Best 30 quotes in «being present quotes» category

Almost all sadness comes from thinking about the past, and all worry from thinking about the future — present-mindedness is your only safe haven.

Almost all accidents and injuries happen when an individual is not being present and not paying attention to what they are doing.

Every moment is a blank canvas.

Believe me, all of you, the best way to help the places we live in is to be glad we live there.

Empathy healed the moment. Words were not necessary when compassion created understanding in grief.

A mind that listens with complete attention will never look for a result because it is constantly unfolding; like a river, it is always in movement. Such a mind is totally unconscious of its own activity, in the sense that there is no perpetuation of a self, of a “me,” which is seeking to achieve an end.

Being present in the present, presents us with many presents.

Feeding Myself Time: Feeding yourself time is not about measuring calories or minutes. It's feeling so present being you that you're one with what and where you are.

I believe I will not not die a minute too early or a minute too late, but exactly when I am supposed to.

I believe in not trying to control things that are out of my control or none of my business.

Glorious sex that poets write about and that angels blow their trumpets over absolutely requires the participants to be fully engaged and fully witnessing the entire event!

I believe there are only three businesses: my business, other people's business, and God's business.

In the 1991 movie, City Slickers, Jack Palance gives Billy Crystal some profoundly simple advice. When Crystal asks him the secret of life, Palance holds up a forefinger, answers with a single word: "One." Choose one thing. Do it to the best of your ability. Let it go. Pick something else. Repeat endlessly. How sad that so much of our lives is spent looking back over our shoulders or gazing far ahead instead of wringing full benefit from the only thing we truly own: Now. This moment. None other. There is no other. How tragic, therefore, not to fulfill its unique promise before it passes from us forever. How much of our regret comes from wasting so many of our moments wanting something better, something different, something other than what we have at the moment we have it.

If you feel anxiety or depression, you are not in the present. You are either anxiously projecting the future or depressed and stuck in the past. The only thing you have any control over is the present moment; simple breathing exercises can make us calm and present instantly.

In the fifteenth century, Marsilio Ficino put it as simply as possible. The mind, he said, tends to go off on its own so that it seems to have no relevance to the physical world. At the same time, the materialistic life can be so absorbing that we get caught in it and forget about spirituality. What we need, he said, is soul, in the middle, holding together mind and body, ideas and life, spirituality and the world.

It occurred to her that all the bad parts of life, the sad parts, the frightening ones, were meant to be offset by moments and memories like this. She had to be present in it, right here, right now.

It occurred to me to look up and around at the stars in the clear sky, at the trees in the dark, at the half moon. I was missing them because I was caught in my head. I wasn't living right now. I was thinking to the future, to the past. I wasn't present. This is one of my greatest weaknesses, and one I have a greater realization of, only because I allowed some of my past to die so that my present could rush in to fill it.

Places don't matter to people any more. Places aren't the point. People are only ever half present where they are these days. They always hae at least one foot in the great digital nowhere.

Meditation is the only thing that ever surprised me in my life.

Nobody can really see into the future. So see into the present. Appreciate what is in front of you right now. We can all become 'here'voyants.

Places don't matter to people any more. Places aren't the point. People are only ever half present where they are these days. They always have at least one foot in the great digital nowhere.

So let me get this straight," he says. "Death is the only destination and nothing else is real because it's not perfect or final?" I roll my eyes. "Okay, Nietzsche. That's not exactly what I said." "I just think people are always doing that." "Doing what?" "They're always asking themselves, 'Where am I going?' but they're never looking around and asking, 'Where am I?' Everything's about what's going to be next instead of noticing what's happening right now. But the now is the only thing that's actually real.

The pace of this modern age is not conducive to maintaining one’s consciousness. Glued to our electronics, we are blind and deaf to the world around us. Run down by our long work days, we are too exhausted to think and too hurried to feel. The day ends in a haze of strained thoughts, numbness, and fatigue. And we rise the next morning only to start the cycle again. In this age of distraction, if you desire to fritter away your life with empty diversions, there is an abundance of gadgets available to aid you. Quietness is a characteristic of ages gone by. Our generation is the one it died with. Connected to the virtual world, we ignore the presence of those in our home. One can only hope we will awaken to the need for balance before we look up from the screen to find our loved ones have gone, and our life has passed us by.

The concentration of a baby is alive wonderment. It is to that kind of organic interest, or passion, and awareness that Toni [Packer] seems to be pointing: listening that is not rote or methodical in any way. The baby has no sense yet of self-image, of itself as an object—a person—who needs to be improved, and Toni will question any meditation practice that contributes to such a picture.

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.

We almost never think of the present, and it we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and present are out means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so. (Page 10)

We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if were found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay it's too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is the present usually hurts. We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away. We try to give it the support of the future, and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching. (Page 9)

We learn to become more empathic when we slow down, become present, and are fully committed to understanding another person’s uniqueness.

We’re so caught up in trying to do everything, experience all the essential things, not miss out on anything important...We can’t read all the good books, watch all the good films, go to all the best cities in the world, try all the best restaurants, meet all the great people...Life is better when we don’t try to do everything. Learn to enjoy the slice of life you experience, and life turns out to be wonderful.

You're all murdering life...You're all trying to change yourselves, all trying to change what is, and thus you're never actually living what is. You're killing who you are every day of your lives by not being who you are...where you are.