Controlling the position of one's body and keeping a straight back are not contemplation, but can in fact become an obstacle to contemplation. ...when leaving the body 'uncontrolled' is spoken of, what is meant is simply allowing the body to remain i...
Mawdryn stared at the Brigadier with such a look of pain and longing. For a moment the old soldier's mind went back thirty-five years to his first taste of action as a young lieutenant in Palestine, with his platoon badly shot up by terrorists, and h...
Matthew kept hinting that his desire - for blood, chiefly- was so strong that it put everything else at risk. But vampires weren’t the only creatures who had to manage such strong impulses. Much of what qualified as magic was simply desire in actio...
The Jedi is a practitioner of mind mastery. He realizes that whatever they are experiencing, they are creating and that they can change their lives in an instant by changing their thoughts, their focus and the way they are observing and engaging the ...
Charles Francis Adams was singular for mental poise — absence of self-assertion or self-consciousness — the faculty of standing apart without seeming aware that he was alone — a balance of mind and temper that neither challenged nor avoided not...
Emma couldn’t look away from Mike’s eyes, they seemed to glow for a second, but there was something she couldn’t place. She found herself leaning closer and her gaze dropped to his lips, she was so close she could feel his breath on her face. H...
Like the evangelist, I will shine with the light I have been shown, recognise that I have the ultimate solution for all my prospects, nurture that feeling deep within, and repeat the words to myself every day, until there is no doubt in my mind that ...
There was no doubt now in Ender's mind. There was no help for him. Whatever he faced, now and forever, no on ewould save him from it. Peter might be scum, but Peter had been right, always right; the power to cause pain is the only power that matters,...
It would never have crossed her mind spontaneously that somebody might actually need silence. That silence helps you to go inward, that anyone who is interested in something more than just life outside actually needs silence: this, I think, is not so...
Some people say—not to my face, mind you—that I’m a cowardly son of a bitch. And that is simply not true. My mom is not a bitch.
No matter how far or long you carry it, my love doesn’t weigh a lot. But if you aren’t carrying it with you, it will weigh heavy on your mind.
Simon stood up and said the first thing that popped into his mind. "I just wanted to tell you that we all really enjoyed that beef stew they saved for dinner. You should serve that again." Dean Penhallow gave him an odd look. " those weren't beets, S...
It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively, without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind;-- but when a begi...
Many of us don’t dream; more dangerously, many of us don’t spend quality time thinking. We worry, yes, but we do not think. We don’t project ourselves into the future. We don’t utilize imagination. For many who do dream, what is lacking is th...
Not a day went by that he didn't think of that moment of impact, and when he watched, helplessly, as his son died in his arms. For all intents and purposes, he died too. Jeb Richardson sealed his heart that day; he closed his mind. He cursed god, gav...
Parents have this twisted belief that anyone under the age of about twenty simply can’t know what love is, like the age to love is assessed in the same way the law assesses the legal age to drink. They think that the ‘emotional growth’ of a tee...
Most intellectual training focuses on analytical skills. Whether in literary criticism or scientific investigation, the academic mind is best at taking things apart. The complementary arts of integration are far less well developed. This problem is a...
So the question becomes, If you are ever faced with this choice are you willing to die for what you believe in? For that is the only way you will deny him. [...] It's a difficult question and not one you can answer until you're faced with it. Keep in...
I saved a man's life once," said Granny. "Special medicine, twice a day. Boiled water with a bit of berry juice in it. Told him I'd bought it from the dwarves. That's the biggest part of doct'rin, really. Most people'll get over most things if they p...
You make terrible, terrible plans." "Hey, " I protested. "One of my plans caught you didn't it?" "Yeah, but you meant to catch Sean." He took his hand off my shoulder. I waved his concerns away, along with a cloud of gnats that had found us in the fo...
Adam thinks that you two are in an argument." My body zinged into alert mode. My mind didn't know what Mrs. Vader meant, but my body already did. Even Sean glanced over at her with a cautious look. "He does?" I asked faintly. "A bad one," she confirm...