If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently... and even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour of contemplation but bring your heart back, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.
--Saint Francis of Sales
As concentration and attention increase, the mind becomes clear and balanced. More and more sharply we see how things are changing in each instant, how trhese are ultimately not a source of lasting happiness, and how fthe whole mindbody process flows according to certain laws (karma)empty of any permanent self... These profound insights become clear simply from increasing mindfulness, penetrating awareness of our own process. With these insights wisdom arises, bringing equanimity, loving kindness and compassion, for in experiencing the emptiness of self we see the unity of all beings.
-- Jack Kornfield
Our discovery of God is in a way God's discovery of us. We know Him in so far as we are known by Him, and our contemplation of Him is a participation in God's contemplation of Himself. We become contemplatives when God discovers Himself in us. At that moment, the point of our contact with God opens up and we pass through the center of our souls and enter eternity.
-- Thomas Merton
The most beautiful and profound emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in thier most primitive forms - this knowledge this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illuminable superior who reveals himself in the slightest details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction for the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
- Albert Einstein
Before me peaceful
Behind me peaceful
Under me peaceful
Over me peaceful
Around me peaceful.
-Traditional Navajo Prayer
At first meditator feels like his mind is tumbling like a river falling through a gorge
In midcourse, it flows slowly like the gently meandering River Ganges
and finally, the river becomes one with the great vast Ocean, where the lights of Son (self) and Mother (ground of being) merge into on.
-- Tlopa
In a flash, the violent mind stood still. Within without are both transparent and clear. After the great sommersault, like the void is broken through.
Oh, how freely come and go
the myriad forms of things!
--Han Shan
--Saint Francis of Sales
As concentration and attention increase, the mind becomes clear and balanced. More and more sharply we see how things are changing in each instant, how trhese are ultimately not a source of lasting happiness, and how fthe whole mindbody process flows according to certain laws (karma)empty of any permanent self... These profound insights become clear simply from increasing mindfulness, penetrating awareness of our own process. With these insights wisdom arises, bringing equanimity, loving kindness and compassion, for in experiencing the emptiness of self we see the unity of all beings.
-- Jack Kornfield
Our discovery of God is in a way God's discovery of us. We know Him in so far as we are known by Him, and our contemplation of Him is a participation in God's contemplation of Himself. We become contemplatives when God discovers Himself in us. At that moment, the point of our contact with God opens up and we pass through the center of our souls and enter eternity.
-- Thomas Merton
The most beautiful and profound emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in thier most primitive forms - this knowledge this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illuminable superior who reveals himself in the slightest details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction for the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
- Albert Einstein
Before me peaceful
Behind me peaceful
Under me peaceful
Over me peaceful
Around me peaceful.
-Traditional Navajo Prayer
At first meditator feels like his mind is tumbling like a river falling through a gorge
In midcourse, it flows slowly like the gently meandering River Ganges
and finally, the river becomes one with the great vast Ocean, where the lights of Son (self) and Mother (ground of being) merge into on.
-- Tlopa
In a flash, the violent mind stood still. Within without are both transparent and clear. After the great sommersault, like the void is broken through.
Oh, how freely come and go
the myriad forms of things!
--Han Shan
