Thomas Merton Quotes

Meditation means keeping one mind. You must understand - what is life? What is death? If you keep one mind, there is no life, no death. Then if you die tomorrow, no problem; if you die in five minutes, no problem.

To a Buddhist, contradictions only exist in a mind that has been forced to cultivate them.

The Great Way has no gate. Clear water has no taste. The tongue has no bone. In complete stillness, a stone girl is dancing.

To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no trace continues endlessly.

Meditation makes you innocent, it makes you childlike. In that state, miracles are possible. That state is pure magic. A great transformation happens - in innocence you transcend the mind, and to transcend the mind is to become the Awakened One, the Enlightened One.

Change of state is not the point; recognizing the Changeless is the point, recognizing primordial Emptiness is the point, and if you are breathing and vaguely awake, that state of consciousness will do just fine.

The Buddha is not a person but a (state of) realization to which anyone can attain.

Zen is a way of liberation, concerned not with discovering what is good or bad or advantageous, but what is.

If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won't see the Buddha.

To see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma, because seeing is neither seeing nor not seeing and because understanding is neither understanding nor not understanding.

When a human being becomes so still that they begin to lose awareness of their gender, and they are simply looking into that abyss where there is no notion of self whatsoever, the world disappears. And that's really the only place to go. It's the only place to remain.

I'm big into Eastern concepts. The horror of life, the love of children, the whole phantasmagoria - it's all meaningless. Be still, and see what happens. All of life unfolds perfectly. You have to get beyond consciousness.

When the mind is empty, silent, when it is in a state of complete negation - which is not blankness, nor the opposite of being positive, but a totally different state in which all thought has ceased - only then is it possible for that which is unnameable to come into being.

Buddhas can take you to the boundary line of meditation and samadhi. That is the only difference between meditation and samadhi. If your mind has become utterly quiet and silent, but only the master is there, then it is meditation. If your mind has become so quiet that even the master has disappeared, it is samadhi. The last barrier is going to be the master. He will take you out of the world, but one day you will have to leave him too. And the real master will always keep you alert that you have to leave him one day, at the final stage.

It's much better to become a Buddha than a Buddhist.

Before practicing meditation, we see that mountains are mountains. When we start to practice, we see that mountains are no longer mountains. After practicing a while, we see that mountains are again mountains. Now the mountains are very free. Our mind is still with the mountains, but it is no longer bound to anything.

All the buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be — don´t try to become. Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance." Osho

Sannyas is only a declaration. The work is meditation. In one single word, my religion is complete, and that is meditation.

Without going outside, you may know the whole world, without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven. The farther you go, the less you know. Thus the sage knows without traveling; he sees without looking; he works without doing.

Even in intake, the one steadfast thought is said to be the natural state. Nirvikalpa Samadhi will result when the sensory objects are not present.

Zen has an expression, "nothing special." When you understand "nothing special," you realize that everything is special. Everything's special and nothing's special. Everything's spiritual and nothing's spiritual. It's how you see, it's what eyes you're looking through, that matters.

To remain caught up in ideas and words about Zen is, as the old masters say, to stink of Zen.

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.

Wakefulness is the way to life. The fool sleeps As if he were already dead, But the master is awake And he lives forever.

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.