Echoes

When breath is unsteady, the mind is unsteady. When breath is steady, the mind is steady. The yogi should therefore restrain the breath.

Mind is the king of the senses; breath is the king of the mind.

Fixity of attention depends on slow breathing; quick or uneven breaths are an inevitable accompaniment of harmful emotional states — fear, lust, anger.

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.

In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

In the words of the ancients, one should make his decisions within the space of seven breaths. It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit to break right through to the other side.

You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company.

The present moment contains past and future. The secret of transformation, is in the way we handle this very moment.

What I urge is that you so learn to control the machinery as to live with 'day-tight compartments' as the most certain way to ensure safety on the voyage. Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the dead yesterdays and the unborn to-morrows.

I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.

It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.

I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics; that is my physics.

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.

Happy is the man who hath the hour of his death always before his eyes, and daily prepareth himself to die.

How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquility.

If a warrior is not unattached to life and death, he will be of no use whatsoever. The saying that "All abilities come from one mind" sounds as though it has to do with sentient matters, but it is in fact a matter of being unattached to life and death. With such non-attachment one can accomplish any feat.

There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man's life: "Know thyself," and "Nothing too much;" and upon these all other precepts depend.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.

O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whisper of the gods.

Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one's body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one's master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead.

In silence and in stillness a devout soul maketh progress, and learneth the mysteries of Holy Scripture.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Thou oughtest in every deed and thought so to order thyself, as if thou wert to die this day.