Best 152 quotes in «stillness quotes» category

A book about books is like a poem about poetry: Books are knowledge, paid for, all. Readers - horses in a stall. Stallions should always run. Lest they stale become, in turn. Running waters are most clear. In some books, you disappear – lose yourself, and track of time. How I wish that one was mine... Mine, to have, to write, to read... Mine, just like a flying steed. Mine, forever, - to improve. Would I then, of me, approve? I would not, I can't... myself. I'm but dust, swept off a shelf. Fly, can I, just 'til I'm settled, down, beside my flower, petalled.

You see more sitting still than chasing after.

After long years of solitary meditation, Jenny had come to accept that, for her, magic was a depth and a stillness rather than the moving brilliance that it was for the great.

Attain complete emptiness, Hold fast to stillness. Understanding the ordinary: Mind opens. Mind opening leads to compassion, Compassion to nobility, Nobility to heavenliness, Heavenliness to TAO. TAO endures. Your body dies. There is no danger.

As you begin befriending your breath, you see immediately that unawareness is everywhere.

Any method can settle the mind in the present moment, but with Silent Illumination you can be relieved of even the present moment. Just take this attitude: don’t worry about the past or the future, and let go of the present too. Just stay in awareness. Chan is called the “gateless gate” because it has no door to enlightenment.

Be comfortable with "Not getting to bottom of everything" Sometimes unconsciously we must find out why this happened, who started what, how am I going to do this. Have faith that things will work out, and be GOOD with knowing that some things are unexplainable.

Be calm...calm as a calm lagoon, then you will look beautiful as a beautiful calm lagoon crowned by the Moon and sheltered by the brilliance of the stars reclaiming your royalty of regal life...

By morning, Delphine had let go of dreaming. She had decided that all she required was the deep cool darkness of sleep. Dreams were too untrustworthy. they could turn quickly, without warning. She was no longer willing to accept their mercurial ways. There was no need. Her stillness allowed her to live between time. She was no longer a slave to it. She could be young or old. She could pass into the next world or stay in this one. With the taste of the langoustines still on her tongue, she could feel her husband's soft hand against her thigh and the tangle of their bodies, the heat of it. 'Quick. Quick.' Dreams had become unnecessary.

By quieting externally, you gain the space internally. Life is a flow - it goes on. Good or bad, it will always change.

Calmness has the power to leave dirty water as clean water on top of dirt.

Education will teach you ephemeral things. God will teach you wonders.

Deep inquiry leads to contemplation, or prayer. Through dedicated contemplation we can attune to consciousness, the light which constitutes all phenomena. This light is our intrinsic nature. Our being is always shining. Our real nature is openness, listening, release, surrender without producing or will. Prayer or contemplation is welcoming free from projection and expectation. It is without demand and formulation. It invites the object to unfold in you and reveals your openness to you. Live with this opening, this vastness. Attune yourself to it. It is love. Ardent contemplation brings you to living meditation so ultimately they are one.

Don't care - what was and what will be, You are already what you need to be, Flow in this moment and see, Stillness is the key to be free.

Don’t ever stop believing in your own personal transformation. It is still happening even on the days you may not realize it or feel like it.

During the Meiji era, the Japanese Zen master, Nan-in had a visitor from a respected university – a professor who wanted to learn about Zen. Nan-in served the professor a pot of tea, but when the cupwas full, he continued pouring until the cup was overflowing. The startled professor watched in amazement until he could no longer restrain himself from intervening, “The cup is full and no more will go in. You’re making a mess!” “Like this cup,” Nan-insaid, “You are full of your own opinions, artificial concepts and negative speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” Like the learned professor who wanted to understand spirituality, you too must empty your cup and have an open mind and heart.

At any point in time – it is the state of your attention that defines your level of existence as human beings. In your waking state – Flowing Attention trapped in thoughts make you a private person. In your sleeping state – Still Attention free from thoughts make you an universal perceiver. In your natural state – Absolute Attention as it is naturally returns to its source and make you the peaceful pure presence. However in reality – only supreme source exists in all the above mentioned states.

Do something nice for yourself today. Find some quiet, sit in stillness, breathe. Put your problems on pause. You deserve a break.

First you recognize stillness, then you are it. You feel yourself as autonomous, that is, not identified with what is all around you. And now true relation is possible.

Even when the air seems perfectly still great changes are taking place.

Happiness is an undercurrent of sensitivity and leads a surreptitious life: it is an internal eventuality. We can feel it in stillness and it stands the test of time. Joy is an eruption of cheerful moments and we want to express it: it is an external eventuality. We might shout it out, as it conveys a dynamic of fleeting instants. Joy gives voice to “en-joy-ment”. ("The grass was greener over there")

Go deeply into the urge to be silent and not the mental interference of how, where and when. If you follow silence to its source you can be taken by it in a moment.

Grip’s favorite painting didn’t contain a single figure. 'Seven A.M.' showed distant trees on one side, and on the other a storefront that time had passed by. So still. Some kind of story could probably be told, but one refrained from asking questions. The light and shadows convinced the viewer to exist in the moment. Hopper had drawn sharp lines where the sun cast shadows on the white walls inside the window, while outside the ground gleamed like warm sand. The hands of an old wall clock suggested that the time was seven. Someone who should have been there was somewhere else. Yet nothing was missing. With the morning light streaming down on the ground and in through the window, time might as well have stopped—so the clock always stood at seven. Just like that, a place where nothing ever changes.

How would it be to not do anything in a given moment? Does this sound impossible? This is easier than the mind thinks. It is often about letting go and allowing instead of making something happen. This non-reaction opens the portal to stillness.

I bathed myself in silence, wrapped warmly in the comfort of the quiet. Yes, the stillness accepts us as we are.

I am like a deep, still mountain lake. The surface is a mirror that reflects the sky above. I await in tranquility for the breath of God to move across me.

I began to understand that when a woman was looking at the sky, she wasn't looking for anything. She was just being still.

I honour the clarity of the present moment, and the stillness at the centre of being (mine & others), even in the midst of so much doing.

I create beautiful art, so I can look back on the life my body fell short of in such a way that it brings me peace.

I didn't know why he had chosen me, why it was only to me that he could show the most humbling sides of his handicap. I didn't care. For the war was no longer eroding the peaceful summertime stillness I had prized so much at Devon, and although the playing fields were crusted under a foot of congealed snow and the river was now a hard gray-white lane of ice between gaunt trees, peace had come back to Devon for me.

If we can only be still, we shall behold, the beauty of a still voice.

If you keep looking within, you will find stillness, a tranquillity that you’ve never experienced before. It’s like this secret space your mind can visit that unlocks new levels of creativity and confidence that you never thought possible.

I keep forgetting how important it is to just be still sometimes. Without a phone, or a TV, or a friend. Alone. Quiet. Connected to nothing, and everything, all at once. Undistracted

Find clarity in the stillness. New ideas and new understandings will come to you. As inner peace begins to wash over you, you will find that many of the things you have been so concerned with, don't even matter at all. Problems will literally dissolve into non-problems.

I have been asked many times, "How do you stop thinking?" And I have found one way. The minute I can look at any person or condition and know that it is neither good nor evil, my thought stops, and my mind becomes quiet. That is the end of it because then there are no thoughts left for me to think about it: I do not think good of it and I do not think evil of it. All I know is that it is, and then I am back at the center of my being where all power is. Our mind is restless only when we are thinking about things or persons, either in terms of good or evil, but the mind is at rest when we surrender all such concepts.

In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. And in an age of distraction, nothing is so luxurious as paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.

In fact, the room was so quiet you might have heard a drop of paint splash.

In deep sleep we are one.

Inner stillness is the key to outer strength.

In my silence and stillness, my soul dances with the ecstasy of life.

In stillness, I am speechless.

Insanity comes in two basic varieties: slow and fast... Viscosity and Velocity are opposites, yet they can look the same. Viscosity causes the stillness of disinclination; velocity causes the stillness of fascination. An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled, or because inner life is transfixingly busy.

I have often wondered whether especially those days when we are forced to remain idle are not precisely the days spend in the most profound activity. Whether our actions themselves, even if they do not take place until later, are nothing more than the last reverberations of a vast movement that occurs within us during idle days. In any case, it is very important to be idle with confidence, with devotion, possibly even with joy. The days when even our hands do not stir are so exceptionally quiet that it is hardly possible to raise them without hearing a whole lot.

In transitions, we must learn to be still. Being still is, in part, about learning to be comfortable with ambiguity.

In the dead of night I stirred. Wakefulness flowed back into me. I was a cup full of sorrow, but that sorrow was stilled, like a pain that abates as long as one does not move.

In the morning stillness, when the world is just waking up and your conscious mind hasn't fully taken over, you may feel a connection or passageway to another world, and a feeling that something is about to happen in yours. It's like a quiet storm is coming. You can feel the distant rumble of thunder on the horizon, yet you have no idea of the deluge your life is about to experience.

I promise from now on to always make time for at least one more. One more chapter before I turn out the light and float off to sleep. One more kiss before I sink into this sea of words and search for meaning to bring back up with me. One more stretch and one more wiggle of my toes before I jump out of bed; and one more moment in meditation before I re-emerge. One more full, deep breath and one more look at the sunset. One more touch, one more smile, one more moment of stillness, of gratitude, of simplicity, of love. From now on, I’ll always make room for one more because you never know when one more is all you’ll ever have.

It is better to be still than to speak when you are angry.

It is quite rare to encounter a truly creative and productive person who resides in his own stillness or simply in the midst of his melody, close to the honest beating of his heart! (Letters on Life)

It is the still, yellow kind of afternoon when one is apt to get stuck in a dream if one sits very quiet