Quotes About Presence

When we are with people and feeling bored, can we listen a little more carefully, stepping off the train of our own inner commenting? If we are sitting in meditation and feeling uninterested, can we come in closer to the object, not with force but with gentleness and care? What is this experience we call the breath? If someone were holding your head under water, would the breath be boring? Each breath is actually sustaining our life. Can we be with it fully, just once?

In the moment that we awaken from being lost in a thought or feeling or reaction, in that very moment we can recognize the empty, clear, skylike nature of awareness itself. In that moment of wakefulness, we get a glimpse of freedom. And instead of judging ourselves for all the times we do get lost, which happen again and again, we can delight in each moment of awakening.

let the breath draw the mind down to its own level of subtlety. It is like listening to someone playing a flute as they walk off into the distance.

Some people think the longer you can sit, the wiser you must be. I have seen chickens sitting on their nests for days on end. Wisdom comes from being mindful at all times."3

Mindfulness practice begins to open up everything. We open our mind to memories, to emotions, to different sensations in the body. In meditation this happens in a very organic way, because we are not searching, we are not pulling or probing, we are just sitting and watching.

When the momentum of mindfulness is well developed, it works like a boomerang; even if we want to distract ourselves, the mind naturally rebounds to a state of awareness.

We see that each experience is simply just what it is, and that the "I" and "mine" are extra.

To realize that boredom does not come from the object of our attention but rather from the quality of our attention is truly a transforming insight.

This is not a breathing exercise; it is an exercise in awareness.

Better than one hundred years lived without seeing the arising and passing of things / Is one day lived seeing their arising and passing."2 What does this say about what we value and work for in our lives, and about the liberating effect of seeing directly, in the moment, the truth of change?

meditate upon thoughts is simply to be aware, as thoughts arise, that the mind is thinking, without getting involved in the content: not going off on a train of association, not analyzing the thought and why it came, but merely to be aware that at the particular moment "thinking" is happening

He was a militant idealist who crusaded against racial bigotry by growing faint in its presence.

It was one thing to maintain liaison with the Lord, and they were all in favor of that; it was something else, though, to have Him hanging around twenty-four hours a day.

My body and all its organs were created by the infinite intelligence in my subconscious mind. It knows how to heal me. Its wisdom fashioned all my organs, tissues, muscles, and bones. This infinite healing presence within me is now transforming every cell of my being, making me whole and perfect. I give thanks for the healing I know is taking place at this time. Wonderful are the works of the creative intelligence within me.

When you are willing to stand alone with God and cease completely giving power to external things; when you no longer give power to the phenomenalistic world, which means to make a world of effect a cause; and when all your allegiance is given to the Spiritual Power within you, realizing it as the only Presence and the only Cause, you will not need any props of any kind.

The overshadowing Presence which guides the planets on their course and causes the sun to shine, watches over all my possessions, home, business, and all things that are mine. God is my fortress and vault. All my possessions are secure in God. It is wonderful

If you try too hard to hear the telephone ring, you cannot.

My body and all its organs were created by the infinite intelligence in my subconscious mind. It knows how to heal me. Its wisdom fashioned all my organs, tissues, muscles, and bones. This infinite healing presence within me is now transforming every atom of my being making me whole and perfect now. I give thanks for the healing I know is taking place now. Wonderful are the works of the creative intelligence within me.

It's really not about doing, it's more about being. You might find it relaxing," said Pooh. "I know I do.

It's not hard to be me, thought Pooh. Just be Here and Now, and be Kind.

Fly me up to where you are beyond the distant star. I wish upon tonight to see you smile, if only for a while to know you're there. A breath away's not far to where you are.

How did you find me here? If I was blind, I would see you. Stay with me. Forever. That's the whole point. I'll never leave. Not even if you kill me.

I need a song that will keep sky open in my mind. If I think behind me, I might break. If I think forward, I lose now.

We become lost, Unsteady. Take a deep breath, Pray. You will not always be lost. You are right here, In your time, In your place.