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23 Powerful Inspirational Quotes You Can Use to Support Your Meditation Habit

By sunny breeze

You have tried meditation and given up? You are not alone. Many have done that.

Maintaining meditation habit is tough. It takes a lot of strength, persistence, and iron will.

You have to use every resource you can find to help yourself. Because, the reality is ... no one will help you in your practice if you don't help yourself.

Our society is materialistic. People are pursuing materialistic goals. Everything works that way, and, more often than not, you have to swim against the stream.

So, I will say it again, you have to use every resource at your disposal.

One of the resources I have found useful are inspirational quotes. I use them all the time. I use them to inspire myself. I use them when I am down to motivate myself to go through my meditation routine.

Because, meditation is a must. It is the single most important thing in my life. It should be the single most important thing in yours too.

Even if you know for a fact that meditation is of paramount importance, you can get overwhelmed by the problems and difficulties of everyday life. You might need a little push. And these meditation quotes provide exactly that.

In the following, I will share with you some of my favorite quotes (in no particular order). I hope you too will find them inspiring and use them to help build your meditation habit.

1. Ajahn Amaro

Ajahn Amaro is a teacher in the Theravada Buddhism. Inspired by the tradition of Ajahn Chah, his meditation center Amaravati Monastery in England teaches ethics, concentration and meditation methods, as a way of dealing with stress.

"If you have time to breathe you have time to meditate. You breathe when you walk. You breathe when you stand. You breathe when you lie down."

2. Sogyal Rinpoche

Sogyal Rinpoche is a Tibetan lama from the Nyingma tradition. Over 30 years he has been active as spiritual teacher. Sogyal Rinpoche is also the spiritual director of Rigpa, a network of more than 100 international Buddhist centers and groups. He is the author of the modern bestseller "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying".

The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this lifetime.

3. Hakuin Ekaku

Hakuin Ekaku was an influential figure in Zen Buddhism. He was teaching traditionally rigorous methods of meditation, integrating it with the practice of koan.

What is this true meditation? It is to make everything: coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, action, the evil and the good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong, into one single koan.

4. Zen Proverbs

Zen is a meditation practice from the Mahayana Buddhism. Originally developed in China, Zen found its stronghold in Japan. It insists on meticulous meditation practice and direct experiences of the truth in everyday life, rather than relying on doctrines or religious texts. These Zen proverbs are a real treasure and offer plenty of insight and wisdom to live by.

You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes a day, unless you are too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.

Still water has no mind to receive the image of the migrating geese.

5. Dogen Zenji

Dogen Zenji was a Japanese Zen teacher from the 13th century, a founder of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism. His best known writing is the 95 bundle work "Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma", which deals with meditation practice and how to achieve enlightenment.

If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it.

6. Seng-Ts'an

Seng-Ts'an was a Buddhist layman who become a monk at the age of over forty years under the guidance of the master Hui-k'o. He achieved enlightenment and wrote the priceless verses titled Hsin Hsin Ming. Follow the link above to read the full text translated to English as Inscribed on the Believing Mind, On Trust in the Heart and The Mind of Absolute Trust.

Do not seek the truth, only cease to cherish your opinions.

Stop talking, stop thinking, and there is nothing you will not understand. Return to the root and you will find Meaning.

7. Alan Watts

Alan Watts was a British writer, philosopher, and speaker. He was best known for interpreting and popularizing Eastern philosophy for the Western audience.

If you can't meditate in a boiler room, you can't meditate.

8. Jiddu Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti was a speaker and writer on themes such as psychological revolution, meditation, the nature of mind, inquiry, and bringing about radical change in society. He stressed the need for a revolution in the psyche itself and not by any external entity, be it religious, political, or social.

The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life, the strife, the pain, and the fleeting joy. It must begin there, and bring order, and from there move endlessly. But if you are concerned only with making order, then that very order will bring about its own limitation, and the mind will be its prisoner. In all this movement you must somehow begin from the other end, from the other shore, and not always be concerned with this shore or how to cross the river. You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is.

9. Paramahansa Yogananda

Paramahansa Yogananda was a guru and yogi from India. He introduced many millions of westerners to the teachings of meditation and Yoga, specifically Kriya Yoga. His most famous and one of the best inspirational books of all time, is Autobiography of a Yogi. His guru was Swami Yukteswar Giri.

Before embarking on important undertakings, sit quietly, calm your senses and thoughts, and meditate deeply. You will then be guided by the great creative power of Spirit.

10. Swami Rama

Sri Swami Rama was one of the first Indian yogis that influenced the Western world. He was able to demonstrate his yogic abilities to the scientists, including the ability to control the automatic bodily processes at will.

Meditation is a journey without movement. In the external world you have to move in order to go ahead, in meditation you don't move, yet you attain.

11. Yeshe Dorje

Yeshe Dorje is a Tibetan monk from the Tsurphu Monastery. He was eleventh Gyalwa Karmapa, the head teacher and leader of the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism.

Meditating means bringing the mind back to something again and again. Thus, we all meditate, but unless we direct it in some way, we meditate on ourselves and on our own problems, reinforcing our self-clinging.

12. Pema Chodron

Pema Chodron teaches meditation and how to apply it to everyday life. She is famous for her down-to-earth interpretation of Tibetan Buddhism. She is the teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, the first Tibetan monastery for Westerners.

Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better, it's about befriending who we are.

13. Annamalai Swami

Annamalai Swami was a disciple of Sri Ramana Maharshi. He was practicing Self-enquiry for decades before realizing the Self. He published two books "Living by the Words of Bhagavan" and "Final Talks" in which he used plain and direct language while explaining the concepts of meditation and self-realization.

If you can resist the impulse to claim each and every thought as your own, you will come to a startling conclusion: you will discover that you are the consciousness in which the thoughts appear and disappear.

If you pay attention to thoughts and feelings while you meditate and try to use them to evaluate how well or how badly you are meditating, you will never reach the ultimate silence. Instead you will just get bogged down in mental concepts.

14. Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra is an American author and New Age guru from Indian origin. He began his medical career in the Northeastern United States. Soon he become Chief of Staff at the New England Memorial Hospital. After meeting Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who invited him to study Ayurveda, Chopra left medical career and became the president of the American Association of Ayurvedic Medicine

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

15. Swami Muktananda

Swami Muktananda was a Siddha Yoga guru and a founder of the spiritual discipline of Siddha Yoga. His book encompass the subjects Vedanta, Shaivism, and Kundalini Shakti, as well as his biography The play of consciousness".

Your goal is not to battle with the mind, but to witness the mind.

16. Nisargadatta Maharaj

Nisargadatta Maharaj was an Indian spiritual teacher and philosopher. He is the most famous spiritual teacher of the Advaita school since Ramana Maharshi. He is widely known for his book, "I AM THAT" which brought him international recognition and followers.

Love says 'I am everything.' Wisdom says 'I am nothing.' Between the two, my life flows.

17. Ramana Maharshi

Ramana Maharshi is one of the most famous Indian gurus of modern times. At the age of sixteen, Ramana lost his sense of individual selfhood. Later on, this moment of awakening was recognized as enlightenment by the master himself. His teachings was a result of his direct knowledge of the truth and the reality of the consciousness. Ramana's method of choice was self-enquiry as a way to awaken, realize the Self, and attain liberation.

One must realise his Self in order to open the store of unalloyed happiness.

18. Dalai Lama

The current Dalai Lama is the 14th Dalai Lama and the longest lived incumbent. His religious name is Tenzin Gyatso. He was selected at the age of two as the new incarnation of the previous Dalai Lama. In 1950, he became the spiritual and religious leader of the Tibetan people.

Sleep is the best meditation.

19. Author Unknown

Author Unknown. Sometimes the greatest wit and ingenuity comes from people whose names we will never know.

Don't just do something - sit there!

Meditation is the art of staying in this present moment. A sleepy person either lives in the past moment or is dreaming about the future life. But a meditator stays in this present moment and is alert about his thoughts and actions.

I hope you like at least some of the quotes I just shared with you. What is your favorite meditation quote? What incentive do you use to help yourself meditate regularly? Please share your thoughts below. Namaste!

About the Author

sunny breeze is a member of sunnyray's staff.

Comments:

max rudolph says:
09-29-2015

I am this awareness that I am aware of Say no more because there is no more.

budhi says:
03-06-2016

I don't see Osho anywhere on this page. i believe he deserves a place too. i like this one from Osho:
Meditation is a must before you can really love.
One should be capable of being alone, utterly alone, and yet tremendously blissful. Then you can love. Then your love is no more a need but a sharing, no more a necessity. You will not become dependent on the people you love. You will share, and sharing is beautiful.

sunnyray says:
03-06-2016

Thanks budhi for your contribution. I love the cited Osho's quote. With love and light, sunnyray.

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