Quotes About Presence

Right in that or any moment of non-doing, you are already OK, already perfect, in the sense of perfectly who and what you are. And therefore, right in that moment you are already at home in a profound way, far beyond who you think you are and the ideas and opinions that may so shape and sometimes severely limit your view of the larger whole.

We are not meditating to make anything go away, any more than we are meditating to attain some special state or feeling. Whether we are basically healthy at the moment or have a terminal illness, none of us knows how long we have to live.

Even the tiniest manifestation of mindfulness in any moment might give rise to an intuition or insight that could be hugely transforming.

Non-doing simply means letting things be and allowing them to unfold in their own way.

you be aware of this as you practice?

Our lives unfold only in moments. If we are not fully present for many of those moments, we may not only miss what is most valuable in our lives but also fail to realize the richness and the depth of our possibilities for growth and transformation.

Perhaps over time we can adjust our default setting to one of greater mindfulness rather than of mindlessness and being lost in thought. As

The challenge of mindfulness is to be present for your experience as it is rather than immediately jumping in to change it or try to force it to be different.

we have got to pause in our experience long enough to let the present moment sink in; long enough to actually feel the present moment, to see it in its fullness, to hold it in awareness and thereby come to know and understand it better.

The mountain is always grounded, rooted in the earth, always still, always beautiful. It is beautiful just being what it is, seen or unseen, snow-covered or green, rained on or wrapped in clouds.

Thought doesn't wrap around awareness. Awareness wraps around thought.

This is the case because, as we noted earlier, it is not the breath that is most important here, but the awareness itself. And the awareness can be of any aspect of your experience, not just your breathing—because it is always the same awareness, whatever the chosen object or objects of attention.

The discipline I am referring to is really the willingness to bring the spaciousness and clarity of awareness back over and over again to whatever is going on — even as we feel we are being pulled in a thousand different directions.

It is a bit like television sports commentary. There is what is actually going on in the game, and then there is the endless commentary. When you begin a formal meditation practice, it is almost inevitable that you will now be subject to meditation commentary to one degree or another. It can fill the space of the mind. Yet it is not the meditation any more than the play-by-play is the game itself.

when you inhabit the domain of alert and affectionate attention, the domain of non-judgmental spaciousness, and simply rest in awareness with no agenda other than to be awake. We adopt this perspective of open presence and acceptance throughout the meditation practice.

M]indfulness does not involve trying to get anywhere or feel anything special. Rather it involves allowing yourself to be where you already are, to become more familiar with your own actual experience moment by moment.

if I can perceive myself as transparent or empty, then what comes toward me can go through me and out the door.

Il s'agit d'apprécier la plénitude de chaque moment que nous vivons et surtout d'être en contact avec notre être dans sa plénitude.

La méditation consiste à s'éveiller de cet état de rêve.

You certainly have to be ready for meditation. You have to come to it at the right time in your life, at a point where you are ready to listen carefully to your own voice, to your own heart, to your own breathing—to just be present for them and with them, without having to go anywhere or make anything better or different. This is hard work.

It wakes us up to the fact that our lives unfold only in moments. If we are not fully present for many of those moments, we may not only miss what is most valuable in our lives but also fail to realize the richness and the depth of our possibilities for growth and transformation.

ultimately, mindfulness is intimacy—with ourselves and the world—underneath any apparent separation between the two. The

it is awareness that we fall into when we stop trying to get somewhere or to have a special feeling and allow ourselves to be where we are and with whatever we are feeling right now.

We live immersed in a world of constant doing. Rarely are we in touch with who is doing the doing, or, put otherwise, with the world of being.