Meditation quotes can help to guide and inspire your meditation practice.
There’s a lot of wisdom out there, so we decided to distill it down into its most potent form possible. Below you’ll find over 200 quotes on meditation from sages of times past, current meditation teachers, and the gamut of people in-between.
Regardless of where you are in your meditation practice you’ll be able to find some gold in the post below. Even beginners will find some meditation daily quotes to help create a new meditation habit.
Now, we present our collection of our favorite and most inspiring meditation quotes. Feel free to read from top to bottom, or pick a random quote and dive in.
Ultimate List of the Best Meditation Quotes
1. If you can’t meditate in a boiler room, you can’t meditate. – Alan Watts
2. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment. – Alan Watts
3. 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 onto the old view. When you flip the switch, it doesn’t matter whether it’s 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. It’s never too late to take a moment to look. – Sharon Salzberg
4. So what is a good meditator? The one who meditates. – Allan Lokos
5. While meditating we are simply seeing what the mind has been doing all along. – Allan Lokos
6. The ending of sorrow is the beginning of wisdom. Knowledge is always within the shadow of ignorance. Meditation is freedom from thought and a movement in the ecstasy of truth. Meditation is explosion of intelligence. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
8. Silence is not an absence but a presence. – Anne D. LeClaire
9. I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The word ‘innocence’ means a mind that is incapable of being hurt. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
11. Meditation is the way in which we come to feel our basic inseparability from the whole universe, and what that requires is that we shut up. – Alan Watts
12. When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a candle in a windless place. – Bhagavad Gita
13. The you that goes in one side of the meditation experience is not the same you that comes out the other side. – Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
14. Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded. – Buddha
15. This withdrawal from the day’s turmoil into creative silence is not a luxury, a fad, or a futility. It is a necessity, because it tries to provide the conditions wherein we are able to yield ourselves to intuitive leadings, promptings, warnings, teachings, and counsels and also to the inspiring peace of the soul. It dissolves mental tensions and heals negative emotions. – Paul Brunton
16.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
18. Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. – Buddha
19. 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
21. When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky. – Buddha
22. You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger. – Buddha
23. 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
24. To earn the trust of your meditation, you have to visit it every day. It’s like having a puppy. – Chelsea Richer
25. 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
27. Mental problems feed on the attention that you give them. The more you worry about them, the stronger they become. If you ignore them, they lose their power and finally vanish. – Annamalai Swami
28. Meditation must be continuous. The current of meditation must be present in all your activities. – Annamalai Swami
29. 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
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
31. Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated? – David M. Bader
32. You are a divine being. You matter, you count. You come from realms of unimaginable power and light, and you will return to those realms. – Terence McKenna
34. The simplest aspect of self-enquiry is to just hold onto the sense I AM, the sense of Being. Keep the sense of “I” or “I AM” by itself. Everyone can do this exercise – it brings immediate results. – Mooji
35. All you need to do is recognize your true position as the witness. You only have to do this for some time, until the spell is broken. Even after the spell is broken these mental tendencies may arise, but without any power, just like you can see the moon in the daylight. – Mooji
36. Let every thought come and hug you, but you don’t hug anything. Then, gradually, the noise will start to back off. – Mooji
37. 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
38. In the beginning you will fall into the gaps in between thoughts – after practicing for years, you become the gap. – J. Kleykamp
39. Meditation is the secret of all growth in spiritual life and knowledge. – James Allen
It’s like having a charger for your whole body and mind. That’s what Meditation is! – Jerry Seinfeld
41. Meditation is to the mind what exercise is to the body – it warms and invigorates. – John Thornton
42. 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
43. If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
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45. Even in the midst of disturbance, the stillness of the mind can offer sanctuary. – Stephen Richards
46. Your goal is not to battle with the mind, but to witness the mind. – Swami Muktananda
47. 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
48. The first steps in self-acceptance are not at all pleasant, for what one sees is not a happy sight. One needs all the courage to go further. – Nisargadatta Maharaj
49. There is only one meditation – the rigorous refusal to harbor thoughts. – Nisargadatta Maharaj
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
51. 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
52. Meditation applies the brakes to the mind. – Ramana Maharshi
53. 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 summed up in the words ‘Be still’. Give up the notion that ‘I am so and so’. All that is required to realize the Self is to be still. What can be easier than that? – Ramana Maharshi
54. From where does this “I” arise? Seek for it within; it then vanishes. This is the pursuit of wisdom. When the mind unceasingly investigates its own nature, it transpires that there is no such thing as mind. This is the direct path for all. The mind is merely thoughts. Of all thoughts the thought “I” is the root. – Ramana Maharshi
55. Put your heart, mind, intellect, and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success. – Swami Sivananda
57. 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
58. Mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy. – Kabira
59. May my heart be kind. May my mind be fierce. May my spirit be brave. – Kate Forsyth
Go within every day and find the inner strength, so that the world cannot blow your candle out. – Katherine Dunham
61. Meditation is not spacing-out or running away. In fact, it is being totally honest with ourselves. – Kathleen McDonald
62. Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. – Lao Tzu
63. Whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. What is soft is strong. – Lao Tzu
65. 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
66. 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
67. Do not think about yourself, but be aware of the thought, emotion, or action that makes you think of yourself. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
68. He who lives in harmony with himself, lives in harmony with the universe. – Marcus Aurelius
69. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. – Marcus Aurelius
Thoughts are like birds in mind; some fly in, some fly out. Some stay at water hole to drink. Beware of birds that linger. – Natalie Wright
71. It is better to meditate a little bit with depth than to mediate long with the mind running here and there. If you do not make an effort to control the mind it will go on doing as it pleases, no matter how long you sit to meditate. – Paramahansa Yogananda
73. Meditation is a lifelong gift. It’s something you can call on at any time. – Paul McCartney
74. Whenever you try to dictate the outcome of your meditation you negate its most wondrous benefit – the pleasure of simply being. – Paul Wilson
75. It’s helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing. – Pema Chödrön
76. 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
77. 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 Chödrön
78. 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
79. 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
You get peace of mind not by thinking about it or imagining it, but by quietening and relaxing the restless mind. – Remez Sasson
81. Your mind is your instrument. Learn to be its master and not its slave. – Remez Sasson
82. 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
83. Learn to enjoy the way as much as you would enjoy when you reach the destination. – Sakshi Chetana
84. 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
86. Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively. – Sharon Salzberg
87. Do one thing at a time, and while doing it put your whole soul into it to the exclusion of all else. – Swami Vivekananda
88. The whole life is a succession of dreams. My ambition is to be a conscious dreamer, that is all. – Swami Vivekananda
89. 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
A few conscious-hearted, sincere, and energetic men and women can do more in a year than a mob in a century. – Swami Vivekananda
91. It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light. – Swami Vivekananda
92. Meditation: Because some answers can only be found on the Inner net. – Shira Tamir
93. The meditation that gives you immediate joy or continuous joy is the best meditation for you. Everyone will not have the same meditation. Your meditation will not suit me, my meditation will not suit you. You like a certain food, I don’t like it. You are right in your own way I am right in my own way. – Sri Chinmoy
95. We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship. – C.S. Lewis
96. Meditation is not spacing-out or running away. In fact, it is being totally honest with ourselves. – Kathleen McDonald
97. When you’re centered, your emotions are not hijacking you. – Ray Dalio
98. 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
99. 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
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
101. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. — Lao Tzu
102. 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
103. 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. — Alan Watts
104. You are never alone or helpless. The force that guides the stars guides you too. — Shrii Shrii Anandamurti
106. Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. – Buddha
107. All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become. – Buddha
108. There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth…not going all the way, and not starting. – Buddha
109. We are what we think. All that we are arises With our thoughts. With our thoughts, We make our world. – 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
111. Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. – Lao Tzu
112. 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
113. Death is not to be feared so much by one who has lived wisely. – Buddha
114. We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them. – Buddha
115. Seeker! Do not be restless. Meditate constantly. Or you will swallow fire And cry out: “No more!’ If you are not wise, How can you steady the mind? If you cannot quieten yourself, What will you ever learn? – Buddha
116. A good meditation, even when it is interrupted by occasional nodding, is much more beneficial than many outward religious exercises. – Johannes Tauler
118. I deepen my experience of God through prayer, meditation, and forgiveness. – Marianne Williamson
119. If I had not been already been meditating, I would certainly have had to start. I’ve treated my own depression for many years with exercise and meditation, and I’ve found that to be a tremendous help. – Judy Collins
Those who sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen. – Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
121. When we pay attention, whatever we are doing…is transformed and becomes a part of our spiritual path. We begin to notice details and textures that we never noticed before’ everyday life becomes clearer, sharper, and at the same time more spacious. – Rick Fields, Chop Wood, Carry Water: A Guide to Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Everyday Life
123. Meditation and water are wedded for ever. – Herman Melville
124. One hour’s meditation on the work of the Creator is better than seventy years of prayer. – Muhammad
125. The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large. – Confucius
126. I believe that painting should come through the avenues of meditation rather than the canals of action. – Mark Tobey
127. Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it. – Rene Descartes
128. Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in eternal awareness or pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity. – Swami Sivananda
129. 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
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
131. Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit. – Jeremy Taylor
132. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. – Mahatma Gandhi
133. 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 Chödrön
134. We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship. – C.S. Lewis
136. Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God. – Diana Robinson
137. 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
138. Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man. – Benjamin Franklin
139. 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
Meditation… dissolves the mind. It erases itself. Throws the ego out on its big brittle ass. – Tom Robbins
141. Meditation is the life of the soul: Action, the soul of meditation. and honor the reward of action. – Frances Quarles
142. Meditation is listening to the Divine within. – Edgar Cayce
143. The spirit is something to be enjoyed. It is not a harsh discipline. And I think people should take some time everyday for some kind of moving meditation, like Qigong or Tai Chi. – Shirley Maclaine
144. 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
145. 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
146. What we call “I” is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. – Shunryu Suzuki
148. Generally we waste our lives, distracted from our true selves, in endless activity. Meditation is the way to bring us back to ourselves, where we can really experience and taste our full being. – Sogyal Rinpoche
149. The whole of meditation practice can be essentialized into these 3 crucial points: Bring your mind home. Release. And relax! – Sogyal Rinpoche
The masters say if you create an auspicious condition in your body and your environment then meditation and realization will automatically arise. – Sogyal Rinpoche
151. Sitting like a mountain let your mind rise and fly and soar. – Sogyal Rinpoche
152. Just as the ocean has waves or the sun has rays, so the mind’s own radiance is its thoughts and emotions. – Sogyal Rinpoche
153. Samsara is mind turned outwardly, lost in its projections. Nirvana is mind turned inwardly, recognizing its nature. – Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
154. 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
155. The best way to control cow and sheep is to give them a big grazing field. – Shunryu Suzuki
157. 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
158. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n. – John Milton
159. Body on your seat, mind in your body, mind in relaxation. – Patrul Rinpoche
Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine. – Shunryu Suzuki
161. Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all, because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
162. With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
163. The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this lifetime. – Sogyal Rinpoche
164. Simply let experience take place very freely, so that your open heart is suffused with the tenderness of true compassion. – Tsoknyi Rinpoche
166. 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
167. After a few years of meditation practice we can even learn how to occasionally ignore ourselves. And what relief that can be! – Wes Nisker
168. All of man’s difficulties are caused by his inability to sit, quietly, in a room by himself. – Blaise Pascal
169. 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
I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
171. Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better, it’s about befriending who we are. –Pema Chödrön
172. Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life — perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it. It has no technique and therefore no authority. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy — if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
173. When we talk about understanding, surely it takes place only when the mind listens completely – the mind being your heart, your nerves, your ears – when you give your whole attention to it. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
175. The you that goes in one side of the meditation experience is not the same you that comes out the other side. – Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
176. At the beginning of every winter people are careful to install storm windows. These extra panes of glass protect their houses against the bitter winds. We do something very similar to protect our minds through the practice of meditation. – Eknath Easwaran
177. 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
178. 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 throughout the day. – Annamalai Swami
179. 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
Meditation is a silent heart, a peaceful mind which can make life more lovable, more livable…. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
181. To be alone and to be drunk with your own aloneness is what meditation is all about. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
182. Meditation is the most significant because it opens the door for all other significant things: love, prayer, God, light, music, poetry. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
183. My whole effort here is to keep you as non-serious as possible, for the simple reason that meditation, all kinds of meditation, can make you too serious and that seriousness will create a spiritual disease and nothing else. Unless a meditation brings you more laughter, more joy, more playfulness, avoid it. It is not for you. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
184. 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. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
186. If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath. – Amit Ray
187. Life is a mystery – mystery of beauty, bliss and divinity. Meditation is the art of unfolding that mystery. – Amit Ray
188. Suffering is due to our disconnection with the inner soul. Meditation is establishing that connection – Amit Ray
189. Meditation is not a matter of trying to achieve ecstasy, spiritual bliss or tranquility, nor is it attempting to be a better person. It is simply the creation of a space in which we are able to expose and undo our neurotic games, our self-deceptions, our hidden fears and hopes. – Chögyam Trungpa
Wisdom happens through meditation, and bliss also happens through meditation. Both the flowers bloom on the same branch. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
191. Meditation is just a strategy to take away your personality, your thoughts, your mind, your identity with the body, and leave you absolutely alone inside, just a living fire. And once you have found your living fire, you will know all the joys and all the ecstasies that human consciousness is capable of. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
192. If you ask Zen people they will say; tea is not something that you pour with unawareness and drink like any other drink. It is not a drink, it is meditation; it is prayer. So they listen to the kettle creating a melody, and in that listening they become more silent, more alert. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
193. In meditation you are not unconscious, you are conscious—more conscious than ever. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
194. 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
196. Thoughts can create such a barrier that even if you are standing before a beautiful flower, you will not be able to see it. Your eyes are covered with layers of thought. To experience the beauty of the flower you have to be in a state of meditation, not in a state of mentation. You have to be silent, utterly silent—not even a flicker of thought—and the beauty explodes, reaches to you from all directions. You are drowned in the beauty of a sunrise, of a starry night, of beautiful trees. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
197. A man of meditation functions differently. Whatever profession he chooses, it does not matter. He will bring to his profession some quality of sacredness. He may be making shoes, or he may be cleaning the roads, but he will bring to his work some quality, some grace, some beauty, which is not possible without samādhi. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
198. My technique is don’t believe anything. If you believe in something, you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite. – Terence McKenna
199. A very sensitive person in this stupid world is bound to become mad…. Only meditation can save him from becoming mad. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Meditation is a rich and powerful method of study for anyone who knows how to examine his mind. – Michel de Montaigne
201. I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing….
– T.S. Eliot
202. The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life, the strife, the pain, and the fleeting joy. It must begin there, and bring order, and from there move endlessly. But if you are concerned only with making order, then that very order will bring about its own limitation, and the mind will be its prisoner. In all this movement you must somehow begin from the other end, from the other shore, and not always be concerned with this shore or how to cross the river. You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
203. There are qualities which grow as meditation deepens. For example, you start feeling loving for no reason at all. Not the love that you know, in which you have to fall—not falling in love. But just a quality of lovingness, not only to human beings. As your meditation deepens, your lovingness will start spreading beyond humanity to animals, to trees, even to the rocks, to the mountains. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
204. Meditation is not something you do once and you are done with. It is something that is like breathing, like blood circulating. It is not that once the blood has circulated it is finished, once you breathe there is no more need of it. No, you have to breathe and you have to go on meditating; every moment you will need it. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
205. Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable. – Terence McKenna
206. The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation. – Jetsun Milarepa
207. Untrained warriors are soon killed on the battlefield; so also persons untrained in the art of preserving their inner peace are quickly riddled by the bullets of worry and restlessness in active life. – Paramahansa Yogananda
209. Meditating means bringing the mind back to something again and again. Thus, we all meditate, but unless we direct it in some way, we meditate on ourselves and on our own problems, reinforcing our self-clinging. – Yeshe Dorje
Meditation is not sitting and fidgeting, daydreaming, worrying, or fantasizing. It means watching, calmly observing the mind itself. Calm observation makes the mind itself calmer. The calmness of the mind creates power to go deeper and deeper into the beds of samsaras, into all the latent memories and impressions that daily provoke our habits and personalities. However, by calmly and very quietly going to the samskaras and observing them they are burnt away; they bubble to the surface and dissipate. This is the process of purification. It is a very powerful practice, and an essential one. Meditation is the exact method of becoming aware of who you are. It is the fundamental training for knowing your inner world. – Swāmī Rāma
211. Meditation simply means a discipline that makes you capable of being aloof and detached from your mind. So even if the mind is sick, your consciousness is never sick. Even if your mind is going crazy, you are just witnessing it. Mind is only a machine. You are not. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
212. Mindfulness is about falling awake rather than asleep. – Shamash Alidina
213. Somewhere in this process, you will come face to face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill, utterly out of control and helpless. No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way, and you just never noticed…. So don’t let this realization unsettle you. It is a milestone actually, a sign of real progress. – Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
215. When you meditate, what you actually do is to enter into a calm or still, silent mind. We have to be fully aware of the arrival and attack of thoughts. That is to say, we shall not allow any thought, divine or undivine, good or bad, to enter into our mind. Our mind should be absolutely silent. Then we have to go deep within; there we have to observe our real existence. – Sri Chinmoy
216. The so-called transcendental meditation is nothing but a psychological tranquilizer. It is nothing—just a tranquilizer. It helps, but it is good for sleep, not for meditation. You can sleep well, a more calm sleep will be there. It is good, but it is not meditation at all. If you repeat a word constantly it creates a certain boredom, and boredom is good for sleep. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
217. The mind is constantly talking. If the inner talk can drop even for a single moment you will be able to have a glimpse of no-mind. That’s what meditation is all about. The state of no-mind is the right state. It is your state. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
218. Words are but the shell; meditation is the kernel. – Bahya ibn Paquda
219. Meditation requires courage. It requires the basic integrity, sincerity, respect towards your own being. At least don’t deceive yourself. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
When meditation releases energy in you, it will find all sorts of ways to be expressed. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
221. Meditation is a tool to shake yourself awake. A way to discover what you love. A practice to return yourself to your body when the mind medleys threaten to usurp your sanity. – Geneen Roth
222. 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
223. The child is naturally meditative. He is a sort of samadhi; he’s coming out of the womb of existence. His life river is yset absolutely fresh, just from the source. He knows the truth, but he does not know that he knows…. His knowledge is not yet aware. It is innocent. It is simply there, as a matter of fact. And he is not separate from his knowledge; he is his knowledge. He has not mind, he has simple being. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
225. The world can come to a harmony if meditation is spread far and wide. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
226. One conscious breathe in and out is a meditation. – Eckhart Tolle
227. Through meditation one discovers one’s own light. That light you can call your soul, your self, your God—whatsoever word you choose—or you can remain just silent because it has no name. It is a nameless experience, tremendously beautiful, ecstatic, utterly silent, but it gives you the taste of eternity, of timelessness, of something beyond death. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
We hope you enjoyed our list of meditation quotes above. Hopefully you’ve been able to find the dose of wisdom or guidance you’ve been looking for.
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