3,675 Quotes About Meditation

Essentially, meditation allows us to live in ways that are less automatic. This necessarily means less time spent worrying, ruminating, and trying to control things we can’t control. It means we become less vulnerable to the throes of the fear-driven, older parts of our brains, and freer to use our newer and more sophisticated mental abilities: patience, compassion, acceptance and reason.

Meditation isn’t only the act of successfully keeping your attention on the breath, it’s the whole period of time you spend with the intention to observe the breath. It is this intention and its application — not your success at achieving perfect concentration — that is responsible for the benefits of meditation.

Who am I? is not a question about your job or bank balance. Don’t be satisfied with rational or formal answers. Ask yourself seriously and honestly, again and again, and, sooner or later, you’ll hear the voice of your soul. The true answer will come to you, breaking through the thick curtain of your ego, which is made up of your name, job, personality, and similar things.

What appear to be depravity, injury, or extinction are merely traces of memory and experience obscuring the soul. These are merely shadows of the soul, never its substance. The soul itself is always pure and whole.

The enlightened worry more about the problems of the world than about their own problems, and their longing for the well-being of all life grows deeper,making the suffering of all people, all creatures, and all things their own. This is a gift brought by enlightenment, which, at the same time, brings deep anguish.

Awareness in its pure state is nonlocal; there’s no focal point in it. It is unbounded. Awareness, when managed and directed, becomes attention. By turning into attention, awareness becomes localized, and attains a focal point. Because of this feature, attention has the power to direct energy.

Even though consciousness doesn’t seem to be confined to the human brain within the skull, we do experience consciousness through our brain. The transformation of consciousness to attention is facilitated by your brain. Driving thoughts into action is also processed by your brain. Your brain is the seat of the creative observer inside you.

When you make choices, please remember: what is good for you but not good for others won’t be good for you either, eventually; what’s good for you and others but not good for the Earth won’t be good for you or others either, eventually; what’s good for you, others, and the Earth will be good for all.

As long as I can find hope in myself, there is hope for the future of the earth and the human race. If I fail to discover hope in myself, there is no hope for the earth or the human race. If I discover the goodness of human nature in myself, I can find it in the entire human race. If I fail to discover it in myself, I can’t expect it from anyone else, either.