Quotes on Meditation
Quotes on meditation, when reflected upon can help create an atmosphere of deep focus and contemplation. This page will house quotes on meditation as well as passages from various traditions that will hopefully set you firmly on the path to quiet contemplation. This enhanced focus often leads to calm and spaciousness that is very conducive to generating states of heightened concentration. With reflection, comes attention and wisdom. Examining your own experiences in the light of these passages can help greatly to develop a sense of flexibility and calm. This room for ease to grow facilitates the effective engagement in other contemplative practices.
Daoist Quotes on Meditation
When it arises, there is no brightness,
When it declines, there is no darkness,
It is continuously so, nameless,
Always returning to that which is no thing,
This is called the form of the formless,
The image of that which is no thing.
This mysterious quote on meditation originates in ancient china and reflects Daoist thought. Nothingness is thought to be the origin of everything. Sitting with this passage helps to disentangle from the usual noise in our life. There can be form, structure and detail and there can be an absence of all that.
Nothingness connotes a space that is completely without attributes. A silence, a stillness that is without form, or any other characteristic. Unlike the conditions of our bodies and lives and minds, accessing nothingness helps to access stillness and quiet that is unaffected by what is going on in our inner and outer world.
Ever desireless, one sees the mystery,
Ever desiring, one sees only the manifestations,
And the mystery itself is the doorway to all understanding.
Relecting upon this passage reminds us that we are always seeking, running after one thing or the other. This seeking keeps us enmeshed in complexities, keeping us from being free of notions and concepts and views.
Amongst quotes on meditation, this one stands out in reminding us to simplify things and sit without seeking anything once in a while. It reminds us that often, striving and seeking are best let go. In doing so, we acquire a sense of ease that allows us to look beyond what is obvious and apparent.
Birth is not a beginning, death is not an end,
There is existence without limitation,
There is continuity without a starting point,
Existence without limitation is space,
Continuity without a starting point is time,
There is birth, there is death,
There is issuing forth, there is entering in,
That through which one passes without seeing its form,
That is the portal of god.
Daoist quotes on meditation like this one are known for their cryptic and enigmatic content. This one really helps to generate a sense of spaciousness. It reminds us that we are one with the total movement of existence. That time is really beginningless and that we are a movement manifesting within the space of creation. That this movement is without start or finish and is limitless, just like the space of creation.
When we sit calmly and let the noise in our minds subside, we can access a stillness that is one with the movement of all existence. What we perceive as our personality or our self is just like a bubble on a river.
Tao endures without a name, yet nothing is left undone.
If kings and lords could possess it, all beings would transform themselves.
Transformed, they desire to create,
I quiet them through nameless simplicity.
Then there is no desire.
No desire is serenity.
And the world settles of itself.
According to the Daoists, the Tao encompasses everything and is yet immeasurable and nameless. Nothing is excluded from it and all that is done, and not done is within it. All possibilities, all eventualities are within the Tao even though it is ungraspable, beyond expression and without signs. If it were tangible and beings could grasp it, they would come to limitless power. With the capability of the Tao, they would act and acquire the will to form and develop and create. Expression, ideas and knowledge would issue with great energy and purpose. The world would change, beings would change.
However, calmed through the nameless simplicity of this very Tao, there would come about a cessation of the energy of activity and desire. This would lead back to the immeasurable, and things would settle back into the natural order, the order of the Tao itself.
There is mystery in this passage and like every other such verse, it highlights Daoist flair for paradox. The contemplation of such verses is the contemplation of that which is immeasurable and yet limitless.
In the manifest realm, there is only the potential for measure.
The ground for this potential is the absence of measure.
This absence is the only state.
Like bubbles in a river, conditions and dispositions appear, change and dissipate.
While the water remains the only state.
So there is nothing to avoid or acquire.
Everything is just the one state.
Pain is the one state, joy is the one state.
The good is the one state and the bad is the one state.
In seeing that everything is the one state there is peace.
In knowing whatever it is, is the one state, we behold the only state.
Saying that what we think is measure is actually the potential for measure is quite likely accurate. What appears to be definite, changes or decays and dissipates. Any state of measure, be it a mountain or a thought or feeling or me and you are therefore potential. Any such potential for measure is borne within the absence of measure. This absence or non-measure is the only ground.
Thoughts to Meditate Upon
In assuming that form is fleeting, we confuse structure with information. The information that form augers interfaces with our database of thoughts, feelings and such. When that happens, the inadequacy of assessment makes itself evident.
Thought and worry are not insight.
Is the progression of information to knowledge based on consequences? Are these developments inevitable?
Since the absence of certainty isn't a goal, how do we process the movement that is this moment?
When there is confusion about certainty, do we fall back upon the need for it?
The possibility for things going wrong will never ever cease to be. There is fear.
Light is substance and even space is so.
What is commonplace is good!