In the name of God

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

~Leo Tolstoy

When we understand

When we understand, we are at the center of the circle, and there we sit while Yes and No chase each other around the circumference.

~Chuang-Tzu

You must learn

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity
and to be vibrantly alive in repose.

~ Indira Ghandi

Tent tethered

Tent tethered among jack pine and blue-bells. Lacewings rise from rock incubators. Wild geese flying north. And I can’t remember who I’m supposed to be.

~Robert Maclean

Empty your mind

"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend."

~ Bruce Lee

Just be ready

"Do not be tense, just be ready, not thinking but not dreaming, not being set but being flexible. It is being "wholly" and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come."

~ Bruce Lee

Do not be tense

"Do not be tense, just be ready, not thinking but not dreaming, not being set but being flexible. It is being "wholly" and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come. The danger of training with the heavy bag is that it doesn't react to one’s attack and sometimes there is a tendency to thoughtlessness. One will punch the bag carelessly, and would be vulnerable in a real situation if this became a habit."

~ Bruce Lee

When a warrior

“When a warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become attainable.””

~Carlos Castaneda

The mountains

The mountains, I become a part of it... The morning mists, the clouds, the gathering waters, I become a part of it.

~Navajo Chant

But I'll tell you

But I'll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything.

~Alan Watts

Wherever you go

"Wherever you go in the midst of movement and activity, carry your stillness within you. Then the chaotic movement around you will never overshadow your access to the reservoir of creativity, the field of pure potentiality."

-- Deepak Chopra

Contain your experience

"Contain your experience with the divine
so that it does not escape you but rather shapes you.
Be silent.
Silence will help you avoid engaging in the games of competition and illusion
that regularly seduce us in the outside world.
Silence also helps you avoid distraction.
It helps focus the busy mind -
the mind that always has to be doing something, thinking something,
the mind that always has to be otherwise engaged
lest it become introspective and allow the soul's voice to override its own.
The silence I am describing is a silence that you use
to contain the grace you receive when you enter the Castle of your soul.
This quality of silence allows you to engage in discernment.
You carry this silence within you, even when you are with others.
It allows you to hold your center amid the chaos of your life;
it keeps you clear so that you do not do or say things you will regret
or make decisions out of fear. "

~ Caroline Myss

So I feel like

"So, I feel like I am sitting in the middle of the storm, while the world is holding its breath. That, or I have already slipped quietly into the long night of absolute madness....."

~Anonymous.

The greatest support

"The greatest support we can have is mindfulness, which means being totally present in each moment. If the mind remains centered, it cannot make up stories about the injustice of the world or one's friends, or about one's desires or sorrows. All these stories could fill many volumes, but when we are mindful such verbalizations stop. Being mindful means being fully absorbed in the moment, leaving no room for anything else. We are filled with the momentary happening, whatever it is--standing or sitting or lying down, feeling pleasure or pain--and we maintain a nonjudgmental awareness, a "just knowing."

~Ayya Khema, "Be an Island"

I went

I went to the root of things, and found nothing but Him alone.

~Mira Bai

The vow of silence

The vow of silence, that's the mind-blower. See, talking is what I do... [i] t's a real need with me, a craving, I'm like a word junkie. I never shut up. I talk to myself, I talk in my sleep. The idea of voluntarily turning off that tap, I can't imagine it! It'd be like, I don't know, all the rivers in the world just slammed to a stop. No churning, no flowing, no white water, just stillness, crushing stillness. I don't think I could stand it, locked up like that in my own psyche. I'd collapse into myself, I'd implode!

~Northern Exposure

When doing becomes

When DOING becomes infused with the timeless quality of BEING that is Success.
Unless Being flows into doing, unless you are present, you lose yourself in whatever you do. You also lose yourself in thinking, as well as in your reactions to what happens externally.

~Eckhart Tolle

What lies behind

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let the waters

Let the waters settle
you will see stars and moon
mirrored in your Being.

~Rumi