Anne Lamott Quotes

Meditation applies the brakes to the mind.

Whenever your mind is totally absorbed in whatever activities you are performing, your mind will remain calm and content.

Breathing is central to every aspect of meditation training. It's a wonderful place to focus in training the mind to be calm and concentrated.

The problem is to keep the monkey mind from running off into all kinds of thoughts.

It's the nature of the mind to drift away. The mind is like the Pacific Ocean, it waves. And mindfulness has been shown to drop underneath the waves. If you drop underneath the agitation in the mind, into your breath deep enough calmness, gentle undulations.

Imagine a hot tub for the mind. That is what meditation is; it can bathe your mind in relaxing thoughts.

Meditation is warm-up exercise for the mind, so that you can jog through the rest of the day without getting agitated or spraining your patience.

Meditation stops the sound-loving mind.

Now an extraordinary and helpful fact is that by making Mind the object of our attention, not only does the serenity which is its nature begin to well up of its own accord but its steady unchanging character itself helps spontaneously to repel all disturbing thoughts.

This inner peace of mind occurs on three levels of understanding. Physical quietness seems the easiest to achieve, although there are levels and levels of this too, as attested by the ability of Hindu mystics to live buried alive for many days. Mental quietness, in which one has no wandering thoughts at all, seems more difficult, but can be achieved. But value quietness, in which one has no wandering desires at all but simply performs the acts of his life without desire, that seems the hardest.

When our mind is calm, we’re better able to find peace of mind and live a joyful life.

Concentration is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. Your mindfulness will only be as robust as the capacity of your mind to be calm and stable. Without calmness, the mirror of mindfulness will have an agitated and choppy surface and will not be able to reflect things with any accuracy.

When you are practicing zazen, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything. It appears as if something comes from outside your mind, but actually it is only the waves of your mind, and if you are not bothered by the waves, gradually they will become calmer and calmer.

For one who is a learner and who has not yet come to master their mind, but who dwells aspiring for peace from that which binds, making it a matter concerning himself, I know of no other thing as helpful as giving close attention to the mind.

Transcendental Meditation is a mental technique, so you travel to this field through subtler levels of mind, and then subtler levels of intellect, and then, at the border of intellect, you transcend and experience it.

To stay present in everyday life, it helps to be deeply rooted within yourself; otherwise, the mind, which has incredible momentum, will drag you along like a wild river.

Meditation helps concentration of the mind. Then the mind is free from thoughts and is in the meditated form.

Take complete control over the messages you allow into your conscious mind.

The more your mind is restful, the more you're capable of dynamic activity.

Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind.

Calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that's very important for good health.

I used to have to force myself to go, okay, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing and then all of a sudden a thought of some where could come in. Now I can just focus and not think about anything. So, yeah, I guess I do that a lot.

You can't control your mind. Why would you want to?

To me, meditation is simply silencing or focusing the mind.

Careless indifference and bodily restlessness in meditation cause negative vibrations.