Quotes About Presence

Turn off the radio, TV, DVD, iPod, computer and cell phone. Then, listen.

You can miss an experience by obsessing over how to contain it.

Avoid the temptation to force a moment so you won't miss the one with your name on it.

New insights from being present are a gift.

When you find yourself wanting a better moment -wanting something else in the future- it can be helpful to ask: What will that give me? We think we will finally be happy when that moment arrives. What we discover when we do get what we want is that even that wonderful moment disappears. Life keeps moving on, bringing us a mixture of what we like and don't like. Why not like- love - it all because it won't be here for long, it will never be this way again, and it's all you've got.

Essence simply enjoys and commits attention and love to whatever is. In fact, committing attention to anything that is present results in enjoyment. The ego enjoys so little because it commits attention to what isn't present and to what it doesn't have, and suffers over that, instead of committing attention to whatever is. It loves its fantasies, dreams, and desires more than it loves reality.

Love is possible only when you drop all ideas and beliefs and meet another just as he or she is showing up in the moment, fresh and new.

One of the qualities of our true nature besides being aware is that it is allowing and accepting. "Noticing" captures how consciousness touches the experiences of life but doesn't push them away, cling to them, judge them, or even evaluate them as good or bad, which are all features of the egoic self.

Being aligned with aliveness instead of our thoughts and feelings actually makes us more effective and functional—and also more kind—than being identified with our thoughts and feelings.

The more present we are to life, the more enjoyment we get out of life. The opposite is also true: The less present we are to life, the less enjoyment we get out of life.

Learning to be present to what is and stay present to that takes a lot of practice.

your attention to what is here, not to what isn't.

the most real presence of all is the abscence of those we love.

One left; things shifted in one's absence; one returned to something else. Time frustrated all. There was no sneaking past its rough guard, even to get to one's own yard of intimacies.

Hell [...] is the absence of God and the presence of Time.

The moment of drifting into thought has been so clipped by modern technology. Our lives are filled with distraction with smartphones and all the rest. People are so locked into not being present.

and I realized I couldn't imagine going through life not being in her presence. That her mere presence enveloped me in a kind of warmth. And it hit me that that's pretty much the essence of love.

God takes attendance every day.

I can go on the road - because I can come home. I come home - because I'm free to leave. Each way of being is more valued in the presence of the other.

Nothing can replace being in the same space. That's exactly why we need to keep creating the temporary worlds of meetings, small and large, on campuses and everywhere else.

I can go on the road—because I can come home. I come home—because I'm free to leave. Each way of being is more valued in the presence of the other.

Technology has become as ubiquitous as the air we breathe, so we are no longer conscious of its presence.

Beauty is everywhere a very welcome guest.

Ach, daß die Freundin meiner Jugend dahin ist, ach, daß ich sie je gekannt habe!—ich würde sagen: du bist ein Tor! Du suchst, was hienieden nicht zu finden ist! Aber ich habe sie gehabt, ich habe das Herz gefühlt, die große Seele, in deren Gegenwart ich mir schien mehr zu sein, als ich war, weil ich alles war, was ich sein konnte.