3,675 Quotes About Meditation

Enlightenment is transcending the limits of the Selfish gene. It is mastering the pain, pleasure and reward circuits of the brain by radiating peace, love and harmony from every cell of the body.*

This place of stuck—“I have to” and “I can’t”—feels familiar from my spiritual work. We’re told to simply “let go”—but when we try to do this, we often seem to get more deeply tangled in the willful web of resistance. In spite of injunctions to the contrary, “letting go” doesn’t appear to be something we have conscious control over. Why can’t we just let go into the loving arms of the universe? What is this holding back that seems so essential—so imperative?

Release seems to come only when we allow ourselves to be truly stuck—when we find ourselves all out of tricks and skillful means. As we allow ourselves to surrender to the prosaic and the holy in the particular form of this moment, we open ourselves to the grace of letting things be—the grace that functions effortlessly and is, indeed, the very fabric of our life.

It is love that you are made of and to love you will return after your earth adventure

Habit has two parts, Toni [Packer] says. There is the habit itself (finger biting, smoking, drinking, whatever), and there is the observer who wants to stop, who is also a habit. And there is the conflict, the battle between the desire to indulge, which is an escape from what is, and the desire to stop, which is also a movement away from what is.

Discipline is of no use whatsoever, since things are naturally eliminated by discernment without it being necessary for us to treat them brutally. Even in the course of the technique known as “letting-go”, a faint shadow of discipline is implied, for letting-go of an object implies a certain discipline. Only an effortless and choiceless, I repeat choiceless reaction, is the hallmark of liberation.

The enlightened mind is like a bird in flight that leaves no trace of its path. People will say, “A bird just flew by.” In their mind, there is a trace of the bird’s path. This is attachment. For the enlightened practitioner, that moment is already gone—the bird has left no trace of its flight. Like the bird, from moment to moment the enlightened practitioner’s actions do not leave any trace.

To be a spiritual teacher is the call of compassion.

Basic awareness meditation is really nothing more or less than giving open, nonjudgmental attention to present-moment, non-conceptual experiencing. You don’t have to be in the lotus position. This can happen on the city bus.