraordinary results, like visions, lights, or some supernatural miracle. When no such thing occurs, they feel extremely disappointed. But the real miracle of meditation is more ordinary and much more useful. . . .
Sogyal RinpocheWhat I wish to show by these feats of strength is that prayer and meditation can definitely increase one's outer capacities. I hope that by doing this I will be able to inspire many people to pray and meditate sincerely as part of their regular daily routine. my message is that if one needs strength, then uncovering one's inner strength through prayer and meditation is the fastest and most effective way to get it.
Sri ChinmoyFor dignity of character, consciousness is needed, not conscience and that's the function of meditation. Meditation does not give you any character directly. It does not say what to do and what not to do. It never gives you any commandments. It simply gives you a technique for becoming more aware, for being more alert, watchful, witnessing.
RajneeshMeditation accepts us just as we are-in both our tantrums and our bad habits, in our love and commitments and happiness. It allows us to have a more flexible identity because we learn to accept ourselves and all of our human experience with more tenderness and openness. We learn to accept the present moment with an open heart. Every moment is incredibly unique and fresh, and when we drop into the moment, as meditation allows us to do, we learn how to truly taste this tender and mysterious life that we share together.
Pema ChodronMeditation - Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be.
Idries ShahThe practice of meditation is emptying the mind. When the mind is empty, completely empty, it's perfect meditation. It's really that simple.
Frederick LenzIn the East we call this state meditation: no belief, no thought, no desire, no prejudice, no conditioning - in fact, no mind at all. A state of no-mind is meditation. When you can look without any mind interfering, distorting, interpreting, then you see the truth. The truth is already all around; just you have to put your mind aside.
RajneeshIs there a meditation that is not the ego trying to become? Is meditation conscious if every effort implies time?
Jiddu KrishnamurtiDo you think that you can clear your mind by sitting constantly in silent meditation? This makes your mind narrow, not clear. Integral awareness is fluid and adaptable, present in all places and at all times. That is true meditation. ... The Tao is clear and simple, and it doesn't avoid the world.
LaoziWhen we raise ourselves through meditation to what unites us with the spirit, we quicken something within us that is eternal and unlimited by birth and death. Once we have experienced this eternal part in us, we can no longer doubt its existence. Meditation is thus the way to knowing and beholding the eternal, indestructible, essential centre of our being.
Rudolf SteinerMeditation is not a withdrawal from life. Meditation is a process of understanding oneself.
Jiddu KrishnamurtiHours of solitude, hours of creation, hours of meditation. Solitude and meditation gave me an awareness, a perspective which I have never lost: that of solidarity with the rest of mankind.
Vicente AleixandreMeditation is simply about being yourself and knowing something about who that is. It is about coming to realize that you are on a path whether you like it or not, namely, the path that is your life. Meditation may help us see that this path we call our life has direction; that it is always unfolding, moment by moment; and that what happens now, in this moment, influences what happens next.
Jon Kabat-ZinnWhatever forms of meditation you practice, the most important point is to apply mindfulness continuously, and make a sustained effort. It is unrealistic to expect results from meditation within a short period of time. What is required is continuous sustained effort.
Dalai LamaMeditation is the journey from sound to silence, from movement to stillness, from a limited identity to unlimited space.
Sri Sri Ravi ShankarMen are constantly attracted and deluded by two opposite charms: the charm of competence which is engendered by mathematics and everything akin to mathematics, and the charm of humble awe, which is engendered by meditation on the human soul and its experiences. Philosophy is characterized by the gentle, if firm, refusal to succumb to either charm.
Leo StraussYou can do yoga and be thinking about going shopping. The goal is kind of like meditation, is to be totally present in your body in the moment. That's when the most profound effects of yoga can happen. That's what I urge people to try to do. It's very important to be in your body.
Jane FondaSeek in reading and thou shalt find in meditation; knock in prayer and it shall be opened in contemplation.
John of the CrossHence my insistence that music and meditation should go together. That adds a new dimension to both. Both are enriched by it.
RajneeshWhat meditation does is allow you to actually survive these emotions as opposed to compartmentalizing and having them come up and make you a shithead in other areas of your life. The alternative is to be miserable, and I don't think we're living in a wise way when we do that.
Dan HarrisDedicating some time to meditation is a meaningful expression of caring for yourself that can help you move through the mire of feeling unworthy of recovery. As your mind grows quieter and more spacious, you can begin to see self-defeating thought patterns for what they are, and open up to other, more positive options.
Sharon SalzbergWell, when you're relaxed, your mind takes you to the whole reality. There's no such thing as time when you're really relaxed. That's why meditation works.
Shirley MacLaineSomeone once inquired of a Far Eastern Zen master, who had a great serenity and peace about him no matter what pressures he faced, "How do you maintain that serenity and peace?" He replied, "I never leave my place of meditation." He meditated early in the morning and for the rest of the day, he carried the peace of those moments with him in his mind and heart.
Stephen CoveyPainting is at once a form of meditation and an utter, complete personal engagement with life.
Steven Whitney[Thich Nhat Hanh] the one that revolutionized Buddhism. Instead of being monks just engaged in meditation, it was active Buddhism. You went out and felt the ills of the community around you. Instead of retreating to a monastery, you were out in the streets working. And he's been a great help to me, just reading his book, so I don't feel helpless about what I can do about all the violence around me.
Sandra CisnerosThe philosophies behind meditation are very current today and are a way of finding some sort of peace.
Orlando Bloom