Presence remains even amidst worldly activities. Stillness is there even when you're doing something quickly, like rushing to answer the phone. Otherwise you would be condemned to moving in slow motion.

If you really want to know your mind, the body will always give you a truthful reflection, so look at the emotion, or rather feel it in your body. If there is an apparent conflict between them, the thought will be the lie, the emotion will be the truth.

Some form of suffering often brings about a readiness. One can say it cracks open the shell of the egoic mind with which many people identify as "me." Life cracks open that shell, and once that crack is there, then we are reached more easily by spiritual teaching.

Emotions arise in the place where your mind and body meet

Germany is a nation that created an enormous amount of suffering on the planet. The German people also themselves have suffered, because it always goes together.

...the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whaterver form. Both are illusions.

Actually, the ability to choose presence depends on the degree of presence that's emerging in you. Ultimately, you are not choosing, there's nobody there to choose. When you think you are choosing, presence is simply emerging in that moment.