Quotes About Presence

Sufficient unto the moment is the appearanceof reality.

And as she smoothed her hand over the silk collar, she thought of her eldest son. But this son was living enough inside the clothes. She passed her hand down his back to feel him. He was alive and hers.

There was no Time, only Space. Who could say his mother had lived and did not live? She had been in one place, and was in another, that was all. And his soul could not leave her, wherever she was. Now she was gone abroad into the night, and he was with her still. They were together.

He was filled with the warmth of her. In the glow, he could almost feel her as if she were present.

Handle even a single leaf of a green in such a way that it manifests the body of the Buddha. This in turn allows the Buddha to manifests through the leaf. This is a power which you cannot grasp with your rational mind. It operates freely, according to the situation, in a most natural way.

When you let go, the dharma fills your hands;

jijuy?-zammai, or zazen

shikan-taza (just doing zazen)

Sawaki R?shi also used to say frequently, "Just sit?that's all there is," and "No matter how many years you sit doing zazen, you will never become anything special.

As overwhelming is caused by you, there is no overwhelming that is separate from you. Thus you go out and meet someone. Someone meets someone. You meet yourself. Going out meets going out.

The important point of spiritual practice is not to try to escape your life, but to face it - exactly and completely.

The truth of life is just to live.

Keep your mouth shut and look directly at impermanence!

If you don't understand, please keep your mouth shut and just live with all sentient beings in peace and harmony beyond your intellectual speculation. It's not necessary to think how much that helps people or how many people it helps. All you have to do is be peaceful with people right now, right here, day by day.

if you want to make a vivid statement about yourself, say you are kiya—arising only!

Zazen doesn't give you something—it's the complete opposite!

We drank a cup of tea and ate a little umeboshi cake. I still remember the nice taste of that little cake in the shape of the sour umeboshi plum. Nothing special happened—we just sat there, eating that cake—but I felt really comfortable. That memory is very clear for me. Spending the day with my mother, just being present with her. No disturbance, no brothers there, just my mother and I, just living.

Be present, from moment to moment, right in the middle of the real stream of time. That gives you spiritual security.

If we do not understand the significance of our presence, we can never give anyone the present of our lives.

You are here, and we are here with you.

How did it happen that now he could see everything so clearly. Something had given him leave to live in the present. Not once in his entire life had he come to rest in the quiet center of himself but had forever cast himself from some dark past he could not remember to a future that did not exist. Not once had he been present for his life. So his life had passed like a dream. Is it possible for people to miss their lives the way one can miss a plane?

At night the years come back and perch around my bed like ghosts.

The truth is I dislike cars. Whenever I drive a car, I have the feeling I have become invisible. People on the street cannot see you; they only watch your rear fender until it is out of their way.

Or is it because he believes that God himself is present here at the corner of Elysian Fields and Bons Enfants?