Quotes About Buddhist Meditation

#1. Buddhist meditation doen't necessarily mean sitting cross-legged with your eyes closed. Simply observing how your mind is responding to the sense world as you go about your business - walking, talking, shopping, whatever - can be a really perfect meditation and bring a perfect result.

Thubten Yeshe

#2. Mindfulness has been called the heart of Buddhist meditation.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

#3. The best part of all is that no matter how long you practice, or what method you use, every technique of Buddhist meditation ultimately generates compassion.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

#4. In the light of Buddhist meditation, love is impossible without understanding.

Thich Nhat Hanh

#5. This is Buddhist meditation-to penetrate, to be one with, in order to really understand.

Thich Nhat Hanh

#6. Looking deeply into the wrong perceptions, ideas, and notions that are at the base of our suffering is the most important practice in Buddhist meditation.

Nhat Hanh

#7. I started the Stress Reduction Clinic in 1979. The idea of bringing Buddhist meditation without the Buddhism into the mainstream of medicine was tantamount to the Visigoths being at the gates about to tear down the citadel of Western civilization.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

#8. Mindfulness is often spoken of as the heart of Buddhist meditation. It's not about Buddhism, but about paying attention. That's what all meditation is, no matter what tradition or particular technique is used.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

#9. I used homeopathy, acupuncture, yoga and meditation in conjunction with my chemotherapy to help me get stronger again after the cancer. I also chanted with Buddhist friends and prayed with Christian friends. I covered all my bases.

Olivia Newton-John

#10. I have often discussed the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path in talks I have given about meditation. But, since I also teach Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist mediation, I have a very eclectic approach to the subject.

Frederick Lenz

#11. If you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities, discuss whether it is cold, warm, whether it is really and truly composed of H-2-O, or even mineral water, or sake. Meditation is Drinking it!

Taisen Deshimaru

#12. There are techniques of Buddhism, such as meditation, that anyone can adopt. And, of course, there are Christian monks and nuns who already use Buddhist methods in order to develop their devotion, compassion, and ability to forgive.

Dalai Lama

#13. What's encouraging about meditation is that, even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we're closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance.

Pema Chodron

#14. Doing meditation you may need to experiment to discover what kinds of thoughts are best for your own unique interests and situation. For you it might be a repetitive "mantra," or simply an open state of watching your breath, like in the Buddhist tradition.

Tim McCarthy

#15. There is no meditation without wisdom, and there is no wisdom without meditation. When a man has both meditation and wisdom, he is indeed close to nirvana.

Gautama Buddha

#16. In Buddhist practice a great deal of time is spent practicing mandala meditation. You learn to visualize and hold simultaneous concepts in the mind during meditation.

Frederick Lenz

#17. I'm not a New Age person, but I do believe in meditation, and for that reason I've always liked the Buddhist religion. When I've been to Japan, I've been to Buddhist temples and meditated, and I found that rewarding.

Clint Eastwood

#18. Meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree. It completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are.

Matthieu Ricard

#19. Buddhist monks have known for centuries that meditation can change the mind. Now we are inspired by His Holiness to examine with our technology the precise brain changes that occur with practice ... The unique collaboration on meditation is just beginning.

Richard Davidson

#20. Delight in meditation and solitude. Compose yourself, be happy. You are a seeker.

Gautama Buddha

#21. If the Truth is already clear, what is the use of meditation?' " " 'And if the Truth is hidden?' " Toranaga said. " 'It's already clear,' " Hiro-matsu answered correctly. The quotation was from the ancient Tantric Buddhist teacher, Saraha.

James Clavell

#22. There was something important being overlooked, they argued, in the mainstreaming of meditation - a central plank in the Buddhist platform: compassion.

Dan Harris

#23. How does one practice mindfulness? Sit in meditation. Be aware of only your breath.

Gautama Buddha

#24. In the same way that rain breaks into a house with a bad roof, desire breaks into the mind that has not been practising meditation.

Gautama Buddha

#25. If a man who enjoys a lesser happiness beholds a greater one, let him leave aside the lesser to gain the greater.

Gautama Buddha

#26. Meditation is doing what you are doing - whether you are doing formal meditation or child care.

Norman Fischer

#27. Of all footprints, that of the elephant is supreme. Similarly, of all mindfulness meditations, that on death is supreme.

Gautama Buddha

#28. Many questing young people and stressed older people nowadays seek relaxation through meditation. They look for it in Hindu, Buddhist and other Eastern religions. They are often surprised to learn that there is such a way within the Christian tradition, a way that is known as contemplation.

Ray Simpson

#29. I recommend computer science to people who practice meditation. The mental structures that are used in computer science are very similar exercises done in Buddhist monasteries.

Frederick Lenz

#30. In Buddhist practice, the outward and inward aspects of taking the one seat meet on our meditation cushion.

Jack Kornfield

#31. Many people, including Buddhist monks, spend thousands of hours sitting in what they call meditation. In reality, what they're doing is thinking and ruminating upon their problems.

Frederick Lenz

#32. Don't preach about meditation.

Frederick Lenz

#33. Spiritual dignity says that I don't have to compete with anyone; I don't have to do what my friends do. All I have to do is be myself and be dignified in my meditation and my lifestyle.

Frederick Lenz

#34. In order to meditate correctly, you must have knowledge.

Dalai Lama

#35. All meditation must begin with arousing deep compassion. Whatever one does must emerge from an attitude of love and benefitting others.

Milarepa

#36. If you want to experience the unalloyed ecstasy of life, you can accomplish this through the twin Buddhist practices of meditation and mindfulness.

Frederick Lenz

#37. My mother's a Buddhist. In Buddhism, if you want to achieve enlightenment, you have to do it through meditation and self-improvement through the mind. That's something she's passed on to me: to be able to calm myself down and use my mind as my main asset.

Tiger Woods

#38. The Buddhist understanding of mind is primarily derived from empirical observations grounded in the phenomenology of experience, which includes the contemplative techniques of meditation.

Dalai Lama XIV

#39. Real Buddhism is about meditation.

Frederick Lenz

#40. I'm a huge fan of meditation. I know lots of people assume meditation to be some Buddhist mumbo-jumbo, but it's been scientifically documented to create therapeutic changes in the brain.

Karen Salmansohn

#41. Another of the things I started to do during this time was what Buddhists normally call "meditation" or, in Christian terms, "contemplative prayer". It began to supersede deipnosophy as my favorite hobby.

Sara Maitland

#42. Meditation helps me feel the shape, the texture of my inner life. Here, in the quiet, I can begin to taste what Buddhists would call my true nature, what Jews call the still, small voice, what Christians call the holy spirit.

Wayne Muller

#43. True wisdom is being able to say 'it is what it is' with a smile of celebratory wonder on your face.

Eric Micha'el Leventhal