This page is a collection of over 65 quotes from mindfulness and meditation masters/teachers, and it’s specifically about the need for intensity of concentration in your meditation practice.
The quotes generally aren’t in any specific order, they’re just in the order in which I found them. The later quotes in this article are ones that I had to google for and then confirm, but that’s about the extent of the ordering.
Quotes on intensity of concentration in mindfulness and meditation practice
- “You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.” ~ Taisen Deshimaru
- “When you do something, burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.” ~ Shunryu Suzuki “If we do not practice mindfulness while carrying a bucket of water, it is a waste of time to seclude ourselves in a monastery.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
- “You must try to be in this state at all times, even as you go about ordinary activity.” ~ Shinzen Young
- “Do every act of your life as though it is the last act of your life.” ~ Unknown
“When we choose to perform an activity, we make it a gift by dedicating our entire body-mind to it, by making it the only task we do in that moment. In that way, all activities are included in one, and all activities are unified. This is how our activity fills the universe, and how we express complete understanding in our work.” ~ Les Kaye, Zen At Work
-
“To base our lives on Zen means to emphasize our effort and not worry about attaining satisfaction. Our main emphasis should be on our effort, not its results. The results come and go, but our effort is always here.” ~ Unknown
-
“There is only Now.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
-
“Always perform the work that has to be done without attachment ... Do not be concerned with the fruits of your action, just give attention to the action itself.” ~ Bhagavad Gita
-
“Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.” ~ Shunryu Suzuki
-
“Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.” ~ Shunryu Suzuki
-
“On meditation (and life): If you’re not putting 100% of your self into it, you’re wasting your time.” ~ Unknown
“You can meditate while talking to someone, while washing the dishes, while driving. As your experience grows, you eventually come to a point where you are so present that there is a kind of merging of inside and outside ... In the beginning, meditation is something that happens within your day. Eventually, the day becomes something that happens within your meditation.” ~ Shinzen Young
- “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
- “Pay attention to the present moment, on purpose, without judgment.” ~ Jon Kabat Zinn
- “Life is available only in the present moment.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
- “Leave your front door and back door open. Let your thoughts come and go; just don’t serve them tea.” ~ Shunryu Suzuki
- “Be here now.” ~ Ram Dass
“If you want to know your own mind, there is only one way: to observe and recognize everything about it. This must be done at all times, during your day-to-day life no less than during the hour of meditation.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
- “The whole essence of Zen consists in walking along the razor’s edge of Now.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
- “You are not your thoughts ... Observing the thoughts is the beginning of ending them.” ~ Shinzen Young
- “Instant by instant, try to know when the actual physical sensations are there, and when they are not.” ~ Daniel Ingram
- “Proper meditation is so intense it doesn’t even allow thinking, ‘I am meditating.’” ~ Ramana Maharshi
-
“Enlightened beings are pure awareness.” ~ Ram Dass
-
“Most people live in the world of self-consciousness.” ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
-
“Save all your energies and time for breaking the wall your mind has built around you.” ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
-
“Don’t expect the next moment.” ~ Shunryu Suzuki
-
“Put your whole heart into whatever you do. If you do it with half a heart, you’re cheating yourself of that existence.” ~ Dipa Ma
-
"Don't take your meditation practice too lightly. It is really important. Do it carefully and with full commitment." ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
"The difference between success and failure is not intelligence or opportunity or resources. It is the willingness to put in the effort and keep putting in the effort until the job is done." ~ Tenzin Palmo
- "You have to have a fierce determination in the heart to master the Dhamma. That's it. Whether it takes lifetime or lifetimes, that's it." ~ Ayya Khema
- "Half-hearted practice brings only half-hearted results." ~ Lama Zopa Rinpoche
- "Practice with the intensity of a person whose hair is on fire running towards water." ~ Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey
- "If we want to overcome our problems and gain happiness, we must put all our energy into dharma practice." ~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
"Concentration is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. Your mindfulness will only be as robust as the capacity of your mind to be calm and stable. Without calmness, the mirror of mindfulness will have an agitated and choppy surface and will not be able to reflect things with any accuracy." ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn
- "Work diligently. Diligently. Work patiently and persistently. Patiently and persistently. And you're bound to be successful." ~ S. N. Goenka
- "Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us." ~ Pema Chödrön
- "At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully, you will awaken fully." ~ Hakuin Ekaku
- "No one succeeds without effort... Those who succeed owe their success to perseverance." ~ Ramana Maharshi
-
"Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached." ~ Swami Vivekananda
-
"Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond." ~ Sri Ramakrishna
-
"If you let go a little you will have a little peace; if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace; if you let go completely you will have complete peace." ~ Ajahn Chah
-
"Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life—think of it, dream of it, live on that idea." ~ Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda quotes on intensity in meditation
Swami Vivekananda talked openly about the need for concentration in meditation and mindfulness practice. These are just a few of his quotes:
- Day and night think and meditate on Brahman, meditate with great one-pointedness of mind.
- Holy meditation helps to burn out all mental impurities.
- I do not want to get material life, do not want the sense-life, but something higher.
- If you meditate on any truth with steadfast devotion and concentration, you will see that the mind is more and more tending onwards to Oneness, i.e. taking you towards the realisation of the absolute Existence-Knowledge-Bliss.
- In real meditation you forget the body.
- Meditation is the means of unification of the subject and object.
- Meditation means the mind is turned back upon itself. The mind stops all the thought-waves and the world stops. Your consciousness expands.
- Try a little harder, and meditation comes. You do not feel the body or anything else. When you come out of it after the hour, you have had the most beautiful rest you ever had in your life.
More:
To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean,” says the persevering soul, “at my will mountains will crumble up.” Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach the goal.
and:
Let us not be caught this time. So many times Maya has caught us, so many times have we exchanged our freedom for sugar dolls which melted when the water touched them. Don’t be deceived. Maya is a great cheat. Get out. Do not let her catch you this time. Do not sell your priceless heritage for such delusions. Arise, awake, stop not till the goal is reached.
and:
Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God. It is through the heart that the Lord is seen, and not through the intellect.
and:
Mentally repeat: Let all beings be happy; Let all beings be peaceful; Let all beings be blissful. So do to the east, south, north and west. The more you do that the better you will feel yourself. You will find at last that the easiest way to make ourselves healthy is to see that others are healthy, and the easiest way to make ourselves happy is to see that others are happy.
and:
- Concentration is the essence of all knowledge; nothing can be done without it.
- Concentration of the powers of the mind is our only instrument to help us see God. If you know one soul (your own), you know all souls, past, present, and to come.
- How are we to know that the mind has become concentrated? Because the idea of time will vanish ... When the past and present come and stand in one, the mind is said to be concentrated.
- The law of laws is concentration. First, concentrate all the nerve energies and all power lodged in the cells of the body into one force and direct it at will.
also:
- The power of concentration, is the only key to the treasure-house of knowledge.
- The whole secret of knowledge is concentration.
- The Yogis claim a good deal. They claim that by concentration of the mind every truth in the universe becomes evident to the mind, both external and internal truth.
- We claim that concentrating the powers of the mind is the only way to knowledge.
and even more:
- If you want to study your own mind, it will be the same process. You will have to concentrate your mind and turn it back upon itself. The difference in this world between mind and mind is simply the fact of concentration. One, more concentrated than the other, gets more knowledge.
- Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life — think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.
- All work is simply to bring out the power of the mind, which is already there, to wake up the soul.
- The concentrated mind is a lamp that shows us every corner of the soul.
- If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it.
- Concentration is the essence of all knowledge; nothing can be done without it.
Please note that these quotes come from the following pages:
books by alvin
 |
 |
 |
 |