Quotes About Attentiveness

Receive a guest with the same attitude you have when alone. When alone, maintain the same attitude you have in receiving guests.

What is honour? Have you ever thought about it? What is honouring? Honour is total attentiveness to the present moment with a tinge of greatfulness. Honour every moment in your life, that is practice. You respect your own body, that is practice, that is asana. Asana is what? Respecting your own body at every moment consciously. Honouring your breath and keeping it up for a period of time - that is pranayam.

I'm one of those guys who actually listens when his woman talks. I'm a rare breed. Dangerous, apparently, since you aren't expecting me to hear you.

What you hear depends on how you listen.

Genuine listening means suspending memory, desire, and judgment — and, for a moment at least, existing for the other person.

Genuine listening means suspending memory, desire, and judgement and, for a few moments at least, existing for the other person

In this fact, Dave explained, lies the origin of the phrase "nose to the grindstone": a scrupulous miller leans in frequently to smell his grindstone for signs of flour beginning to overheat. (So the saying does not signify hard work so much as attentiveness.)

Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learned to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything.

Social situations, for me - it's very natural for me to be an observer. That's where I'm most comfortable. I observe things.

You know why you don't remember people's names, Kane?" "Why?" "You don't care that much about them.

She pursed her lips. Satisfied I'm not carrying a concealed weapon? I have no idea where you'd keep one, if you were, he returned, sliding his gaze along the length of her. Thanks for noticing.

One must be so careful these days.

She told me she likes to live life in the moment with her head up, not with her eyes down, fixed on a screen." Ryan nodded again. "I like that idea.

Naturally, he of the big ears heard every word.

There's a really positive side of being an introvert - you really pick up on things a lot more than your extroverted counterparts.

I don't need jewels and cars. It's about the delicacy of the way I'm handled.

Joan Didion's 'The Year of Magical Thinking' comes to mind as an example of a piece of media that I really respect and would hope to emulate: just her courage in looking at her husband's death and the attentiveness that she has in how she looks at it, and the unflinching gaze that she communicates from looking into death.

Lastly, concerning the disdain to receive into natural history things either common, or mean, or oversubtle and in their original condition useless, the answer of the poor woman to the haughty prince who had rejected her petition as an unworthy thing and beneath his dignity, may be taken for an oracle: "Then leave off being king." For most certain it is that he who will not attend to things like these as being too paltry and minute, can neither win the kingdom of nature nor govern it.

Next time?" he smiled; his eyes brightened; he was no longer a divinely superior person, but an interested male.

Children are very nice observers, and will often perceive your sligthest defects. In general, those who govern children, forgive nothing in them, but everything in themselves.

Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble.

More and more I've come to understand that listening is one of the most important things we can do for one another. Whether the other be an adult or a child, our engagement in listening to who that person is can often be our greatest gift. Whether that person is speaking or playing or dancing, building or singing or painting, if we care, we can listen.

There are two types of people — those who come into a room and say, "Well, here I am!" and those who come in and say, "Ah, there you are."

The cup of our mind is actually filled to the brim with swirling memories, plans, imaginings, and worries. Even without going so far as to empty the cup, a few minutes of physical stillness and calm attentiveness can allow the muddy water of the mind to stop swirling, such that the water begins to clear and the murky thoughts and emotions begin to settle.