From Alan Watts to Eckhart tolle, I’ve put together a small collection of meditation quotes to inspire you with your practice.
25 calming meditation quotes — enjoy
Depression
“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
50,000 thoughts a day!
“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
Inner peace
“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
Be still
“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 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
Breathe
“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh
Awareness
“Meditation is not passive sitting in silence. It is sitting in awareness, free from distraction, and realizing the clear understanding that arises from concentration.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh
Wasting life
“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
Create an auspicious condition in your body
“The masters say if you create an auspicious condition in your body and your environment then meditation and realisation will automatically arise.” ― Sogyal Rinpoche
Going beyond ‘me’
“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
Compassion
“Simply let experience take place very freely, so that your open heart is suffused with the tenderness of true compassion.” – Tsoknyi Rinpoche
Practice daily
“Make meditation a daily practice, and it will soon turn into a habit.” – Remez Sasson
Pay close attention
“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
Meditation is like light
“Meditation is like light: when meditation comes, politics disappears. So you cannot be meditative and political. That is impossible: you are asking for the impossible. Meditation is not one pole: it is the absence of all conflict, all ambition, all ego trips.” – Osho
Be ignorant, childlike, drop knowledge
“Meditation is how to drop knowledge. Meditation means how to become ignorant again. Meditation means how to become a child again, a rose bush, a rock. Meditation means how just to be and not to think.” – Osho
Focus
“Meditation is simply making a choice to focus your mind on something. In fact reading a book is a form of meditation, as is watching a movie or advertising on TV.” – The Meditation Bible
Wisdom
“Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.” – Buddha
The pursuit of nothingness
“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
Change
“If you’re reading these words, perhaps it’s because something has kicked open the door for you, and you’re ready to embrace change. It isn’t enough to appreciate change from afar, or only in the abstract, or as something that can happen to other people but not to you. We need to create change for ourselves, in a workable way, as part of our everyday lives.” – Sharon Salzberg
Create more time
“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
Go beyond the jabbering of your mind
“If you learn to go beyond the jabbering of your mind, and can go to the deeper aspects of your consciousness, then body, breath, and mind will not come in your way.” – Swāmī Rāma
Mental suffering
”The mental suffering you create is always some form of non-acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgement. The intensity of the suffering depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment.” – Eckhart Tolle
Spirit
“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
Life is meditation
“We tend to think of meditation in only one way. But life itself is a meditation.” – Raul Julia
Great work
“No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.” – Walter Bagehot
No reason or purpose
“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
Photography by Clare Hudson, taken at Secret Garden Party Festival
