CENTERING

Related States & Conditions | Syntonic | Dystonic

There is no need to run outside
For better seeing,
Nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide
At the center of your being;
For the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Search your heart and see
If he is wise who takes each turn:
The way to do is to be.
Laozi
570-490 BCE, Chinese Philosopher
The Way of Life , Witter Bynner, tr.

Before pleasure, anger, sorrow, and joy have arisen, we are in the center. When these passions have arisen and when all attain their proper degree, we are in harmony. That center is the root of the universe; that harmony is the Tao, reaching out to all things. Once we find the center and achieve harmony, heaven and earth take their proper places, and all things are fully nourished.
Zi Si
492-431 BCE, Chinese Philosopher
"The Central Harmony," in The Wisdom of Confucius , Lin Yutang, tr., 1938

The beauties of the highest heavens and the marvels of the sublimest realms are all within the heart: this is where the perfectly open and aware spirit concentrates. Confucians call it the open center, Buddhists call it the pedestal of awareness, Taoists call it the ancestral earth, the yellow court, the mysterious pass, the primal opening.
Lu Tung Pin
798-?, Chinese Chan Master
The Secret of the Golden Flower: The Classic Chinese Book of Life , I.11, Thomas Cleary, tr., 1991

The practice of true reality
Is simply to sit serenely
In silent introspection.
When you have fathomed this
You cannot be turned around
By external causes and conditions.
This empty, wide open
Mind is subtly and correctly
Illuminating.
Hongzhi Zhengjue
1091-1157, Chinese Chan Master

If you penetrate the center of time and space,
you can bypass the addictions of the world:
You can become the world yourself.
Shabistari
13th Century Sufi Poet
"The Secret Rose Garden," in Desert Wisdom: Sacred Middle Eastern Writings from the Goddess Through the Sufis , Neil Douglas-Klotz, tr., 1995

Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things, and stand firm in that which you are.
Kabir
1440-1518, Indian Sufi Master, Poet
in Julia Cameron, Transitions: Prayers and Declarations for a Changing Life , 1999

A wise man never loses anything if he have himself.
Montaigne
1533-1592, French Essayist, Moralist

When I dance I dance; when I sleep I sleep; yes, when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts have been concerned with extraneous incidents for some part of the time, for some other part I lead them back again to the walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of solitude, and to myself.
Montaigne
"Experience," Essays , Charles Cotton, tr.

Live in the midst of the battle of life. Anyone can keep calm in a cave or when asleep. Stand in the whirl and madness of action and reach the Center. If you have found the Center, you cannot be moved.
Vivekananda
1863-1902, Indian Guru, Writer
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 1984-1987 , 6:84

Within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.
Herman Hesse
1877-1962, German-Swiss Writer, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic, 1946 Nobel Laureate
Siddhartha , 1951

The key to good technique is to keep your hands, feet, and hips straight and centered. If you are centered, you can move freely. The physical center is your belly; if your mind is set there as well, you are assured of victory in any endeavor.
Morihei Ueshiba
1883-1969, Japanese Martial Artist, Founder of Aikido
The Art of Peace , John Stevens, tr., 1992

The still point of the turning world …
And do not call it fixity, where past and future are gathered.
Except for the point, the still point
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
T. S. Eliot
1885-1965, American/British Poet, Dramatist, Critic

Silence fertilizes the deep place where personality grows. A life with a peaceful center can weather all storms.
Norman Vincent Peale
1898-1993, American Cleric, Writer

In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch a glimpse.
Dag Hammarskjold
1905-1961, Swedish Diplomat, UN Secretary-General
Markings , 1964

Only when one is connected to one's own core is one connected to others I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
1906-, American Aviatrix, Poet, Writer
Gift from the Sea , 1955

To glimpse things and beings as they are in themselves, as if from their center, is to see oneself as one is in one's own center.
Frederick Franck
1909-, Dutch Physician, Artist, Writer
A Little Compendium on That Which Matters , 1993

A door opens in the center of our being and we seem to fall through it into immense depths which, although they are infinite, are all accessible to us; all eternity seems to have become ours in this one placid and breathless contact.
Thomas Merton
1915-1968, American Trappist Monk, Writer
New Seeds of Contemplation , 1961

Mind and body
Together,
Thoughts and emotions
Revolving around
A single center point.
Varied movements
Actively churning
Form a quiet center.
A quiet center forms
In their midst.

We feel the center of our Self,
The inner center of our Self,
It is neither body
Nor mind
But a center point
Not this, not that,
A single center point,
The inner center of the Self.
Ira Progoff
1921-1997, American Psychologist, Educator, Writer
"The Center Point Within Me," The Well and the Cathedral , 1980

When our center is strong, everything else is secondary.
Eli Wiesel
1928-, Romanian/American Writer, Educator, 1986 Nobel Laureate

The task could not be simpler, because there is nowhere to go, nothing to do. To retreat, you need only be. How? By giving yourself to yourself before you give yourself away.
Susan Taylor
1946-, African-American Editor, Writer
Lessons in Living

I learned early on that there's a place inside oneself that no one else can violate, that no one else can enter, and that we have a right to protect that place.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
1947-, African-American Basketball Player, Actor, Writer
Kareem , 1990

The point that Archimedes was looking for – a place to stand on and move the world – actually exists. It is inside us, covered up by the fascinating but misleading moving-picture show of the waking state.
Deepak Chopra
1947-, Indian/American Physician, Writer
Journey Into Healing: Awakening the Wisdom Within You , 1994

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Wisdom for The Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, © 2004