Quotes About Presence

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Let the words or silence run over you like a shower or the sounds of a stream. Be passive, simply release yourself into whatever the person is or isn't saying. These moments of forced incubation can allow you to discover something great within you, but more important, you might discover something great in someone else.

How many times have you noticed that it's the little quiet moments in the midst of life that seem to give the rest extra-special meaning?

We get so wrapped up in numbers in our society. The most important thing is that we are able to be one-to-one, you and I with each other at the moment. If we can be present to the moment with the person that we happen to be with, that's what's important.

People have said "Don't cry" to other people for years and years, and all it has ever meant is "I'm too uncomfortable when you show your feelings: don't cry." I'd rather have them say, "Go ahead and cry. I'm here to be with you.

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.

I've learned what is most worth knowing through living each day as it is given to me. It cannot be 'taught' but it can be 'caught' from those who live their lives right along with us.

If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.

The Jesus Prayer teaches you how to "lean just right," combining joy, trust, penitence, and gratitude, so you can find yourself in his presence.

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.

Eternity will not be long enough to learn all He is, or to praise Him for all He has done, but then, that matters not, for we shall be always with Him, and we desire nothing more.

There are some men whose crimes surpass comprehension and therefore forgiveness, and here is the real failure. For they are still among us

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.'

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."

I'm so busy listening to the heart that I don't even hear when somebody asks me to pass the salt.

I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you.

Mai in vita mia Dimenticherò la tua presenza. Tu mi hai presa quando ero spezzata E mi hai riparata Su questa terra troppo piccola Dove potrei mai voltare il mio sguardo? Così immenso, così profondo! Non c'è più tempo. Non c'è più nulla. Distanza. C'è soltanto la realtà. Quello che è stato, è stato per sempre.

What love and spirit give cannot be extorted. The state has always been made a hell by man's wanting to make it his heaven. The state is nothing but the coarse husk around the seed of life, the wall around the human fruits and flowers. Yet what good is a wall when the soil of our garden is parched? ... O inspiration, you will bring us the springtime of peoples again. The state cannot command your presence, but if it does not obstruct you, you will come.

He had the saffron robes, the shaved head, and that mellow spiritual way of talking that let you know here was a guy who had truly achieved a rare state of inner with-it-ness.

If you don't want to be grabbed by God," Zen teacher Jiyu Kennet said, "don't stare at a wall. Definitely don't sit still.

When you're alive there's nothing but life. When you die there's nothing but death. So when life comes, be alive. When death comes, die. You don't need to dodge either one, and you don't need to long for either one.