Thomas Merton Quotes

As long as you look for a Buddha somewhere else, you'll never see that your own mind is the Buddha.

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.

The deeper you get into Yoga you realize it is a spiritual practice. It's a journey I'm making. I'm heading that way.

Enlightenment is the key to everything, and it is the key to intimacy, because it is the goal of true authenticity.

Prince didn't want to celebrate birthdays but to live life, to elevate and educate to the next level of enlightenment.

The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.

The spiritual quest is a journey without distance. You travel from where you are right now To where you have always been. From ignorance to recognition.

How can one become enlightened? One can, because one is enlightened - one just has to recognize the fact.

This is the pathless path - returning to where you were initially before you got lost. The deepest truth in you is where the journey leads - shedding, like taking off layers of an onion, until you come to your essence. The key to the spiritual journey is not acquiring something outside of yourself. Rather it is shedding the veils to come back to the deepest truth of your being.

It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing. Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things.

Those who practice know whether realization is attained or not, just as those who drink water know whether it is hot or cold

Realisation is nothing new to be acquired. It is already there, but obstructed by a screen of thoughts. All our attempts are directed to lifting this screen and then realisation is revealed.

The entire heavenly realm is within us, but to find it we have to relate to what's outside.

I am not saying that you should renounce things, that you should escape from your home and renounce the marketplace. No, don't misunderstand my statement. What is, is good. Nothing will happen either by dropping things and escaping from them or by clinging to them. Remain where you are, but begin the search within. Much outer searching has already been done, now go within. Now know the one, in this knowing one attains all. All desires are at once fulfilled.

Witnessing can be called the seed and enlightenment can be called the flowers. But begin from witnessing, and then it starts growing. Go on nourishing it, go on caring for it, go on watering it, strengthen it in every possible way - and one day it is going to blossom. That day will be the greatest day of your life.

You can't make a date with enlightenment.

Meditation is the eye that sees the Truth, the heart that feels the Truth and the soul that realises the Truth.

I was going through the hardest thing, also the greatest thing, for any human being to do; to accept that which is already within you, and around you.

Paradise is at your own center; unless you find it there, there is no way to enter.

When you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there.

The only journey is the one within.

Like Yoga, the spiritual life is actually very difficult.

There are things that I value now that I didn't when I first went over there, like Zen Buddhism, which has become part of my life over the last couple years.

The final goal of all human endeavor is the development of the human soul.