Quotes About Presence

Approach illness as an experiment in staying present, in opening your heart in hell. Discuss how we fear our hidden pain even more than death, and how noting and mindfulness brings that pain to the surface where it can be healed.

Because noting states of mind as they arise keep us present, it allows us to meet difficulties at their inception – before they become more real than we are.

Naming of things as they are, without embellishment, make approachable those afflictive emotions and heavy states that obscure the heart. We know that we can't let go of anything we don't accept, the noting brings us into the presence of that which often distracts us from the present. It allows the healing in. And as we observe the appearance of things, we more easily acknowledge their subsequent disappearance, and some come to an appreciation of impermanence.

Meditation is for many a foreign concept, somehow distant and foreboding, seemingly impossible to participate in. But another word for meditation is simply awareness. Meditation is awareness.

fear leans backward into the last safe moment while desire leans forward toward the next possibility of satisfaction. Each lacks presence.

For all of us there is an approach to the seemingly unapproachable. This is the life-affirming work of learning to stay present even under difficult circumstances, to embrace mental, physical, and spiritual pain using techniques suitable for each particular level of discomfort.

Each day become more fully alive. Practice noting gently and nonjudgmentally throughout the day. Add mindfulness practice to soft-belly opening work: fifteen minutes soft-belly and twenty minutes watching the breath, noting the activities of the mind. Approach illness as an experiment in staying present, in opening your heart in hell. Discuss how we fear our hidden pain even more than death, and how noting and mindfulness brings that pain to the surface where it can be healed.

As we begin to see where we have been absent from life, increasing possibilities audition for our approval.

The Master gives himself up to whatever the moment brings. He knows that he is going to die, and he has nothing left to hold on to: no illusions in his mind, no resistances in his body. He doesn't think about his actions; they flow from the core of his being. He holds nothing back from life; therefore he is ready for death, as a man is ready for sleep after a good day's work.

So if you are thinking, words are very bad. But if you are not thinking, all words and all things that you can see or hear or smell or taste or touch will help you. So it is very important for you to cut off your thinking and your attachment to words.

The less we cling to one side of reality—betting on either or or, arguing for for or against—the more we can be aware of the exquisite counterpoint of things. Everything matters: how we vote, how we tie our shoelaces, how we respond to the faintest whisper of a thought. And nothing matters, because (look!) it's already gone. When we understand this, we're home free.

To Retain those who are present, be loyal to those who are absent.

Through real-life stories, Kristin Kaufman illustrates the core idea of being present in the moment and opening oneself up to new ideas in order to become an authentic leader in life.

what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.

As Emerson once put it, "What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say." There are, of course

lo que somos puede transmitirse con una elocuencia mucho mayor que cualquier cosa que digamos o hagamos.

One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present. When you defend those who are absent, you retain the trust of those present.

she watched his face because she hoped it would betray some indication of her own reality – some flicker of interest or concentration of notice which might indicate that she was actually present with another person.

El truco consiste en disfrutar de la vida, y no hacer desaparecer tus días a la espera de otros mejores. MARJORIE PAY HINCKLEY, ESCRITORA

The final test of a leader is the feeling you have when you leave their presence

do everything right on the spot—don't put anything unnecessarily into your future

The only way we can be free in each moment is to become what each moment is.

we pass by the joys of life without knowing we've missed anything.

Your breath is a unique object to meditation because it resides right at the boundary between inside and outside, between you and the outside world.