Classical Vedanta · part of the Mahabharata
Bhagavad Gita 6.20
When the mind quietens, the Self is satisfied in itself
यत्रोपरमते चित्तं निरुद्धं योगसेवया। यत्र चैवात्मनात्मानं पश्यन्नात्मनि तुष्यति॥
When the mind, restrained by the practice of yoga, attains quietude, and when seeing the Self by the self, one is satisfied in one's own Self.
What this verse points to
The satisfaction described here has no external cause and no object. It is not satisfaction with anything. It is what remains when the mind stops going out to fetch reasons to be content.
The verse also quietly answers the practical question of why anyone would keep sitting. Not for a better mood afterwards, but because sustained quiet turns out to be self-sufficient in a way that nothing acquired ever is.
Sit with it
Toward the end of a sit, stop watching the breath. Ask what remains when you are not looking for anything, and stay there.
About the Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita is a 700-verse dialogue set on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in which Krishna counsels the warrior Arjuna at the moment he refuses to fight. Across eighteen chapters it draws together the paths of action, devotion, and knowledge into a single teaching on how to act without being bound by action. It sits inside the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata and has been the most widely commented-upon text in the Vedantic tradition, from Shankara onward.
References to this text are given as chapter.verse — here, 6.20.