Thomas Merton Quotes

Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or riding in a train.

Centering prayer is a training in letting go.

Contemplation is an alternative consciousness that refuses to identify with or feed what are only passing shows. It is the absolute opposite of addiction, consumerism or any egoic consciousness.

I don't have to go to a mountain to meditate. I'm meditative in every moment of my life.

Prayer does not demand that we interrupt our work, but that we continue working as if it were a prayer.

Sometimes I think that just not thinking of oneself is a form of prayer. . .

One way to recollect the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquillity, is not to let it wander too far at other times. You should keep it strictly in the presence of God; and being accustomed to think of Him often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of prayer, or at least to recall it from its wanderings.

You will never be able to have perfect interior peace and recollection unless you are detached even from the desire of peace and recollection. You will never be able to pray perfectly until you are detached from the pleasures of prayer.

Remember always that the ultimate value is meditation, so anything you do, do meditatively; and all things can be done in a meditative way.

Prayer draws us near to our own souls.

We all need to get the balance right between action and reflection. With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock.

Speak, move, act in peace, as if you were in prayer. In truth, this is prayer.

People think meditation is a huge undertaking.

To understand one's world, one must sometimes turn away from it! To serve better, one must briefly hold it at a distance. Where can the necessary solitude be found, the long breathing space in which mind gathers its strength and takes stock of its courage.

It is a good thing to let prayer be the first business of the morning and the last of the evening.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

The root of prayer is interior silence.

There is one art of which people should be masters - the art of reflection.

There is nothing harder to come by than detachment and solitude; and nothing more important.

Right mindfulness does not simply mean being aware; it is like creating a work of art. You can therefore trust what you are doing; you are not threatened by anything. You have room to dance in the space, and this makes it a creative situation. The space is open to you.

Each one of us needs time and space for recollection, meditation and calmness.... Thanks be to God that this is so! In fact, this need tells us that we are not made for work alone, but also to think, to reflect or even simply to follow with our minds and our hearts a tale, a story in which to immerse ourselves, in a certain sense to lose ourselves to find ourselves subsequently enriched.

This is the whole secret of non-attachment: live in the world, but don't be of the world. Love people, but don't create attachments. Reflect people, reflect the beauties of the world - and there are so many. But don't cling. The clinging mind loses its mirrorhood. And mirrorhood is Buddhahood. To keep that quality of mirroring continuously fresh is to remain young, is to remain pure, is to remain innocent. Know, but don't create knowledge. Love, but don't create desire. Live, live beautifully, live utterly, abandon yourself in the moment. But don't look back. This is the art of non-attachment.

The stillness in art characterizes prayer, and the eye of the storm.