“Disease is not cured by pronouncing the name of medicine, but by taking medicine. Deliverance is not achieved by repeating the word ‘Brahman,’ but by directly experiencing Brahman.”– Shankara, The Crest-Jewel of Discrimination
“So then, take up the toil of the contemplative work with wholehearted generosity. Beat upon this high cloud of unknowing and spurn the thought of resting.”– Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing
“Our aim in practicing zazen is to enter the state of samadhi, in which, as we have said, the normal activity of our consciousness is stopped.”“Zen training continues endlessly. The mean or petty ego, which was thought to have been disposed of, is found once again to be secretly creeping back into one’s mind… the longer we train ourselves, the more we are liberated from the petty ego.”
– Katsuki Sekida, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy
“… there comes a time when his mind becomes inwardly steadied, composed, unified and concentrated. That concentration is then calm and refined; it has attained to full tranquillity and achieved mental unification…”“Here, friend, by completely transcending the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, I entered and dwelled in the cessation of perception and feeling.”
– Siddhartha Gautama, Discourses from the Pali Canon
Push far enough towards the Void,
Hold fast enough to Quietness,
And of the ten thousand things none but can be worked on by you.
I have beheld them, whither they go back.
See, all things howsoever they flourish
Return to the root from which they grew.
This return to the root is called Quietness.– Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching
“What you have done so far is to open the window, as it were. You have laid yourself exposed to what God may breathe upon you…”– Muhammad al-Ghazzali, quoted in The Knowing Heart
“Yoga is the stilling of the changing states of the mind. When that is accomplished, the seer abides in its own true nature.”“The states of mind are stilled by practice and dispassion.”
– Patanjali, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
All of the philosophical systems represented on this site can be thought of as tentative. While some general philosophical or theological beliefs are helpful, possibly even necessary to motivate a spiritual discipline, an hour of practice is better than an hour of thinking about practice.
My discipline is Centering Prayer and I conceptualize what happens there as opening myself to the “experience of God.” Even if it were purely psychological, something good – something positive for myself and the world – is happening during this time. Of that I have no more doubt.
Find your discipline, most likely from within a tradition you have some familiarity with, and just practice.
“Go sit in your cell and your cell will teach you all things.”