3,675 Quotes About Meditation

If we can understand that all thought is based on memory, that it is conditioned by the past, then we can see that it is of no use in helping us understand the true reality of the present moment, for every thought we have about reality will only distort reality according to our conditioned way of thinking.

When I think about something that is happening in the moment, I am introducing my accumulation of the past into the immediate experience of the present. I am evaluating the situation based on my conditioned perspective, and projecting my internal workings onto the unconditioned reality of the present moment.

To know the reality of the present moment as it is, we have to go beyond thought, otherwise we live only in memories of the past and fantasies of the future, cut off from the direct experience of the radiance and beauty of life.

When we are not awake to reality, we are living in the dream of the mind. When we are in the dream state, we do not know what we are doing, and are unaware of what is happening within and around us. We are simply acting out of deep programming, behaving according to conditioned patterns, living as if on auto-pilot.

There are many ways that the dream state operates, but it is primarily characterized by a lack of awareness to what is actually happening in the present moment, and the consequent dwelling in the mind and its endless thinking, reacting and behaving from unconscious conditioning and programming.

Everything that makes up your organism comes from the environment in which you live.

One of the fundamental delusions that most people have is the delusion that this “I” exists as an independent entity, as something separate from the whole of life.

The ego is not who we are, it is who we think we are. When we think of our name, our image, our history, and our life experiences as who we are, we become associated with an idea of ourselves, a mental image that is not at all who we are in reality.

If we stop completely, not just outwardly, but inwardly, we will see that there is no truth to our self-image; it is completely mind-made.