“Maybe you can't make the whole body comfortable, but make at least part of the body comfortable and stay with that part. As for the pains, let them be in the other part. They have every right to be there, so make an arrangement with them. They stay in one part, you stay in another. But the essential point is that you have a place where the mind feels stable, secure, and comfortable in the present moment. These are the beginning steps in meditation.”

—  Thanissaro Bhikkhu

"Meditation: The How and the Why" (2003)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Maybe you can't make the whole body comfortable, but make at least part of the body comfortable and stay with that part…" by Thanissaro Bhikkhu?
Thanissaro Bhikkhu photo
Thanissaro Bhikkhu 8
Theravadin Buddhist Monk and Scholar 1949

Related quotes

Thanissaro Bhikkhu photo

“Ardently alert means that when the mind is staying with the breath, you try to be as sensitive as possible in adjusting it to make it feel good, and in monitoring the results of your efforts. Try long breathing to see how it feels. Try short breathing, heavy breathing, light breathing, deep, shallow. The more refined you can make your awareness, the better the meditation goes because you can make the breath more and more refined, a more and more comfortable place for the mind to stay. Then you can let that sense of comfort spread throughout the body. Think of the breath not simply as the air coming in and out the lungs, but as the flow of energy throughout the whole body. The more refined your awareness, the more sensitive you can be to that flow. The more sensitive you are, the more refined the breath becomes, the more gratifying, the more absorbing it becomes as a place to stay.”

Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1949) Theravadin Buddhist Monk and Scholar

"Meditation: The How and the Why" (2003)

“Nobody likes to see a body, but it's better than seeing a ghost. Bodies just make you doubt the world and the people in it. Ghosts make you doubt everything, and to doubt it in a part of the mind that has no words to answer the question, where the comforting promises you make yourself are neither believed nor even really understood.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Prologue - Yakima
The Lonely Dead (2004)

Thom Yorke photo

“Sex is more than an act of pleasure, it’s the ability to be able to feel so close to a person, so connected, so comfortable that it’s almost breathtaking to the point you feel you can’t take it. And at this moment you’re a part of them.”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter
Sarah Dessen photo

“Maybe it was just part of growing up with someone. Once you have a rhythm and stay with it long enough, it's not hard to find again.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

John Updike photo

“All this probing and grappling we must do, out in society: how much easier, Annabelle thinks, it is to stay in rooms you know as well as your own body, having a warm meal and an evening of television, where it's all so comfortably one-way.”

John Updike book Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

“It was good, and nothing good is truly lost. It stays part of a person, becomes part of their character. So part of you goes everywhere with me. And part of me is yours, forever”

Rosamunde Pilcher book The Shell Seekers

Source: The Shell Seekers

Philip Larkin photo

“Home is so sad. It stays as it was left, / Shaped to the comfort of the last to go / As if to win them back”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian
Arnold Schwarzenegger photo

“She maybe is Puerto Rican or the same thing as Cuban. I mean, they are all very hot. They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

Commenting on Bonnie Garcia during a staff meeting (8 September 2006), as quoted in The Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-govmeeting-mp3,0,1874429.mp3file (2006).
2000s

Randy Pausch photo

“Make your office comfortable for you, and optionally comfortable for others.”

Randy Pausch (1960–2008) American professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design

Time Management (2007)

St. Vincent (musician) photo

“A lot of the songs have a duality about them; one part is totally sincere, and there's another part that is kind of smirking and making light of it all.”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

On her album Marry Me, as quoted in "The PopWatch Interview: St. Vincent's Annie Clark" in PopWatch (11 July 2007)
Context: A lot of the songs have a duality about them; one part is totally sincere, and there's another part that is kind of smirking and making light of it all. Or there's a very dark streak about it.

Related topics