MEDITATION
May I be healthy and strong. May I be safe and protected. May I be peaceful and free from mental, emotional, and physical suffering. May I be happy and joyful. May I be patient and understanding. May I be loving, kind, compassionate, and gentle in my ways. May I be courageous in dealing with difficulties, and always meet with success. May I be diligent and committed to my meditation practice, and to helping others along their spiritual path. May my True Nature shine through, and onto all beings I encounter.
After you write this verse, write the same words again, swapping “I” for “every person and living being in my house.” Then write it again for every person and living being in your neighborhood, then again for all people and living beings in your city, your country, the whole planet, and the entire universe, for a total of seven verses.
“As gold purified in a furnace loses its impurities and achieves its own true nature, the mind gets rid of the impurities of the attributes of delusion, attachment and purity through meditation and attains Reality.” – Adi Shankara
“Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better, it’s about befriending who we are.” – Ani Pema Chodron
When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a candle in a windless place. – Bhagavad Gita
Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded. – Buddha
“Meditation is not something that should be done in a particular position at a particular time. It is an awareness and an attitude that must persist through the day.” – Annamalai Swami
“In the first stage of meditation, we realize that we are not our bodies. In the second stage we realize we are not our minds and our ego. In the final stage, we connect with the soul and realize that we are interconnected with every particle in the universe.” David Scott
“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” – Epictetus
“Silence is a fence around wisdom.” – German Proverb
“The nature of illusion is that, when you see through it, it disappears.” – Mooji
“Let the mind come as it wants; just you don’t go with it. The greatest salesman in the world cannot sell you if you don’t buy.” – Mooji
“Meditation is to the mind what exercise is to the body – it warms and invigorates.” – John Thornton
“Your goal is not to battle with the mind, but to witness the mind.” – Swami Muktananda
“Any action done with awareness is meditation. Meditation means to be fully aware of our actions, thoughts, feelings and emotions. Another name of meditation is passive awareness.” – Unknown
“Water, if you don’t stir it, will become clear. Oil and vinegar, if you don’t shake it, will fall naturally into order.” Likewise, the mind left unaltered will find its own natural peace.
“It is of great importance, when we begin to practice meditation, not to let ourselves be frightened by our own thoughts.” – Unknown
You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger. – Buddha
“Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better, it’s about befriending who we are.” Ani Pema Chodron
“Meditate, Visualize and Create your own reality and the universe will simply reflect back to you.” – Amit Ray
“When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place.” – Bhagavad Gita
“Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit.” – Jeremy Taylor
“You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes a day, unless you are too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.” – Zen Proverb
“Meditation is like the corrective lenses of glasses that allow us to clearly see the womb of the soul.” David Scott
“You’d never invite a thief into your house. So why would you allow thoughts that steal your joy to make themselves at home in your mind?” – Prince EA
“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.” ~Etty Hillesum
When meditating our thoughts loose power over our mind, as just like a thieves entering an empty house, they have nothing to steal but emptiness and just leave.
“Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our universe.” David Scott
“Touch your inner space, which is nothingness, as silent and empty as the sky; it is your inner sky. Once you settle down in your inner sky, you have come home, and a great maturity arises in your actions, in your behavior. Then whatever you do has grace in it. Then whatever you do is a poetry in itself. You live poetry; your walking becomes dancing, your silence becomes music.” ~Osho
“Meditation will not carry you to another world, but it will reveal the most profound and awesome dimensions of the world in which you already live. Calmly contemplating these dimensions and bringing them into the service of compassion and kindness is the right way to make rapid gains in meditation as well as in life.” ~Zen Master Hsing Yun
“Meditation should not be regarded as a learning process. It should be regarded as an experiencing process.”
“Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.” ~Sharon Salzberg
“Meditation is like giving a hug to ourselves, getting in touch with that awesome reality in us. While meditating we feel a deep sense of intimacy with God, a love that is inexplicable.” ~Paramahansa Yogananda
“Keep your heart clear and transparent, and you will never be bound. A single disturbed thought creates ten thousand distractions.” – Ryokan Taigu
“Quiet the mind, and the soul will speak.” Ma Jaya
“To a mind that is still. The whole universe surrenders.”
“Go within every day and find the inner strength so that the world will not blow your candle out.” Katherine Dunham
“Only in my deep meditation do I come to know who I truly am.” Sri Chinmoy
“The body benefits from movement, and the mind benefits from stillness.” Sakyong Mipham
“In the same way that rain breaks into a house with a bad roof, desire breaks into the mind that has not been practicing meditation.” Buddha
“Within you is a stillness and a sanctuary that you can retreat to any time and be yourself.”
“Like silence after noise, or cool, clear water on a hot, stuffy day, Emptiness cleans out the messy mind and charges up the batteries of spiritual energy. Many people are afraid of Emptiness, however, because it reminds them of Loneliness.”- Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
Three Stages of Enlightenment
1. The first stage enlightenment: A Glimpse of the Whole
The first stage of enlightenment is short glimpse from faraway of the whole. It is a short glimpse of being.
The first stage of enlightenment is when, for the first time, for a single moment the mind is not functioning. The ordinary ego is still present at the first stage of enlightenment, but you experience for a short while that there is something beyond the ego.
2. The second stage of enlightenment: Silence, Relaxation, Togetherness, Inner Being
The second stage of enlightenment is a new order, a harmony, from within, which comes from the inner being. It is the quality of freedom.
The inner chaos has disappeared and a new silence, relaxation and togetherness has arisen.
3. The third stage of enlightenment: Ocean, Wholeness, No-self, Pure being
At the third stage of enlightenment, at the third step of Satori, our individual river flowing silently, suddenly reaches to the Ocean and becomes one with the Ocean. At the third Satori, the ego is lost, and there is Atma, pure being. You are, but without any boundaries. The river has become the Ocean, the Whole.