1.
With meditation I found a ledge above the waterfall of my thoughts.
Mary Pipher
With contemplation I identified an outcropping above the tumult of my ideas.
2.
Meditation practice is a way of making friends with ourselves. Whether we are worthy or unworthy, that's not the point. It's developing a friendly attitude to ourselves, accepting the hidden neurosis coming through.
Chogyam Trungpa
3.
Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Contemplation is the only directed, organized human activity which fundamentally focuses on not striving to better oneself or get somewhere else, but rather to recognize where you already stand.
4.
To observe and watch one's own mind is something really interesting. The untrained mind will run and follow its old habit patterns. Because it has not been trained and taught, it will get lost in all kinds of stories and issues. Therefore we have to train our mind. The meditation practice in Buddhism is all about training one's own mind.
Ajahn Chah
5.
Your goal is not to battle with the mind, but to witness the mind.
Swami Muktananda
6.
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.
Voltaire
7.
All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit
is to stop seeking something more or better or different,
and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.
Adyashanti
8.
Simply notice that you're aware. At any given moment, you can choose to follow the chain of thoughts, emotions, and sensations that reinforce a perception of yourself as vulnerable and limited, or to remember that your true nature is pure, unconditioned, and incapable of being harmed.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
9.
If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.
Amit Ray
11.
They wanted to preserve and protect the mystical knowledge gained from their meditation practices and pass it on to future civilizations they clairvoyantly saw were going to be born after the destruction of Atlantis
Frederick Lenz
12.
It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn't depend on how long it has been running; a shift in perspective doesn't depend on how long you've held on to the old view. When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn't matter whether its been dark for ten minutes, ten years or ten decades. The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before. Its never too late to take a moment to look.
Sharon Salzberg
13.
Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.
George MacDonald
15.
After a few years of meditation practice we can even learn how to occasionally ignore ourselves. And what relief that can be!
Wes Nisker
16.
The powers of the mind are like the rays of the sun when they are concentrated they illumine.
Swami Vivekananda
18.
Meditation stills the wandering mind and establishes us forever in a state of peace.
Swami Muktananda
19.
Mindfulness isn't difficult, we just need to remember to do it.
Sharon Salzberg
21.
Meditation is listening to the divine within
Edgar Cayce
22.
Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.
Sharon Salzberg
23.
If you have time to breathe you have time to meditate. You breathe when you walk. You breathe when you stand. You breathe when you lie down.
Ajahn Amaro
25.
Mindfulness meditation doesn't change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart's capacity to accept life as it is.
Sylvia Boorstein
26.
One hour of contemplation surpasses sixty years of worship.
Elijah Muhammad
27.
Meditation practice is relevant because in meditation our conceptual mind relaxes and we can feel who we are at heart.
Sakyong Mipham
28.
One does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.
Elizabeth Lesser
29.
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in eternal awareness or pure consciousness.
Sivananda
30.
At the end of the day, I can end up just totally wacky, because I've made mountains out of molehills. With meditation, I can keep them as molehills.
Ringo Starr
31.
Meditation is not passive sitting in silence. It is sitting in awareness, free from distraction, and realizing the clear understanding that arises from concentration.
Nhat Hanh
32.
We spend a great deal of time telling God what we think should be done, and not enough time waiting in the stillness for God to tell us what to do.
Peace Pilgrim
33.
Suffering is due to our disconnection with the inner soul. Meditation is establishing that connection.
Amit Ray
34.
The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this lifetime.
Sogyal Rinpoche
35.
Devote the mind to confusion and we know only too well, if we´re honest, that it will become a dark master of confusion, adept in its addictions, subtle and perversely supple in its slaveries. Devote it in meditation to the task of freeing itself from illusion, and we will find that, with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity.
Sogyal Rinpoche
36.
Practicing meditation is just like breathing. While working we breathe, while sleeping we breathe, while sitting down we breathe... Why do we have time to breathe? Because we see the importance of the breath, we can always find time to breathe. In the same way, if we see the importance of meditation practice we will find the time to practice.
Ajahn Chah
37.
When you meditate, don't think about what is happening. Rather, let your awareness be seated in the tender warmth you feel in your body. If you do this, any meditation practice you do will be fruitful.
Gil Fronsdal
38.
To understand the totality of this extraordinary thing called life, one must obviously not be too definite about these things. One cannot be definite with something which is so immense, which is not measurable by words. We cannot understand the immeasurable so long as we approach it through time.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
39.
The expectations you bring to meditation practice are often the greatest obstacles you will encounter.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
40.
Giving to others is the greatest gift you can give yourself.
Darren Hardy
41.
The you that goes in one side of the meditation experience is not the same you that comes out the other side.
Henepola Gunaratana
42.
I have done a fair bit of meditation practice, but I think through climbing it's definitely an easier way for me to tap into that mental state of being present and in the moment, very in tune with your body. But not in an intellectual way. Just really responding to the moment, where you don't have time to think.
Chris Sharma
43.
I get energy from meditation practice and from eating healthy fresh food, only one cup of espresso in the morning, and not drinking too much.
Richard Simmons
45.
Life is a mystery - mystery of beauty, bliss and divinity. Meditation is the art of unfolding that mystery.
Amit Ray
46.
The more intense the nature of a man, the more readily will he find meditation, and the more successfully will he practice it.
James Allen
47.
Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.
Sharon Salzberg
48.
Your duty is to be, and not to be this or that. I Am That I Am sums up the whole truth; the method is summarized in Be Still.
Ramana Maharshi
49.
Integrated meditation practice is like a healthy diet
which is indispensable for maintaining your vitality and resistance to disease.
Likewise, a balanced meditative practice in the course of a socially engaged way of life
heightens your psychological immune system, so that you are less vulnerable to mental imbalances of all kinds.
B. Alan Wallace
50.
There are several different kinds of painful feelings that we might experience, and learning to distinguish and relate to these feelings of discomfort or pain is an important part of meditation practice, because it is one of the very first things that we open to as our practice develops.
Jack Kornfield