We could say that meditation doesn't have a reason or doesn't have a purpose. In this respect it's unlike almost read more

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.

Meditation here may think down hours to moments. Here the heart may give a useful lesson to the head and read more

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.

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, read more

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.

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines read more

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... Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.

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

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

He doth entreat your grace, my noble lord,
To visit him to-morrow or next day:
He is read more

He doth entreat your grace, my noble lord,
To visit him to-morrow or next day:
He is within, with two right reverend fathers,
Divinely bent to meditation,
And in no worldly suits would he be moved
To draw him from his holy exercise.

In deep meditation the flow of concentration is continuous like the flow of oil.

In deep meditation the flow of concentration is continuous like the flow of oil.

Happy the heart that keeps its twilight hour,
And, in the depths of heavenly peace reclined,
Loves read more

Happy the heart that keeps its twilight hour,
And, in the depths of heavenly peace reclined,
Loves to commune with thoughts of tender power,--
A shining Jacob's-ladder of the mind!

Health, a light body, freedom from cravings, a glowing skin, sonorous voice, fragrance of body: these signs indicate progress in read more

Health, a light body, freedom from cravings, a glowing skin, sonorous voice, fragrance of body: these signs indicate progress in the practice of meditation.