Quotes About Presence

First you recognize stillness, then you are it. You feel yourself as autonomous, that is, not identified with what is all around you. And now true relation is possible.

You are the guest of joy, you cannot impose yourself.

In welcoming all that is, we live our freedom, openness, directionlessness, desirelessness.

Present, I flee you: absent, I find you again.

Presente, huyes: ausente, te encuentro otra vez.

I can walk into a room and create a good ambience. I was taught all about this back when I studied acting. One of the things they would teach you is how to send out positive signals when you enter a room. I am glad I learned this.

You must be present to win." And that's what this book is about—being present in our lives to gain the happiness we deserve, for ourselves and equally for others.

Don't follow the passage of air all the way in and out of the body, but rather keep your attention focused on the site where you feel your breath most clearly.)

If thoughts arise, observe them, but do not get hooked into stories about them; then let them "float away," the way bubbles float up and away when a diver exhales under water.

When your mind is stable, move into shikantaza by just sitting. Allow whatever comes up to come up, whether it is a sound or a thought or a physical sensation. Observe it until it drops away. Just let whatever is present be present. Continue this way until the end of your sitting period.

We need to move from a culture focused on monitoring the worker's presence to a culture focused on the results.

Sometimes it is easier to hear the cries of poor people who are far away than it is to hear the cries of our brothers and sisters in our own community. There is nothing very splendid in responding to the cry of the person who is with us day after day and who gets on our nerves. Perhaps too we can only respond to the cries of others when we have recognized and accepted the cry of our own pain.

The friend of time doesn't spend all day saying: 'I haven't got time.' He doesn't fight with time. He accepts it and cherishes it.

Prayer is a meeting which nourishes our hearts. It is presence and communion. The secret of our being is in this kiss of God by which we know we are loved and forgiven. In our deepest selves, below the levels of action and understanding, there is a vulnerable heart, a child who loves but is afraid to love. Silent prayer nourishes this deep place.

I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now . Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant...I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it.

Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose all sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not.

Sometimes the phone interrupts our work, and I take advantage of Sandrine's presence to be in touch with loved ones, to intercept and catch passing fragments of life, the way you catch a butterfly.

Garden season deepened. The lantern flies winked and blinked. Poppies flaunted their scarlet robes. Ants feasted in the peonies, and protected them from invaders. The pear tree blossomed. Lavender sensed her mother's presence, just past the first layer of fragrant air. In the parlor, the harp stood, silent, as before. But its silence didn't grieve Lavender. Its magic had wintered her through part of the journey that brought her to where she was now.

It's hard to remember that this day will never come again. That the time is now and the place is here and that there are no second chances at a single moment.

The brothers are a deeply calming presence. They are warm bread. They are shelter.

The girl is so beautiful she seems almost to glow, more colorful than the landscape in which she sits. The dingy gray of the concrete overpass, the pebble brown of the tracks and the earth, the faded blue of her baggy jeans, the dirty white of her oversized T-shirt, the bleached arc of the sky, it all recedes behind her. Her presence is a vivd throb of color that deflates everything else around her. An accident of biology. A living miracle of splendor. It's a real problem.

defined not so much by what she's made of, but more by the shapes of what's missing

The inward turning to Him is easy, natural and effortless, because He is at your centre. He is drawing you.

sillage, what remains when all else has left. "Come on