"Stillness"

"You do not need to leave your room.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, simply wait.
Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice.
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet."
- Franz Kafka

"I have discovered
that all human evil comes from this,
man's being unable
to sit still in a room."
- Blaise Pascal

"Stop thinking,
and end your problems."
- Lao-Tzu

"Nothing in all creation
is so like God as stillness."
- Meister Eckhart

"A talent is formed in stillness;
a character in the world's torrent."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

"To do great work
a man must be very idle
as well as very industrious."
- Samuel Butler

"1. Get enough food to eat, and eat it.
2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet, and sleep there.
3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise until you arrive at the silence of yourself, and listen to it.
4.
"
- Richard Brautigan

"The most dangerous thing to do
is to stand still."
- William Burroughs

"Just remain in the center, watching.
And then forget that you are there."
- Lao-Tzu

"Be still,
and know that I am God."
- Psalms 46:10

"Stand in awe, and sin not;
commune with your own heart,
and in your chamber,
and be still."
- Psalm 4:4

"At the still point
of the turning world . . ."
- T. S. Eliot

"A lively understandable spirit
Once entertained you.
It will come again.
Be still.
Wait."
- Theodore Roethke

"Forever is composed of nows."
- Emily Dickenson

"To a mind that is still,
the whole universe
surrenders."
- Chuang-tzu

I've tried everything.
I have prayed and meditated . . .
- book excerpt

Appendix: Modern Times

Writer Bill Boryles Jr, screenwriter of the movie "Castaway" starring Tom Hanks, spent a week alone on a remote island in preparation for writing the story. According to his comments on the experience, physical survival was only part of the challenge.
"What's harder is the emotional survival . . . You need to find mental projects like remembering every meal you ever enjoyed. Your mind is your enemy as well as your friend."
". . . All this flow of information washes over us every day. If you suddenly stop that, it's very interesting how your own creativity starts to bubble up." (2000)

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