Quotes About Presence

Unless we are involved, the problem is not present.

There are three starting points of contemplation about God; three trails that lead to Him. The first is the way of sensing the presence of God in the world, in things;9 the second is the way of sensing His presence in the Bible; the third is the way of sensing His presence in sacred deeds.

The point of eating is to slow down time

Pause for a moment and a place will pool out around you, not as an illusion but as a fact, in details it would not have had if you had not stopped to look.

I'll have to come over,' she told Zurndorfer. 'What – in person?' 'Yes.' Zurndorfer's simface goggled at her. 'I'm sorry to be dense, but, you mean physically shift yourself from over there to … you know. Here?' 'Yes.' 'Well, I say, well of course. I mean. If you think that's necessary. Is that necessary?

Finally, are most of my moments with my child spent asking her to "do things?" Or am I taking out some time to be alone with her—just to "be together"?

Our days were full of tiny moments like these, when she loved me even when I was not looking. When she saw me even when I felt like I was hiding.

Take nothing and no one for granted. Time used to be my friend, and now it's a skittish acquaintance at best. Let life unfold, say what you mean. You can't always think about what you've lost, or what you don't have, or what you didn't get. Because when you do that, you're missing out on the now. You can't know if you'll be here tomorrow or a year from now.

Here I am. Look no furter. No one loves you more than I.

We have better things to do. We realize life is not just a dress rehearsal and if you realize it, you don't need a bumper sticker to remind you.

I felt her come by later, as I was dozing off. Her standing, by my bed. The depth of shadow of a person felt behind closed eyelids.

La gente si accorge solo di quando te ne vai; se resti non se ne accorgono. E' come quando si sente davvero un ronzio continuo solo dopo che ha smesso.

Mindfulness is life. Whenever we don't have mindfulness, when we are heedless, it's as if we are dead.

Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing. Ajahn Chah

showing up in person makes the biggest difference of all

I forget whether I ever loved you in the past—when you enter the room your climate is the mood of living, the hinge of now, in time the present tense. Certainly you are the world I am not done with, until I dispense with words— Yet neutral: something I say will flash back like light or shadow; you wait to be a stranger I've not met or fondled or slept with. from "Where the Moment Is

Out of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.

To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.

Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.

it seems we may best be able to inhabit a place where we are not faced with the additional challenge of having to be there." (p.23)

I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me.

In another paradox that des Esseintes would have appreciated, it seems we may best be able to inhabit a place when we are not faced with the additional challenge of having to be there.

We place such demands on our partners, and become so unreasonable around them, because we have faith that someone who understands obscure parts of us, whose presence solves so many of our woes, must be somehow also be able to fix everything about our lives. We exaggerate the other's powers in a curious sort of homage - heard in adult life decades down the line - to a small child's awe at their own parents' apparently miraculous capacities.

In these small things she felt his absence, not his presence