301 Meditation Quotes

Meditation Quotes

What is the benefit of reading meditation quotes? Contemplating the words of a spiritual teacher is a time-honored way to access your own deeper self. Taking time to slow down and consider the words of a more advanced practitioner can help catalyze the inner conditions for meditation.

Think of these as food to fuel your own intention and love for meditation and spirit. When your intention is strong and you relish the opportunity to sit in meditation, that is a great gift. As the venerable Sogyal Rinpoche says, “The greatest gift we can give ourselves in this life is to learn how to meditate.”

Here are some of the effects you can experience from reading these meditation quotes:

  • expanded consciousness
  • relaxation
  • joy and ease of being
  • deeper insights into your spiritual practice
  • meditative awareness
  • increased motivation to meditate
  • a state of increased focus and concentration

As gold purified in a furnace loses its impurities and achieves its own true nature, the mind gets rid of the impurities of the attributes of delusion, attachment and purity through meditation and attains Reality.

– Adi Shankara

Be still and know yourself as the Truth you have been searching for. Be still and let the inherent joy of that Truth capture your drama and destroy it in the bliss of consummation. Be still and let your life be lived by the purpose you were made for. Be still and receive the inherent truth of your heart.

– Gangaji

You should not be carried away by the dictation of the mind, but the mind should be carried by your dictation.

– A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami

Too many composers become involved in intellectual speculation which seems to matter more to them than the sound that comes out of all this speculation.

Louise Talma

Don’t hate the arising of thoughts or stop the thoughts that do arise. Simply realize that our original mind, right from the start, is beyond thought, so that no matter what, you never get involved with thoughts. Illuminate original mind, and no other understanding is necessary.

– Zen Master Bankei Yotaku

Meditation Quotes

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

– Buddha

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

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Discover the Things That You Need To Know Before You Go On A Meditation Retreat

Touch your inner space, which is nothingness, as silent and empty as the sky; it is your inner sky. Once you settle down in your inner sky, you have come home, and a great maturity arises in your actions, in your behavior. Then whatever you do has grace in it. Then whatever you do is a poetry in itself. You live poetry; your walking becomes dancing, your silence becomes music.

– Osho

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.

– Buddha

If you want to find God, hang out in the space between your thoughts.

– Alan Cohen

meditation quotes

If you can’t meditate in a boiler room, you can’t meditate.

– Alan Watts

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

– Buddha

Meditation is a process of lightening up, of trusting the basic goodness of what we have and who we are, and of realizing that any wisdom that exists, exists in what we already have. We can lead our life so as to become more awake to who we are and what we’re doing rather than trying to improve or change or get rid of who we are or what we’re doing. The key is to wake up, to become more alert, more inquisitive and curious about ourselves.

– Pema Chodron

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

– Buddha

Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.

– Alan Watts

Accepting the reality of change gives rise to equanimity.

– Allan Lokos

When your attention moves into the Now, there is an alertness. It is as if you were waking up from a dream, the dream of thought, the dream of past and future. Such clarity, such simplicity. No room for problem-making. Just this moment as it is.

– Eckhart Tolle

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

– Buddha

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.

– Buddha

So what is a good meditator? The one who meditates.

– Allan Lokos

meditation quotes

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

– Buddha

While meditating we are simply seeing what the mind has been doing all along.

Allan Lokos

Meditation will not carry you to another world, but it will reveal the most profound and awesome dimensions of the world in which you already live. Calmly contemplating these dimensions and bringing them into the service of compassion and kindness is the right way to make rapid gains in meditation as well as in life.

– Zen Master Hsing Yun

If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.

– Amit Ray

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.

– Buddha

Extraordinary Yoga Sequence That Will Surely Calm You Down

Quiet the mind, and the soul will speak.

– Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati

Life is a mystery – mystery of beauty, bliss and divinity. Meditation is the art of unfolding that mystery.

– Amit Ray

Meditation Quotes

Be quick to do good. If you are slow, The mind, delighting in mischief, Will catch you. Turn away from mischief. Again and again, turn away. Before sorrow befalls you. Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again, And you will be filled with joy. A fool is happy Until his mischief turns against him. And a good man may suffer Until his goodness flowers. Do not make light of your failings, Saying, ‘What are they to me?’ A jug fills drop by drop.

– Buddha

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

Meditate, Visualize and Create your own reality and the universe will simply reflect back to you.

– Amit Ray

meditation quotes

Meditation is a way for nourishing and blossoming the divine within you.

– Amit Ray

Clarity is part of the mind from the beginning, a natural awareness. Just acknowledge it, 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.

– Mingyur Rinpoche

The masters only point the way. But if you meditate And follow the dharma You will free yourself from desire. ‘Everything arises and passes away.’ When you see this, you are above sorrow. This is the shining way.

– Buddha

Self-observation is the first step of inner unfolding.

– Amit Ray

Suffering is due to our disconnection with the inner soul. Meditation is establishing that connection.

– Amit Ray

Meditation is meeting eternity in the present moment. It is resolving every problem as it comes. It is resolving every tension as it creeps in. It is facing the challenges of life in a non-fearful way.

Vimala Thakar

If a man’s thoughts are muddy, If he is reckless and full of deceit, How can he wear the yellow robe? Whoever is master of his own nature, Bright, clear and true, He may indeed wear the yellow robe.

– Buddha

If it weren’t for my mind, my meditation would be excellent.

– Ani Pema Chodron

This will help you Develop An Abundance Mindset

Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better, it’s about befriending who we are.

– Ani Pema Chodron

Meditation is the life of the soul: Action, the soul of meditation. and honor the reward of action.

– Francis Quarles

meditation quotes

What is this true meditation? It is to make everything: coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, action, the evil and the good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong, into one single koan.

– Hakuin

I meditate and put on a rubber tire with three bottles of beer. Most of the time I just sit picking my nose and thinking.

– James Gould Cozzens

We could say that meditation doesn’t have a reason or doesn’t have a purpose. In this respect it’s unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don’t do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.

– Alan Watts

You are never alone or helpless. The force that guides the stars guides you too.

– Shrii Shrii Anandamurti

Jesus brooded upon the Divine imminence until at last he could declare, ‘I and my Father are One.’

James Allen

Meditation Quotes

Meditation should not be regarded as a learning process. It should be regarded as an experiencing process. You should not try to learn from meditation but try to feel it. Meditation is an act of nonduality. The technique you are using should not be separate from you; it is you, you are the technique. Meditator and meditation are one. There is no relationship involved.

– Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure.

– Buddha

Silence is not an absence but a presence.

– Anne D. LeClaire

When 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 Steiner

I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.

– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

meditation quotes

Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.

– Buddha

The word ‘innocence’ means a mind that is incapable of being hurt.

– Jiddu Krishnamurti

On life’s journey faith is nourishment, virtuous deeds are a shelter, wisdom is the light by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night. If a man lives a pure life, nothing can destroy him.

– Buddha

Avoid evil deeds as a man who loves life avoids poison.

– Buddha

Words are but the shell; meditation is the kernel.

– Bahya ibn Paquda

Stress Quotes That Will Surely Relieve Your Stress

Through meditation, the Higher Self is experienced.

– Bhagavad Gita

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfilment.

– Benjamin Disraeli

Meditation is painful in the beginning but it bestows immortal Bliss and supreme joy in the end.

– Swami Sivananda

Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.

– Jiddu Krishnamurti

Meditation is not spacing-out or running away. In fact, it is being totally honest with ourselves.

– Kathleen McDonald

meditation quotes

We are what we think. All that we are arises With our thoughts. With our thoughts, We make our world.

– Buddha

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 Rinphoche

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

Mindful meditation has been discovered to foster the ability to inhibit those very quick emotional impulses.

– Daniel Goleman

Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit.

– Jeremy Taylor

You are as the yellow leaf. The messengers of death are at hand. You are to travel far away. What will you take with you? You are the lamp To lighten the way. Then hurry, hurry. When your light shines.

– Buddha

Spiritual meditation is the pathway to Divinity. It is a mystic ladder which reaches from earth to heaven, from error to Truth, from pain to peace.

– James Allen

When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a candle in a windless place.

– Bhagavad Gita

Meditation here may think down hours to moments. Here the heart may give a useful lesson to the head and learning wiser grow without his books.

– William Cowper

Practice meditation regularly. Meditation leads to eternal bliss. Therefore meditate, meditate.

– Swami Sivananda

meditation quotes

During meditation your metabolism and your breath rate go down to a level of rest, twice that of deep sleep.

– Mike Love

Your body is precious. It is our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.

– Buddha

The beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is.

– Jiddu Krishnamurti

Plant the seed of meditation and reap the fruit of peace of mind.

– Remez Sasson

Meditation Quotes

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded.

– Buddha

Meditation brings wisdom; lack of mediation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.

– Buddha

Meditation provides a way of learning how to let go. As we sit, the self we’ve been trying to construct and make into a nice, neat package continues to unravel.

– John Welwood

Meditation has been defined as the cessation of active eternal thought.

– H. Hahn Blavatsky

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

– Buddha

Meditation is the life of the soul: Action, the soul of meditation; and honor the reward of action.

– Francis Quarles

meditation quotes

I mean the whole thing about meditation and yoga is about connecting to the higher part of yourself, and then seeing that every living thing is connected in some way.

Gillian Anderson

A great gift – a gift of Dharma conquers all gifts.

– Buddha

The Buddhas do but tell the way; it is for you to swelter at the task.

– Buddha

True meditation gives us, as it were, wings for flight to a higher realm and thus detaches us from terrestrial fetters.

– Paramananda

Meditation is the means through which the Soul dictates and guides the mind for all good.

– Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

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

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

– Buddha

Meditation is listening to the Divine within.

– Edgar Cayce

Meditation is not to escape from society, but to come back to ourselves and see what is going on.

– Thich Nhat Hanh

There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way, and not starting.

– Buddha

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow. Our life is the creation of our mind.

– Buddha

The purpose of meditation practice is not enlightenment; it is to pay attention even at extraordinary times, to be of the present, nothing-but-in-the-present, to bear this mindfulness of now into each event of ordinary life.

– Peter Matthiessen

Meditation is a glorious link to connect and harmonize the two ends of life – material and spiritual.

– Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

If we can reach the understanding of what we actually are, there is no better remedy for eliminating all suffering. This is the heart of all spiritual practices.

– Kalu Rinpoche

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

When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.

– Buddha

The practice of reflective mediation, which consists of holding certain ideas in the mind long enough to enable them to form emotional connections, tends to break up the crust of habit and to create a new will.

– Walter M. Horton

One hour’s meditation on the work of the Creator is better than seventy years of prayer.

– Muhammad

Top Healing Quotes That Will Inspire You Everyday

As meditation deepens, compulsions, cravings and fits of emotion begin to lose their power to dictate our behavior. We see clearly that choices are possible; we can say yes or we can say no. It is profoundly liberating.

– Eknath Easwaran

You cannot see clearly, because you are so full of expectations, hopes,desires. Your eyes are covered with many layers of dust: you need a deep cleansing of your eyes. That’s what meditation is. Let the thoughts disappear, the hopes disappear, the desires disappear. Then you have a clarity, then your eyes are perfect mirrors. Only then, in that silent state of your vision, will you know the secrets of the beyond.

– Osho

 

meditation quotes

Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.

– Buddha

Whenever a thought arises, instead of trying even a little either to follow it up or to fulfil it, it would be better to first enquire, “To whom did this thought arise?”

– Ramana Maharshi

Simply let experience take place very freely, so that your open heart is suffused with the tenderness of true compassion.

– Tsoknyi Rinpoche

The state we call realization is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything.

– Ramana Maharshi

Meditation Quotes

Keep the remembrance of your real nature alive, even while working, and avoid haste which causes you to forget. Be deliberate. Practice meditation to still the mind and cause it to become aware of its true relationship to the Self which supports it. Do not imagine that it is you who are doing the work. Think that is the underlying current which is doing it. Identify yourself with the current.

– Ramana Maharshi

Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.

– Shunryu Suzuki

Meditation applies the brakes to the mind.

– Ramana Maharshi

See who is in the subject. The investigation leads you to pure consciousness beyond the subject.

– Ramana Maharshi

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in eternal awareness or pure consciousness without objectification. Knowing without thinking; merging finitude in infinity.

– Swami Sivananda

Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This is an unalterable law.

– Buddha

meditation quotes

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.

– Buddha

Put your heart, mind, intellect, and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.

– Swami Sivananda

Body on your seat, mind in your body, mind in relaxation.

– Patrul Rinpoche

The mind is responsible for the feelings of pleasure and pain. Control of the mind is the highest Yoga.

– Swami Sivananda

All that you are is the result of what you have thought. It is founded on your thoughts. It is made up of your thoughts.

– Swami Sivananda

Amazing Yoga Quotes To Inspire Your Practice

Through repeated practice of the body scan over time, we come to grasp the reality of our body as whole in the present moment. This feeling of wholeness can be experienced no matter what is wrong with your body. One part of your body, or many parts of your body, may be diseased or in pain or even missing, yet you can still cradle them in this experience of wholeness.

– Jon Kabat-Zinn

Conquer a liar with truth.

– Buddha

People cleave to their worldly possessions and selfish passions so blindly as to sacrifice their own lives for them. They are like a child who tries to eat a little, honey smeared on the edge of a knife. The amount is by no means sufficient to appease his appetite, but he runs the risk of wounding his tongue.

– Buddha

It is wrong to think that misfortunes come from the east or from the west; they originate within one’s own mind. Therefore, it is foolish to guard against misfortunes from the external world and leave the inner mind uncontrolled.

– Buddha

Meditation is a process of getting rid of the whole past, of getting rid of all diseases, of getting rid of all the pus that has gathered in you. It is painful, but it is cleansing, and there is no other way to cleanse you.

– Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

meditation quotes

To abstain from lying is essentially wholesome.

– Buddha

Why do we meditate? We meditate precisely because this world of ours has disappointed us and because failure looms large in our day-to-day life. We want fulfillment. We want joy, peace, bliss and perfection within and without. Meditation is the answer, the only answer.

– Sri Chinmoy

If you meditate, sooner or later you will come upon love. If you meditate deeply, sooner or later you will start feeling a tremendous love arising in you that you have never known before.

– Osho

How can a troubled mind Understand the way? If a man is disturbed He will never be filled with knowledge. An untroubled mind, No longer seeking to consider What is right and what is wrong, A mind beyond judgements, Watches and understands. Know that the body is a fragile jar, And make a castle of your mind. In every trial Let understanding fight for you To defend what you have won.

– Buddha

Meditation Quotes

Whatever 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 Lama

The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.

– Confucius

For soon the body is discarded, Then what does it feel? A useless log of wood, it lies on the ground, Then what does it know? Your worst enemy cannot harm you As much as your own thoughts, unguarded. But once mastered, No one can help you as much, Not even your father or your mother.

– Buddha

When the mind goes beyond the thought of ‘the me,’ the experiencer, the observer, the thinker, then there is a possibility of a happiness that is incorruptible.

– Jiddu Krishnamurti

Healing and uplifting our brain, mind and heart is now an imperative for us collectively so we can deal with the tsunami of very real technological advances rushing towards us, changing life as we know it forever.

– Jonathan Robert Banks

Mere physical sitting is not enough. You have to sit carefully and attentively. Let your body and breathing sit. Let your mind and emotions sit. Let your blood circulation sit. Let everything sit. Then your sitting becomes indestructible, immovable.

– Maezumi Roshi

meditation quotes

SEX! Now that I have your attention… Please try to meditate at least 15 minutes, every day. You know it’s good for you.

– Marcelo Alves

The best way to control cow and sheep is to give them a big grazing field.

– Shunryu Suzuki

He who lives in harmony with himself, lives in harmony with the universe.

– Marcus Aurelius

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

– Marcus Aurelius

Listen to the compass of your heart. All you need lies within you.

– Mary Anne Radmacher

One hour of contemplation surpasses sixty years of worship.

– Muhammad

Meditation Quotes

When the mind goes beyond the thought of ‘the me,’ the experiencer, the observer, the thinker, then there is a possibility of a happiness that is incorruptible.

– Jiddu Krishnamurti

The best way to control cow and sheep is to give them a big grazing field.

– Shunryu Suzuki

Meditation stills the wandering mind and establishes us forever in a state of peace.

– Muktananda

Rest in natural great peace, this exhausted mind, beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thought, like the relentless fury of the pounding waves in the infinite ocean of samsara.

– Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche

meditation quotes

Whenever you try to dictate the outcome of your meditation you negate its most wondrous benefit – the pleasure of simply being.

– Paul Wilson

Samsara is mind turned outwardly, lost in its projections. Nirvana is mind turned inwardly, recognizing its nature.

– Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

Transform Negative Into Positive Thoughts

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

Just as the ocean has waves or the sun has rays, so the minds’s own radiance is its thoughts and emotions.

– Sogyal Rinpoche

It’s helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.

– Pema Chödrön

Sitting like a mountain let your mind rise and fly and soar.

– Sogyal Rinpoche

Meditation Quotes

Loving-kindness towards ourselves doesn’t mean getting rid of anything. It means we can still be crazy after all these years. We can still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid, jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already.

– Pema Chödrön

Some people think that meditation takes time away from physical accomplishment. Taken to extremes, of course, that’s true. Most people, however, find that meditation creates more time than it takes.

– Peter McWilliams

The masters say if you create an auspicious condition in your body and your environment then meditation and realization will automatically arise.

– Sogyal Rinpoche

It’s like being in love, but instead of this love directed at someone or something, it’s directed at everyone and everything.

– Preston Lindsay

meditation quotes

The whole of meditation practice can be essentialized into these 3 crucial points: Bring your mind home. Release. And relax!

– Sogyal Rinpoche

If we read the stories of the great spiritual teachers of the past, we find that they have attained spiritual realization through a great deal of meditation, solitude and practice. They did not take any shortcuts.

– Rajiv Mehrontra

You get peace of mind not by thinking about it or imagining it, but by quietening and relaxing the restless mind.

– Remez Sasson

Your mind is your instrument. Learn to be its master and not its slave.

– Remez Sasson

My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel.

– Edward Abbey

A most useful approach to meditation practice is to consider it the most important activity of each day. Schedule it as you would an extremely important appointment, and unfailingly keep your appointment.

– Roy Eugene Davis

What’s encouraging about meditation is that even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we’re closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance.

– Pema Chodron

You cannot travel on the path until you become the path itself.

– Buddha

This is universal. You sit and observe your breath. You can’t say this is a Hindu breath or a Christian breath or a Muslim breath.

– Charles Johnson

To earn the trust of your meditation, you have to visit it every day. It’s like having a puppy.

– Chelsea Richer

meditation quotes

The things that trouble our spirits are within us already. In meditation, we must face them, accept them, and set them aside one by one.

– Cristopher L Bennett

The 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.

– Swami Vivekananda

Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.

– Dalai Lama

You don’t need any methods to get rid of the wrong ideas you have about yourself. All you have to do is stop believing them. The best way to do this is to replace them with ideas that more accurately reflect the real state of affairs.

– Annamalai Swami

The mind that is alone is not only innocent but young—not in time or age, but young, innocent, alive at whatever age—and only such a mind can see that which is truth and that which is not measurable by words.

– Jiddu Krishnamurti

Meditation Quotes

If you can resist the impulse to claim each and every thought as your own, you will come to a startling conclusion: you will discover that you are the consciousness in which the thoughts appear and disappear.

– Annamalai Swami

We try many ways to be awake, but our society still keeps us forgetful. Meditation is to help us remember.

– Thich Nhat Hanh

Don’t worry about whether you are making progress or not. Just keep your attention on the Self twenty-four hours a day. Meditation is not something that should be done in a particular position at a particular time. It is an awareness and an attitude that must persist through the day.

– Annamalai Swami

Never in this world can hatred be stilled by hatred; it will be stilled only by non-hatred — this is the law of eternal.

– Buddha

Millions of people miss meditation because meditation has taken on a wrong connotation. It looks very serious, looks gloomy, has something of the church in it, looks as if it is only for people who are dead, or almost dead, who are gloomy, serious, have long faces, who have lost festivity, fun, playfulness, celebration…. A really meditative person is playful: life is fun for him…. He enjoys it tremendously. He is not serious. He is relaxed.

– Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

meditation quotes

Those who walk in the Way should avoid sensualism as those who carry hay would avoid coming near the fire.

– Buddha

When you have achieved a state of deep meditation, you unlock the door to your subconscious mind. That is where the power to create the life you desire lies.

– Adrian Calabrese

Meditation must be continuous. The current of meditation must be present in all your activities.

– Annamalai Swami

If you pay attention to thoughts and feelings while you meditate and try to use them to evaluate how well or how badly you are meditating, you will never reach the ultimate silence. Instead you will just get bogged down in mental concepts.

– Annamalai Swami

Surprising Lessons You Can Learn From Life

If the traveller can find A virtuous and wise companion Let him go with him joyfully And overcome the dangers of the way. But if you cannot find Friend or master to go with you, Travel on alone.

– Buddha

There are different things one can do to establish and hasten the peace process. Meditation is one way.

– Mike Love

Meditation is silence. If you realize that you really know nothing, then you will be truly meditating. Such truthfulness is the right soil for silence. Silence is meditation.

– Yogaswami

If a man who enjoys a lesser happiness beholds a greater one, let him leave aside the lesser to gain the greater.

– Buddha

The thing about meditation is…you become more and more you.

– David Lynch

If you can be continuously aware of each thought as it rises, and if you can be so indifferent to it that it doesn’t sprout or flourish, you are well on the way to escaping from the entanglements of mind.

– Annamalai Swami

meditation quotes

When you know that everything that is happening is only appearing on the screen of consciousness, and that you yourself are the screen on which it all appears, nothing can touch you, harm you or make you afraid.

– Annamalai Swami

Meditation is like giving a hug to ourselves, getting in touch with that awesome reality in us. While meditating we feel a deep sense of intimacy with God, a love that is inexplicable.

– Paramahansa Yogananda

 

Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it.

– Eckhart Tolle

An unreflective mind is a poor roof. Passion, like the rain, floods the house. But if the roof is strong, there is shelter. Whoever follows impure thoughts Suffers in this world and the next. In both worlds he suffers And how greatly.

– Buddha

Meditation Quotes

Let go of anger. Let go of pride. When you are bound by nothing You go beyond sorrow.

– Buddha

One conscious breathe in and out is a meditation.

– Eckhart Tolle

Meditation is another dimension of natural beauty. People talk about appreciating natural beauty—climbing mountains, seeing giraffes and tigers in Africa, and all sorts of things. But nobody seems to appreciate this kind of natural beauty of ourselves. This is actually far more beautiful than flora and fauna, far more fantastic, far more painful and colorful and delightful.

– Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Having come to realize in the first stage of meditation that we are not our bodies, in the second stage we make an even more astounding discovery; we are not our minds either.

– Eknath Easwaran

It feels good. Kinda like when you have to shut your computer down, just sometimes when it goes crazy, you just shut it down and when you turn it on, it’s okay again. That’s what meditation is to me.

– Ellen DeGeneres

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.

– Epictetus

meditation quotes

It’s tapping into something so deep that when I reap the rewards, I do not even know I’m reaping them.

– Eva Mendes

Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.

– George MacDonald

Silence is a fence around wisdom.

– German Proverb

There is no need to believe or disbelieve your thoughts – just don’t enter anything. They don’t distract you – you get distracted. Nothing exists in itself as a distraction – it is you who get distracted. Why?

– Mooji

If a man who has committed many a misdemeanor does not repent and cleanse his heart of the evil, retribution will come upon his person as sure as the streams run into the ocean which becomes ever deeper and wider. If a man who has committed a misdemeanor come to the knowledge of it, reform himself, and practise goodness, the force of retribution will gradually exhaust itself as a disease gradually loses its baneful influence when the patient perspires.

– Buddha

Few cross over the river. Most are stranded on this side. On the riverbank they run up and down. But the wise man, following the way, Crosses over, beyond the reach of death. He leaves the dark way For the way of light.

– Buddha

The things that trouble our spirits are within us already. In meditation, we must face them, accept them, and set them aside one by one.

– Christopher L. Bennett

The nature of illusion is that, when you see through it, it disappears.

– Mooji

Let every thought come and hug you, but you don’t hug anything. Then, gradually, the noise will start to back off.

– Mooji

You want to be free as the ego, but you need to be free FROM the ego. To be free from it is to understand its unreality.

– Mooji

meditation quotes

Let the mind come as it wants; just you don’t go with it. The greatest salesman in the world cannot sell you if you don’t buy.

– Mooji

When a man makes utensils out of a metal which has been thoroughly cleansed of dross, the utensils will be excellent. You monks, who wish to follow the Way, make your own hearts clean from the dirt of evil passion, and your conduct will be unimpeachable.

– Buddha

Meditation increases your vitality and strengthens your intelligence; your beauty is enhanced; your mental clarity and health improve. You acquire the patience and fortitude to face any problem in life. So, meditate! Only through meditation will you find the treasure you are seeking.

– Mata Amritanandamayi

Meditation is the soul’s perspective glass.

– Owen Felltham

Meditation is the most effective form of relaxation. It not only relaxes the body and mind but also feeds them with vital energy, peace and happiness.

– Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Death is not to be feared so much by one who has lived wisely.

– Buddha

Those who are pure in heart and single in purpose are able to understand the most supreme Way. It is like polishing a mirror, which becomes bright when the dust is removed. Remove your passions, and have no hankering.

– Buddha

Keep your heart clear and transparent, and you will never be bound. A single disturbed thought creates ten thousand distractions.

– Ryokan Taigu

Everything is happening spontaneously, and the witnessing of it is also happening spontaneously. Everything is already happening in natural balance.

– Mooji

Meditation is the signpost directing the steps to the main highway of realization.

– Guy Bogart

meditation quotes

To maintain a powerful life force, forget yourself, forget about living and dying, and bring your full attention into this moment.

– H.E. Davey

If only you will remain resting in consciousness, seeing yourself as distinct from the body, then even now you will become happy, peaceful and free from bonds.

– Ashtavakra Gita

If one thinks of oneself as free, one is free, and if one thinks of oneself as bound, one is bound. Here this saying is true, “As one thinks, so one becomes”.

– Ashtavakra Gita

Desire and anger are objects of the mind, but the mind is not yours, nor ever has been. You are choiceless awareness itself and unchanging – so live happily.

– Ashtavakra Gita

Happy he stands, happy he sits, happy sleeps, and happy he comes and goes. Happy he speaks and happy he eats. This is the life of a man at peace.

– Ashtavakra Gita

It’s like having a charger for your whole body and mind. That’s what Meditation is!

– Jerry Seinfeld

Meditation Quotes

The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation.

– Jetsun Milarepa

The mind in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.

– John Milton

Meditation is to the mind what exercise is to the body – it warms and invigorates.

– John Thornton

When an evil-doer, seeing you practise goodness, comes and maliciously insults you, you should patiently endure it and not feel angry with him, for the evil-doer is insulting himself by trying to insult you.

– Buddha

meditation quotes

Evil-doers who denounce the wise resemble a person who spits against the sky; the spittle will never reach the sky, but comes down on himself. Evil-doers again resemble a man who stirs the dust against the wind; the dust is never raised without doing him injury. Thus, the wise will never be hurt, but the curse is sure to destroy the evil-doers themselves.

– Buddha

Moved by their selfish desires, people seek after fame and glory. But when they have acquired it, they are already stricken in years. If you hanker after worldly fame and practise not the Way, your labors are wrongfully applied and your energy is wasted. It is like unto burning an incense stick. However much its pleasing odor be admired, the fire that consumes is steadily burning up the stick.

– Buddha

The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this lifetime.

– Sogyal Rinpoche

Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.

– St Francis De Sales

Meditation allows us to directly participate in our lives instead of living life as an afterthought.

– Stephen Levine

Even in the midst of disturbance, the stillness of the mind can offer sanctuary.

Stephen Richards

When you reach a calm and quiet meditative state, that is when you can hear the sound of silence.

– Stephen Richards

Give the child a taste of meditation by creating a climate and atmosphere of love, acceptance and silence.

– Swami Dhyan Giten

Any action done with awareness is meditation. Meditation means to be fully aware of our actions, thoughts, feelings and emotions. Another name of meditation is passive awareness.

– Unknown

Let the wise guard their thoughts, which are difficult to perceive, extremely subtle, and wander at will. Thought which is well guarded is the bearer of happiness.

– Buddha

meditation quotes

Meditation does not answer the questions of the mind, but it dissolves the very mind which creates many questions and confusion in our life.

– Unknown

One hour of meditation can not tackle the unconsciousness of rest of the day. Slowly we should bring our meditative quality in all our actions.

– Unknown

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.

– Mahatma Gandhi

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.

– Buddha

The great masters of the past taught: “Water, if you don’t stir it, will become clear”. Likewise, the mind left unaltered will find its own natural peace.

– Unknown

The meditation cushion is a good place to turn when talk therapy and antidepressants aren’t enough.

– Unknown

Meditation teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.

– Unknown

All of man’s difficulties are caused by his inability to sit, quietly, in a room by himself.

– Blaise Pascal

Live your life without hurting anybody. Harmlessness is a most powerful form of Yoga and it will take you speedily to your goal. This is what I call nisarga yoga, the Natural yoga. It is the art of living in peace and harmony, in friendliness and love. The fruit of it is happiness, uncaused and endless.

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

Whatever you may have to do, watch your mind. Also you must have moments of complete inner peace and quiet, when your mind is absolutely still. If you miss it, you miss the entire thing. If you do not, the silence of the mind will dissolve and absorb all else.

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

meditation quotes

After a few years of meditation practice we can even learn how to occasionally ignore ourselves. And what relief that can be!

– Wes Nisker

You begin by letting thoughts flow and watching them. The very observation slows down the mind till it stops altogether. Once the mind is quiet, keep it quiet. Don’t get bored with peace, be in it, go deeper into it.

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

Stop, look, investigate, ask the right questions, come to the right conclusions and have the courage to act on them and see what happens. The first steps may bring the roof down on your head, but soon the commotion will clear and there will be peace and joy.

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

If you endeavor to embrace the Way through much learning, the Way will not be understood. If you observe the Way with simplicity of heart, great indeed is this Way.

– Buddha

One should strive to understand what underlies sufferings and diseases – and aim for health and well-being while gaining in the Path.

– Buddha

Men are tied up to their families and possessions more helplessly than in a prison. There is an occasion for the prisoner to be released, but householders entertain no desire to be relieved from the ties of family. When a man’s passion is aroused nothing prevents him from ruining himself. Even into the jaws of a tiger will he jump. Those who are thus drowned in the filth of passion are called the ignorant. Those who are able to overcome it are saintly Arhats.

– Buddha

From the passions arise worry, and from worry arises fear. Away with the passions, and no fear, no worry.

– Buddha

Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless. Renounce all that disturbs its peace. If you want peace, deserve it. By being a slave to your desires and fears, you disturb peace.

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

You as a salt-being, made of salt, go to fathom the depth of the ocean, and in the process you yourself dissolve. A great maharishi once said that true meditation is like this.

– Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

Watch your thoughts as you watch the street traffic. People come and go; you register without response. It may not be easy in the beginning, but with some practice you will find that your mind can function on many levels at the same time and you can be aware of them all.

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

meditation quotes

Pain is physical; suffering is mental. Beyond the mind there is no suffering. Pain is essential for the survival of the body, but none compels you to suffer. Suffering is due entirely to clinging or resisting; it is a sign of our unwillingness to move on, to flow with life.

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

If you mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.  In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.

Shunryu Suzuki

When pain is accepted for what it is, a lesson and a warning, and deeply looked into and heeded, the separation between pain and pleasure breaks down, both become just experience – painful when resisted, joyful when accepted.

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

The main factor in meditation is to keep the mind active in its own pursuit without taking in external impressions or thinking of other matters.

– Ramana Maharshi

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wakefulness is the way to life. The fool sleeps As if he were already dead, But the master is awake And he lives forever.

– Buddha

Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It’s a way of entering into the quiet that’s already there – buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.

– Deepak Chopra

Keep your heart clear and transparent and you will never be bound. A single disturbed thought creates ten thousand distractions.

– Ryokan

Meditation is acceptance. It is the acceptance of life within us, without us and all around us. Acceptance of life is the beginning of human satisfaction. Transformation of life is the culmination of divine satisfaction.

– Sri Chinmoy

Learn to enjoy the way as much as you would enjoy when you reach the destination.

– Sakshi Chetana

meditation quotes

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

– Bruce Lee

We must experience the Truth in a direct, practical and real way. This is only possible in the stillness and silence of the mind; and this is achieved by means of meditation.

– Samael Aun Weor

It is sometimes said that the first stages of the meditation process are the most difficult. The first distraction is the physical body. Sometimes there is real pain in sitting, and sometimes the ego just tries to distract us by creating itches we will want to scratch.

– Sarasvati Buhrman

You exist in time, but you belong to eternity. You are a penetration of eternity into the world of time. You are deathless, living in a body of death. Your consciousness knows no death, no birth. It is only your body that is born and dies. But you are not aware of your consciousness. You are not conscious of your consciousness. And that is the whole art of meditation. Becoming conscious of consciousness itself.

– Osho

When an idea exclusively occupies the mind, it is transformed into an actual physical or mental state.

– Swami Vivekananda

Now I meditate twice a day for half an hour. In meditation, I can let go of everything. I’m not Hugh Jackman. I’m not a dad. I’m not a husband. I’m just dipping into that powerful source that creates everything. I take a little bath in it.

– Hugh Jackman

Comfort is no test of truth. Truth is often far from being comfortable.

– Swami Vivekananda

If we know the divine art of concentration, if we know the divine art of meditation, if we know the divine art of contemplation, easily and consciously we can unite the inner world and the outer world.

– Sri Chinmoy

Do one thing at a time, and while doing it put your whole soul into it to the exclusion of all else.

– Swami Vivekananda

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked-as I am surprisingly often-why I bother to get up in the mornings.

Richard Dawkins

meditation quotes

Meditation here may think down hours to moments. Here the heart may give a useful lesson to the head and learning wiser grow without his books.

– William Cowper

Thus meditating you will no longer strive to build yourself up in your prejudices, but, forgetting self, you will remember only that you are seeking the Truth

– James Allen

Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit

– Jeremy Taylor

I still practice Transcendental Meditation and I think it’s great. Marharishi only ever did good for us, and although I have not been with him physically, I never left him.

– George Harrison

Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God.

– Diana Robinson

The whole life is a succession of dreams. My ambition is to be a conscious dreamer, that is all.

– Swami Vivekananda

Meditation is all about the pursuit of nothingness. It’s like the ultimate rest. It’s better than the best sleep you’ve ever had. It’s a quieting of the mind. It sharpens everything, especially your appreciation of your surroundings. It keeps life fresh.

Hugh Jackman

Believe in yourself and the world will be at your feet.

– Swami Vivekananda

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

– Buddha

There is no limit to the power of the human mind. The more concentrated it is, the more power is brought to bear on one point.

– Swami Vivekananda

If a person’s basic state of mind is serene and calm, then it is possible for this inner peace to overwhelm a painful physical experience.

– The Dalai Lama

meditation quotes

All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind.

– Swami Vivekananda

Meditation is acceptance. It is the acceptance of life within us, without us and all around us. Acceptance of life is the beginning of human satisfaction. Transformation of life is the culmination of divine satisfaction.

– Sri Chinmoy

Are you experiencing restlessness? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What’s for lunch? Stay! I can’t stand this another minute! Stay!

– Pema Chödrön

If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won’t, you most assuredly won’t. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad.

– Denis Waitley

Meditation connects you with your soul, and this connection gives you access to your intuition, your heartfelt desires, your integrity, and the inspiration to create a life you love.

– Sarah McLean

 

Self-awareness is not just relaxation and not just meditation. It must combine relaxation with activity and dynamism. Technology can aid that.

– Deepak Chopra

For me, training is my meditation, my yoga, hiking, biking all rolled into one. Wake up early in the morning, generally around 4 o’clock, and I’ll do my cardio on an empty stomach. Stretch, have a big breakfast, and then I’ll go train.

– Dwayne Johnson

I had a friend who introduced me to a meditation practice which involves a couple of half-hours a day of meditation, where essentially you try to achieve a stillness that allows you to just be there in the moment.

Kenneth Branagh

Meditation helps me to calm down.

– Lady Gaga

meditation quotes

Like the practice of breath control, meditation on the forms of God, repetition of mantras, food restrictions, etc., are but aids for rendering the mind quiescent.

– Ramana Maharshi

I hate having to do small talk. I’d rather talk about deep subjects. I’d rather talk about meditation, or the world, or the trees or animals, than small, inane, you know, banter.

– Ellen DeGeneres

A studio is like a meditation room where music is created. And a live performance is the place where the creation of the studio is taken ahead. I love both.

– Shreya Ghoshal

We should so provide for old age that it may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it from meditation on the next. It is awful to see the lean hands of dotage making a coffer of the grave.

– Pearl S. Buck

Exercise, prayer, and meditation are examples of calming rituals. They have been shown to induce a happier mood and provide a positive pathway through life’s daily frustrations.

– Chuck Norris

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.

– Jean Arp

Prayer is a form of meditation, isn’t it? It’s laws of attraction: whatever you put out into the universe is what it receives. It’s just kind of putting your thoughts out into the universe.

– Anthony Joshua

meditation quotes

I believe that painting should come through the avenues of meditation rather than the canals of action.

– Mark Tobey

This life that has been given to us as a gift, as such a precious gift. To really try to understand it, really try to recognize it, is the greatest meditation. Through the media of this Knowledge we can tap into our inner sources that are so beautiful.

– Prem Rawat

The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.

Andre Maurois

I think most people see drawing as subservient to the subject, a sort of meditation, a studying, a searching observation, in my case, for its own sake.

– Peter Wright

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