Brian Aldiss Quotes

Sit with silence a lot - real silence, where nothing is happening - because you learn so much in those moments of quiet.

When you have a sound mind, you can do what's necessary.

If you have a clear mind . . . you won't have to search for direction. Direction will come to you.

Definite speech means clarity of mind.

Leave your thoughtlessness behind you then you may begin to understand. Clear the emptiness around you with the waving of your hand.

The mind has to be empty to see clearly.

Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands. In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think....In silence, we might better say, we can hear someone else think.

What is called zazen is sitting on a zafu [pillow] in a quiet room, absolutely still, in the exact and proper position and without uttering a word, the mind empty of any thought, good or wicked. It is continuing to sit peacefully, facing a wall, and nothing more. Every day.

Stillness is training for action.

But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.

I'm real clear, you know? There's no fogginess.

Night had come—night that she loved of all times, night in which the reflections in the dark pool of the mind shine more clearly than by day.

When you step into the batter's box, have nothing on your mind except baseball.

Perhaps it is possible to discover more in silence than in speech. Or perhaps it is only that those who are silent among us learn to listen.

Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It is a way of entering into the quiet that is already there - buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day

One's attention has to penetrate the chaotic activity, pass through all the layers of subtle thought, and at last emerge into silence. This is the basic process of transcending.

The reflected world is the conquest of calm.

I would rather be of clear mind and decision with the wrong club than with an unclear mind and the right club.

If the mind falls asleep, awaken it. Then if it starts wandering, make it quiet. If you reach the state where there is neither sleep nor movement of mind, stay still in that, the natural (real) state.

Meditation is how to drop knowledge. Meditation means how to become ignorant again. Meditation means how to become a child again, a rose bush, a rock. Meditation means how just to be and not to think.

Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God.

Meditation more than anything in my life was the biggest ingredient of whatever success I've had.

A clean mind always delivers power.

When we fill our thoughts with right things, the wrong ones have no room to enter

Not many years ago, it was access to information and movement that seemed our greatest luxury; nowadays it’s often freedom from information, the chance to sit still, that feels like the ultimate prize. Stillness is not just an indulgence for those with enough resources – it’s a necessity for anyone who wishes to gather less visible resources.