To Be Present Quotes

A moment of danger can bring about a temporary cessation of the stream of thinking and thus give you a taste of what it means to be present, alert, aware. ~ Eckhart Tolle

To be present is to be prayerful. ~ Rajneesh

When you drop your expectations that a person, a situation, a place, or an object should fulfill you, it's easier to be present in this moment because you're no longer looking to the next one. Most people want to get what they want, whereas the secret is to want what you get at this moment. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Fractional Multiplicity' allows for a minute amount of our energy to be present in all places at all times. ~ Stanley Victor Paskavich

Unwrap me with all the verve of a new gift...After all, it is not every day I have enough clothes on to be present...able... ~ Virginia Alison

He wore the unmistakable look of a man about to be present at a row between women, and only a wet cat in a strange back yard bears itself with less jauntiness than a man faced by such a prospect. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

I am not seeking anything but service to my creator. I do not need a house, I do not need a car, I do not need any of that, but to be present with each guest that sits across from me, and I am committed to a bigger thing than me, which is the vision of own, because own is going to outlive all of us. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

Girls are genius at getting through sexual abuse. Often the only way to get through is not to feel. And that is exactly what these fantasy worlds allow: They give girls a place to go so they don't have to be present in their violated bodies. Brilliant. ~ Patti Feuereisen

The anti-precog has to be present when the precog is in the process of deciding, not after. The anti-precog makes all futures seem equally real to the precog; he aborts his talent to choose at all. A precog is instantly aware when an anti-precog is nearby because his entire relation to the future is altered. In the case of telepaths a similar impairment - " "She goes back in time," G. G. Ashwood said. Joe stared at him. "Back in time," G.G. repeated, savoring this; his eyes shot shafts of significance to every part of Joe Chip's kitchen. "The precog affected by her still sees one predominant future; like you said, the one luminous possibility. And he chooses it, and he's right. But why is it right? Why is it luminous? Because this girl - " He shrugged in her direction. "Pat controls the future; that one luminous possibility is luminous because she's gone into the past and changed it. By changing it she changes the present, which includes the precog; he's affected without knowing it and his talent seems to work, whereas it really doesn't. So that's one advantage of her anti-talent over other anti-precog talents. The other - and greater - is that she can cancel out the precog's decision after he's made it. ~ Philip K. Dick

Keynes was chief economic adviser to the British government and largely responsible for keeping the British economy afloat at a time when more than half of our gross national product, and all of out foreign exchange, was being spent on the war ... I was lucky to be present at one of his rare appearances in Cambridge, when he gave a lecture with the title "Newton, the Man." ... Four years later he died of heart failure, precipitated by overwork and the hardships of crossing the Atlantic repeatedly in slow propeller-driven airplanes under wartime conditions. ~ Freeman Dyson

I want to be present and really in my body, grounded and open minded and open hearted, no matter what the conflict or the crisis is. And if I am numbing myself with food and with alcohol, I can't then know that my emotional response is going to be authentic, is going to be in truth. My guess is that it is going to be reactive. ~ Seane Corn

Talent is 98% hard work - even Brel said so. The best signal for lack of talent is therefore quite simply low production. That does of course not mean high production guarantees talent, so something does exist that needs to be present - what is that? Talent and Drive - both are quite useless without the other, but what exactly is 'talent'? I would say its a form of the unconditioned: in some people it survives, even unto old age. Some learn to focus it on a particular craft. But without drive, it still goes nowhere. ~ Martijn Benders

I like how time goes on set. It's almost like time on an airplane or something where people are together. It's a different, very trippy kind of time, I find, because you're together in imaginary time where you're out of time. You're called upon to be present and honor what can happen in the moment. And the whole day can go like that. The whole day can be a kind of meditation. ~ Jeff Goldblum

Before yoga, my life was filled with regret about choices I'd made in the past, and fears about choices I'd make in the future. Yoga teaches us how to be present in the present. Once you learn how to live in the now, you realize that the past is a memory and the future doesn't exist. Yoga will help anyone facing anxiety issues, separation and attachment issues (moms, I'm talking to you here!), or serious illnesses such as cancer and depression. It's a practice that slims your body while expanding your heart. ~ Kathryn E. Livingston

To love women, to love our vaginas, to know them and touch them and be familiar with who we are and what we need. To satisfy ourselves, to teach our lovers to satisfy us, to be present in our vaginas, to speak of them out loud, to speak of their hunger and pain and loneliness and humor, to make them visible so they cannot be ravaged in the dark without great consequence, so that our center, our point, our motor, our dream, is no longer detached, mutilated, numb, broken, invisible, or ashamed. ~ Eve Ensler

If we become skilled in giving ourselves empathy, we often experience in just a few seconds a natural release of energy which then enables us to be present with the other person. If this fails to happen, however, we have a couple of other choices. ~ Marshall B. Rosenberg

We are this divine energy. It's not something we have to attain. We just have to realize it, to be present to it. ~ Marshall B. Rosenberg

Instead of forcing yourself to feel positive, allow yourself to be present in the now ~ Daniel Mangena

In today's climate in our country, which is sickened with the pollution of pollution, threatened with the prominence of AIDS, riddled with burgeoning racism, rife with growing huddles of the homeless, we need art and we need art in all forms. We need all methods of art to be present, everywhere present, and all the time present. ~ Maya Angelou

Maybe you can't relate to people that well now, but you will in time. You have to be present, though. You have to forget yourself and take in the layers of experience that are buzzing around you. The smart people around you will tolerate some awkwardness for the sake of knowing someone else who's smart and interesting. But if you don't know who you are and what you're all about, if you're ashamed and distracted by the nervous noise in your head, you won't be able to take part in the beauty of the world around you. ~ Heather Havrilesky

Presence is the capacity to be present for another person with an open heart and to be grounded in our inner being. It is to be present for another person as a supporting light, as a supporting presence – and simply to be present with another person can help. ~ Swami Dhyan Giten

The beauty of mindful-life-breath meditation is that you are not restricted to having to sit in the lotus position to be present. Whether you are on a busy train, driving a car or walking down a crowded high-street, you can easily remind yourself to focus on your breathing. Appreciate the subtle sensation of oxygen flowing in and out of your nostrils. ~ Christopher Dines

The quest for the eternal, all-beautiful, all-true and all-pure, and the quest to be close to the poor and most broken people appear to be so contradictory. And yet, in the broken heart of Christ, these two quests are united. Jesus reveals to us that he loves his Father, and is intimately linked to him; at the same time he is himself in love with each person and in a particular way with the most broken, the most suffering and the most rejected. To manifest this love, Jesus himself became broken and rejected, a man of sorrows and of anguish and of tears; he became the Crucified One.

. . . Within the church, over the ages, one or the other aspect of this double mission has been emphasized, according to the call of God in different times and places, but both are also present. There are those who are called to the desert or the mountain top to see greater union with God through the Crucified One; and their prayer will flow upon the broken and the crucified ones of this world. And there are those called together to give their lives for and with the crucified and broken ones in the world; and they will always seek a personal and mystical union with Jesus so that they may love as he loves.

Every community and every family are called to live both forms of mission, but in different ways: to pray and to be present in a special way to the smallest and the weakest within their own community or outside it, according to their individual call. ~ Jean Vanier

I am not the blues, I am jazz. I want to be present in the moment, not wallow in it. ~ Christopher Moore

I am not sure how we came to believe that we know more about what our people need than they do. A core, culturally supported assumption about their brokenness may have something to do with it, and so might our left-dominant culture and training that makes it more challenging to be present to anyone's implicit experience. Many it is equally about our inability to trust our own inner wisdom to guide us because no-one helped us listen when we were young. Without this trust, we may get frightened for our people and the process, and such feelings bring on the need to assert control ...

experiment with the pause, remembering that our rupture and repair are optimal, trust will grow as we and our 'patients' stumble together into the tentative, fluid process of attunement with one another that supports the awakening of the inherent wisdom and health. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self - never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted. ~ George Eliot

Yoga is an ancient discipline in which physical postures, breath practice, meditation, and philosophical study are tools for achieving liberation. In my interpretation, achieving liberation in yoga means learning how to be present with everything that arises, whether it is pain or pleasure, sadness or joy, failure or success. And to be present with whatever arises, I believe we must not only be aware of what is arising but we must also be able to see all things that arise as equal, with detachment. ~ Rodney Yee

The most important therapeutic capacity is the ability to be present with an open heart and to be grounded in our inner being,in our essence and authentic self, in the meditative quality within, through which we can meet another person. It is to meet that which is already perfect within a person. ~ Swami Dhyan Giten

The formation in geological time of the human body by the laws of physics (or any other laws of similar nature), starting from a random distribution of elementary particles and the field is as unlikely as the separation of the atmosphere into its components. The complexity of the living things has to be present within the material [from which they are derived] or in the laws [governing their formation]. ~ Kurt Godel

Sun, rain, snow, wind. Every day is a good day to be present. ~ Sue Leaf

He took pleasure in his friendships, and it didn't hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why was it admirable when you were twenty-seven but creepy when you were thirty-seven? Why wasn't friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn't it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another's slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person's most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal ~ Hanya Yanagihara

Is it permitted for Catholics to be present at, or to take part in, conventions, gatherings, meetings, or societies of non-Catholics which aim to associate together under a single agreement everyone who, in any way, lays claim to the name of Christian? In the negative! ... It is clear, therefore, why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics. There is one way in which the unity of Christians may be fostered, and that is by furthering the return to the one true Church of Christ for those who are separated from Her. ~ Pope Pius X

In the car inching its way down Fifth Avenue, toward Bergdorf Goodman and this glamorous party, I looked back on my past with a new understanding. This sickness, the "endo-whatever," had stained so much - my sense of self, my womanhood, my marriage, my ability to be present. I had effectively missed one week of each month every year of my life since I was thirteen, because of the chronic pain and hormonal fluctuations I suffered during my period. I had lain in bed, with heating pads and hot-water bottles, using acupuncture, drinking teas, taking various pain medications and suffering the collateral effects of them. I thought of all the many tests I missed in various classes throughout my education, the school dances, the jobs I knew I couldn't take as a model, because of the bleeding and bloating as well as the pain (especially the bathing suit and lingerie shoots, which paid the most). How many family occasions was I absent from? How many second or third dates did I not go on? How many times had I not been able to be there for others or for myself? How many of my reactions to stress or emotional strife had been colored through the lens of chronic pain? My sense of self was defined by this handicap. The impediment of expected pain would shackle my days and any plans I made.

I did not see my own womanhood as something positive or to be celebrated, but as a curse that I had to constantly make room for and muddle through. Like the scar on my arm, my reproductive syst ~ Padma Lakshmi

Meditative practice allows us to quiet the distracting thoughts and feelings so that we can perceive reality, and respond to it more skillfully. The ability to be present in each moment is nothing more and nothing less than the ability to accept the vulnerability, discomfort, and anxiety of everyday life. "With ~ Dalai Lama XIV

The truth is, I've been going pretty much nuts all year. I constantly have to fight being scattered. I feel like I'm on automatic pilot from fatigue. The hardest thing is trying to be present, living for the moment, for everybody in the family. ~ Patricia Richardson

Be present. I would encourage you with all my heart just to be present. Be present and open to the moment that is unfolding before you. Because, ultimately, your life is made up of moments. So don't miss them by being lost in the past or anticipating the future. ~ Jessica Lange

To be present at the time of death can be one of the most important moments in life. To see those last, awesome minutes of transition from life into death can only be described as a spiritual experience. And then afterwards, when the body lies still, one gets the strange feeling that the person has simply gone away, as though he has said, 'I'm just going into the other room. I'll leave that thing there while I'm gone; I won't be needing it.' It's a very odd experience – the body is there, but the person has gone. No one would say, 'I am a body'; we say, 'I have a body'. So what, therefore, is the 'I'? The 'I' or perhaps 'me' has just stepped into the other room. It is a strange feeling, and I can't describe it in any other way. Another thing that is strange is that the body left behind looks smaller, quite a lot smaller, than the living person. The face looks the same, but calm and relaxed, wrinkles and worry lines are smoothed, and a feeling of serenity pervades the entire room. But the person, the 'I', has gone. It also greatly helps the process of mourning to see the body after death, and preferably to assist in the laying out. Nurses used to do the job when I was young girl, and we always asked the relatives if they wanted to help. Nurses don't do it any more, but anyone can ask. ~ Jennifer Worth

We focus on Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, but we forget to pause in the stillness of the days between. Find time today to be present in that place of waiting. There is treasure to be found in the sacred peace that comes as you breathe in that place of quiet surrender. Don't rush through the space called "Between. ~ Katherine J. Walden

Finding ways to protect yourself and promote your own well-being is the most basic investment you can make. [...] The foundation of your investment, the key to transforming your professional life, is mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the energy of attention. It is the capacity in each of us to be present one hundred percent to what is happening within and around us. It is the miracle that allows us to become fully alive in each moment. [...] The fruit of mindfulness practice is the realization that peace and joy are available within us and around us, right here and right now. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

You can't go and anticipate what it is that you want to see. You just have to be present. Be where you are. ~ Kobe Bryant

A chaplain's biggest gift is to be present and just listen. ~ Diane Johnson

I think it's important to try to be present with whatever it is you're doing. And if you can't be present, take a break. ~ Emily Giffin

If you're absent during my struggle, don't expect to be present during my success ~ Will Smith

It's harder to build than destroy. To build is to engage and change. In jazz, we call progressing harmonies changes. Changes are like obstacles on a speed course. They demand your attention and require you to be present. They are coming ... they are here ... and then they are gone. It's how life comes. Each moment is a procession from the future into the past and the sweet spot is always the present. Live in that sweet spot. Be present. ~ Wynton Marsalis

Seven years sober. I'm really grateful. It's really lovely to be present in my life. ~ Colin Farrell

The green girl necessarily pines for the past, because the present is too uncomfortable to be present in and the future, unimaginable. The need to long, to desire that which she cannot have, that which has eluded her, because she deceives herself that it was this person, this chance, where she would have found happiness. ~ Kate Zambreno

This, I finally realized, was how Mom was able to focus when I was not. It was how she was able to be present with me, present with the people at a benefit or the hospital. She felt whatever emotions she felt, but feeling was never a useful substitute for doing, and she never let the former get in the way of the latter. If anything, she used her emotions to motivate her and help her concentrate. The emphasis for her was always on doing what needed to be done. I had to learn this lesson while she was still there to teach me. ~ Will Schwalbe

To be is to belong to all that is to receive...worth ... White Elk ~ Rosie Trakostanec

To be absent from the iPhone is to be present in the moment. Ignore it. Make some friends. ~ Phil Callaway

It is important to be present emotionally and mentally to enjoy the process. The process is the most important because it is the seed for which you are nourishing. The hustle will always be there. It is important to understand what kind of dance you are having with the hustle in determining who is in control and leading the dance. If the hustle is in control, then it has been determined you are not. And outside forces and circumstances are in control of your life and your opportunities. ~ Steven Cuoco

Command that your marshal be careful to be present over the household, and especially in the hall, to keep the household, within doors and without, respectable, without dispute or noise, or bad words. ~ Robert Grosseteste

Sailing really forces you to be present and in the moment. You kind of forget about the bullshit of life. Your thoughts go away because you're focused on making sure everything's working. I like being in that place. ~ Daria Werbowy

I believe that the ten billion people expected to be present at the end of the century will enjoy a far better quality of life if we conserve half of the planet for nature than if we consume nature entirely. ~ Edward O. Wilson

Don't you hate when you're having fun and you know you won't be able to appreciate the details until it's days later and you ache for the ability to be present. ~ Unknown

I'm just having fun. And giving a sort of second shot at childhood and life - and I need to be present to do it. ~ Sandra Bullock

Once you have found yourself and accepted your aloneness, then the greatest blessing is to share the love that arises within you. Each new moment presents the richest opportunity to be loving. And you can share love in the simplest of ways. Be soft and gentle. Be caring and kind. Be loving in an ordinary way, without any sense of wanting anything back, Life offers you the most precious gift. The gift of allowing you to be present and share love. ~ Leonard Jacobson

Even though we were still waiting for Don, therapy was well begun. We were engaged in a subtle, often predictable, and very important contest with the family about who was going to be present at the meetings. Carl and I had revealed some of what our relationship had to offer: a good-humored liking for each other, an ability to cooperate, and an insistence on remaining ourselves. I was clearly not going to be the reverential assistant to the older man. And perhaps most important, Carl had intuitively modeled some of the process of therapy for the family. By sharing insight into his own personality, he was saying by demonstration, It's important to search for you own unconscious agenda. ~ Augustus Y. Napier

It is as great a crime to leave a woman alone in her agony and deny her relief from her suffering as it is to insist upon dulling the consciousness of a natural mother who desires above all things to be aware of the final reward of her efforts, whose ambition is to be present, in full possession of her senses, when the infant she already adores greets her with its first loud cry and the soft touch of its restless body upon her limbs. ~ Grantly Dick-Read

I know now: what is is all that matters. Not the thing you know is meant to be, not what could be, not what should be, not what ought to be, not what once was.
Only the is. ~ Augusten Burroughs

The most unshakable was called One Day-Two Day. The premise was simply that one of us always had to be vigilant, the designated protector. If Robert took a drug, I needed to be present and conscious. If I was down, he needed to stay up. If one was sick, the other healthy. It was important that we were never self-indulgent on the same day.
In the beginning I faltered, and he was always there with an embrace or words of encouragement, coercing me to get out of myself and into my work. Yet he also knew that I would not fail if he needed me to be the strong one. ~ Patti Smith

I am living in many dimensions at once; the appearance of being trapped in time and space is an illusion: Today I will experience myself beyond limitations. I will set time aside to be present with myself in silence. As I breathe I will see my being spreading outward in all directions. As I settle into my own inner silence, any image that comes to mind will be asked to join my being. I will include anyone and anything that comes to mind, saying, "You and I are one at the level of being. Come, join me beyond the drama of space and time." In the same way I will experience love as a light that begins in my heart and spreads out as far as my awareness can reach; as images arise in my mind, I will send love and light in their direction. ~ Deepak Chopra

You are in front of your brother, but your mind is on many other things, so you don't really see your brother. Maybe he is having some trouble, but you don't see it, not even when you share the same room. But mindfulness brings you there, to the present, and then you see. Train yourself all day long to bring your mind to your body and to be present with your food, your friends, your work, everything, because the more you concentrate, the deeper you will see. ~ Chan Khong

A big war is coming. Bigger than the one they were starting when I left. It'll go hard on England, but I expect we'll survive. I missed the other war, she said. I mean to be present for this one. Samuel and I had never really thought about war. Why, she said, the signs are all over Africa. India too, I expect. First there's a road built to where you keep your goods. Then your trees are hauled off to make ships and captain's furniture. Then your land is planted with something you can't eat. Then you're forced to work it. That's happening all over Africa, she said. Burma too, I expect. ~ Alice Walker

Meaningful learning in a community requires both participation and reification to be present and in interplay. Sharing artifacts without engaging in discussions and activities around them impairs the ability to negotiate the meaning of what is being shared. Interacting without producing artifacts makes learning depend on individual interpretation and memory and can limit its depth, extent, and impact. Both participation and reification are necessary. Sometimes one process may dominate the other, or the two processes may not be well integrated. The challenge of this polarity is for communities to successfully cycle between the two. ~ Etienne Wenger

It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Without the ability to be present we are missing much of what the adventure has to offer. ~ Allan Lokos

In all jazz, and especially the blues, there is something tart and ironic, authoritative and double-edged. White Americans seem to feel that happy songs are happy and sad songs are sad, and that, God help us, is exactly the way most white Americans sing them - sounding, in both cases, so helplessly, defenselessly fatuous that one dare not speculate on the temperature of the deep freeze from which issue their brave and sexless little voices. Only people who have been "down the line," as the song puts it, know what this music is about…. White Americans do not understand the depths out of which such an ironic tenacity comes, but they suspect that the force is sensual, and they are terrified of sensuality, and do not any longer understand it. The word "sensual" is not intended to bring to mind quivering dusky maidens or priapic black studs. I am referring to something much simpler and much less fanciful. To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread. It will be a great day for America, incidentally, when we begin to eat bread again, instead of the blasphemous and tasteless foam rubber that we have substituted for it. And I am not being frivolous here, either. ~ James Baldwin

Love is a choice - not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guide. Love is a conversion to humanity - a willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives. Love is the choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life. ~ Carter Heyward

In my life as a wife and mother, I'm always conscious of my desire to be present. ~ Dani Shapiro

According to Dostoevsky, all is simultaneous, everything coexists. That which has meaning only as "earlier" or "later," which is sufficient only unto its own moment, which is valid only as past, or as future, or as present in relation to past or future, is for him nonessential and is not incorporated into his world. That is why his characters remember nothing, they have no biography in the sense of something past and fully experienced. They remember from their own past only that which has not ceased to be present for them, that which is still experienced by them as the present: an unexpiated sin, a crime, an unforgiven insult. ~ Mikhail Bakhtin

It is fun to be present at the coming true of a dream, even if it is not one's own. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

As you enter this place of work please choose to make today a great day. Your colleagues, customers, team members, and you yourself will be thankful. Find ways to play. We can be serious about our work without being serious about ourselves. Stay focused in order to be present when your customers and team mebers most need you. And should you feel your enegery lapsing, try this surefire remedy: Find someone who needs a helping hand, a word of support, or a good ear - and make their day. ~ Stephen C. Lundin

Fogg's most salient quality as an employee was his ability to be present while she fetched a sandwich. Beyond this, he contributed little that could be quantified. ~ Tom Rachman

It's like this for all of us initially. We can contact our inner strength, our natural openness, for short periods before getting swept away. And this is excellent, heroic, a huge step in interrupting and weakening our ancient habits. If we keep a sense of humor and stay with it for the long haul, the ability to be present just naturally evolves. Gradually we lose our appetite for biting the hook. We lose our appetite for aggression. If ~ Pema Chodron

There is also the story about Tyrone Slothrop, who was sent into the Zone to be present as his own assembley--perhaps heavily paranoid voices whisper, 'his time's assembley'--and there ought to be a punchline to it, but there isn't. The plan went wrong. He is being broken down instead and being scattered. His cards have been laid down, Celtic style, in the order suggested by Mr. A.E. Waite, laid out and read, but they are the cards of a tanker and feeb: they point only to a long and scuffling future, to mediocrity...-to no clear happiness or redeeming cataclysm. ~ Thomas Pynchon

And in doing this I advise you to send to the best manors of your lands those of your household in whom you place most confidence to be present in August at the leading of the corn, and to guard it as aforesaid. ~ Robert Grosseteste

Using technology, we have redefined ourselves in such a way that our immediate surroundings and relationships, our immediate sensory perceptions of the world, are much diminished in relevance. We have trained ourselves not to be present. We have extended our bodies, created enhanced selves that might be called our "techno-selves." Our techno-selves are both bigger and smaller than our former selves. Bigger in that we have tremendous powers to communicate with the invisible world. Smaller in that we have sacrificed some of our contact and experience with the visible, immediate world. We have marginalized our direct sensory experience. ~ Alan Lightman

I think you have to love yourself and you have to have a strong sense of self-love in order to really show up for other people, because if you love yourself, you're not questioning your own mind any more and you are really able to be present and available for others. ~ Shailene Woodley

It was a hard time for me to have a pure moment, to be present, to be here. ~ Stephan Jenkins

One of the ways that our faith expresses itself is by our ability to be still, to be present, and not to panic or lose perspective. God still does his best work in the most difficult of circumstances. ~ Tim Hansel

You reach peaks only to see there's another greater peak beyond it. Suddenly that one looks like it'd have a much better view. It's an endless cycle of going toward things that you think will provide you happiness. At the end of the day, right now, right here, wherever you are, you can make a choice to be present and happy and fulfilled. ~ Eric Lange

That 'change makes us uncomfortable' is now one of the most widely promoted, widely accepted, and under-considered half-truths around. [I]t is not change by itself that makes us uncomfortable; it is not even change that involves taking on something very difficult. Rather, it is change that leaves us feeling defenseless before the dangers we 'know' to be present that causes us anxiety. ~ Robert Kegan

Symptoms of chronic stress are feelings of fragmentation and of chasing after time - of not being able to be present. What we are looking for is a settled, joyful state of being, and we need to give this state space. The Archbishop once told me that people often think he needs time to pray and reflect because he is a religious leader. He said those who must live in the marketplace - business people, professionals and workers - need it even more. ~ Desmond Tutu

to follow God does not often mean traveling with certainty about where God will lead us. Rather, following God propels us to be present to the place where we are, for this is the very place where God shows up. ~ Jan L. Richardson

The ability to be present with every single person and engage was a great model for me of the work that a writer needs to do. Writers, living or dead, still guide me in many ways. ~ Sandra Cisneros

If a subject has a delicate surface to it, you do not want to go charging in there. You need to establish some kind of presence and understanding. I will say, Try to forget I'm here. I won't ask you to pose, I won't ask you to do anything. It's important that I just be allowed to be around, to be present. Photographing people requires a willingness to be rejected. So, I think the best approach is to be honest and direct. Very often, I tell them, You don't know me. There's no reason why you should trust me ... the only thing I can promise is that I'll try to do the most honest work I can. ~ William Albert Allard

Faith, courage, and intelligent and uninterrupted awareness - these qualities are to be present whether one is wide awake, half asleep, or in deep slumber. An individual who lives like this performs his daily actions with a mind free from selfishness. This is poise in action. And this poise leads to that serenity which is in the truest sense a healthy mind in a healthy body. ~ B.K.S. Iyengar

Nope," says Hannah. "I call bullshit. You don't deserve to win anything or be in any pageant until you make the effort and do the work. Maybe fat girls or girls with limps or girls with big teeth don't usually win beauty pageants. Maybe that's not the norm. But the only way to change that is to be present. We can't expect the same things these other girls do until we demand it. Because no one's lining up to give us shit, Will. ~ Julie Murphy

The science of the earth ... invites us to be present at the origin of things, and to enter into the very worship of the Creator. ~ John William Dawson

If you want to be reborn,' it is written in the Tao Te Ching, 'let yourself die.' This is what I've been having trouble with, the fact that letting go can feel, at times, like a death. Someday, I know, I will lose everything. All the small deaths along the way are practice runs for the big ones, asking us to learn to be present, to grow in faith, to be grateful for what is. Life is finite and short. But this new task, figuring out how to let go of so much that has been precious
my children, my youth, my life as I know it
can feel like a bitter foretaste of other losses yet to come. ~ Katrina Kenison

There is a hunger for the United States to be present again. ~ Hillary Clinton

No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of spring. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling. [...] Let go of the labels. Just feel what you are feeling, all the while cultivating moment-to-moment awareness, riding the waves of "up" and "down," "good" and "bad," weak" and "strong," until you see that they are all inadequate to fully describe your experience. Be with the experience itself. Trust in your deepest strength of all: to be present, to be wakeful. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Compassion can help you to be present right in this moment. Compassion can release your trapped life-energy and blossom your life. ~ Amit Ray

The almost egregiously English couple, Cedric and Rosamund Chailey, had slipped quietly away when the conversation turned to God. It had not seemed polite to be present when anything so American was being discussed. ~ Michael Frayn

Meditation begins now, right here. It can't begin someplace else or at some other time. To paraphrase the great Zen master Dogen, "If you want to practice awareness, then practice awareness without delay." If you wish to know a mind that is tranquil and clear, sane and peaceful, you must take it up now. If you wish to free yourself from the frantic television mind that runs our lives, begin with the intention to be present now.

Nobody can bring awareness to your life but you.

Meditation is not a self-help program--a way to better ourselves so we can get what we want. Nor is it a way to relax before jumping back into busyness. It's not something to do once in awhile, either, whenever you happen to feel like it.

Instead, meditation is a practice that saturates your life and in time can be brought into every activity. It is the transformation of mind from bondage to freedom.

In practicing meditation, we go nowhere other than right here where we now stand, where we now sit, where we now live and breathe. In meditation we return to where we already are--this shifting, changing ever-present now.

If you wish to take up meditation, it must be now or never. ~ Steve Hagen

You can't wait for the end of your problems for you to be present. It has to be done whereever you are - which is now ~ Eckhart Tolle

I kind of feel like I have grown as just like a human being as a human being by being able to adapt and adjust and know that like you can't ever rest on your laurels, you have to sort of wake up; you actually have to be present. ~ Nicole Beharie

She suffered from the opposite of "phantom limb" syndrome; something essential appeared to be present, but it was not. ~ Amy Bloom

Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple. ~ Keith Jarrett