Henepola Gunaratana's Quotes

The purpose of meditation is personal transformation.

By silencing the mind, we can experience real peace. As long as various kinds of thoughts agitate the brain, we don't experience 100 percent peace.

Don't cling to anything and don't reject anything.

Meditation changes your character.

Peace is not a thought, not a concept; it is a nonverbal experience.

Watch the functioning of your own mind in a calm and detached manner so you can gain insight into your own behavior.

When you have learned compassion for yourself, compassion for others is automatic.

You can learn not to want what you want, to recognize desires but not be controlled by them.

Let come what comes, and accommodate yourself to that, whatever it is. If good mental images arise, that is fine. If bad mental images arise, that is fine, too. Look on all of it as equal, and make yourself comfortable with whatever happens.

Mindfulness helps us freeze the frame so that we can become aware of our sensations and experiences as they are, without the distorting coloration of socially conditioned responses or habitual reactions.

The brain does not manufacture thoughts unless we stimulate it with habitual verbalizing. When we train ourselves by constant practice to stop verbalizing, the brain can experience things as they are.

The present moment is changing so fast that we often do not notice its existence at all. Every moment of mind is like a series of pictures passing through a projector. Some of the pictures come from sense impressions. Others come from memories of past experiences or from fantasies of the future.

Whatever attitudes we habitually use toward ourselves, we will use on others, and whatever attitudes we habitually use toward others, we will use on ourselves.

You can't ever get everything you want. It is impossible. Luckily, there is another option: You can learn to control your mind, to step outside of the endless cycle of desire and aversion.