Andrew Weil Quotes

While you are meditating, if your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the present moment.

You cannot turn your brain off or stop your thoughts, but you can try while meditating not to become too invested in them. This is called transcendental meditation, which is the kind I practice.

When I am practicing yoga, I try to avoid music. But if I really have to listen to something, I listen to the Om chant.

I meditate. I've been a meditator since, I think I was doing it unofficially before all my life and then began to formalize it somewhere around 14.

You don't have to believe anything, adopt a dogma in order to learn how to meditate.

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.

Mindfulness is a quality that's always there. It's an illusion that there's a meditation and post-meditation period, which I always find amusing, because you're either mindful or you're not.

I meditate two hours a day, and every year I do one big long meditation course. I love it, and I'm really into it.

Through meditation and by giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose.

A good meditation, even when it is interrupted by occasional nodding, is much more beneficial than many outward religious exercises.

I usually meditate twice a day: Transcendental Meditation.

You can meditate on almost anything: a prayer, song, image or word. Close your eyes; sit in a comfortable position. Take a breath, and say the word out loud, emphasizing the humming sound at the end. When you come to the end of the breath, take another one and say the word again. And so on.

Don't think too hard. Just be present, and things will reveal themselves.

I meditate. Just counting my breath. Before I do anything, really.

It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.

Mindfulness is not about getting anywhere else.

In awareness there is no becoming, there is no end to be gained. There is silent observation without choice and condemnation, from which there comes understanding.

While you're meditating, all kinds of thoughts arise... You don't find your thoughts threatening or particularly helpful. They just become the general gossip of your thoughts. This traffic of your thoughts and the verbosity of your mind are simply part of the basic chatter that goes on in the universe. Just let it go through.

Follow the wandering, the distraction, find out why the mind has wandered; pursue it, go into it fully. When the distraction is completely understood, then that particular distraction is gone. When another comes, pursue it also.

I live in the present moment.

There's no substitute for the practice of meditation.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought.

Chanting is a simple practice. When you notice you are thinking about something else during the chant, let go of the thought and come back home, to the chant, to that place where we are expressing our inner purity.

The seated lotus postures are an amazing way to go into meditation, or simply just to take a moment to ground oneself.

The mind is a monkey, hopping around from thought to thought, image to image. Rarely do more than a few seconds go by in which the mind can remain single-pointed, empty.