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No thought about the past or future can pull you away from your present peace and joy. The universe exists in this present moment. No desire can pull you away from this present peace, not even the desire to become a Buddha or the desire to save all beings. Know that to become a Buddha and to save all beings can only be realized on the foundation of the pure peace of the present moment.
Nhat HanhWe try to be present when we are drinking our tea, which isn't as easy as it sounds. It's very easy to think, right now I'm going to be really present while I'm drinking my tea, here I am drinking my tea, and I'm so present, look this is easy, I am here drinking my tea and I know I'm drinking my tea blah blah blah blah... right? And the one place where the mind is not, is here. It's just thinking about being here.
Tenzin PalmoGod, Who is everywhere, never leaves us. Yet He seems sometimes to be present, sometimes to be absent. If we do not know Him well, we do not realize that He may be more present to us when He is absent than when He is present.
Thomas MertonBe present. I would encourage you with all my heart just to be present. Be present and open to the moment that is unfolding before you. Because, ultimately, your life is made up of moments. So don't miss them by being lost in the past or anticipating the future.
Jessica LangeExistence is only in the present. Mind is never in the present. In fact, the moment you are in the present, there is no mind in you, there is great silence. The whole sky of your inner being is without thoughts, without clouds. I call this the state of no-mind. Only in this state of no-mind do you meet existence. And that meeting is the ultimate ecstasy. Once you have tasted it, you will never bother about the future.
RajneeshTo me, living in the present means being aware of your conscious choice to focus on the past, present or future - it is not necessarily having to focus on the present.
Robert Foster BennettBest not to mix the past with the present. The present paints the past with gold. The past paints the present with lead.
Henry RollinsIn fact, life is our greatest teacher. Whatever we are doing can be instructive, whether we are at the office, or talking to our spouse, or driving a car on the freeway. If we are present to our experiences, the impressions of our activities will be fresh and alive, and we will always learn something new from them. But if we are not present, every moment will be like every other, and nothing of the preciousness of life will touch us.
Don Richard RisoIn the present age, man proves his separation from his Creator by his spirit of self-sufficienc y and positive rejection of God. The present issue between God and man is one of whether man will accept God's estimate of him, abandon his hopeless self-struggle, and cast himself only on God who alone is sufficient to accomplish his needed transformation.
Lewis Sperry ChaferOne of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present.
Stephen CoveyI construct my memories with my present. I am lost, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape.
Jean-Paul SartreWhen something goes wrong in our lives we often ask ourselves "Who was present?" and if there was ever a singular person that was present in whatever the event was when something changed our lives. If we can't get beyond that event, we become obsessed with it or it changed our life in a way that we can't make sense of. We often seek out that person because that was the last time our lives made sense.
Samuel WitwerIn France, we have laรฏcitรฉ, which means that atheism is almost our state religion. But I think a very important part of Western culture is in the centuries when Christianism was dominant and was present in almost all works of art - not only liturgical works, but also literature and music. Yes, it's important to have that in our present. It doesn't mean that people have to adhere to a dogma or practice a religion, but it's part of our heritage, and you have to at least try to understand it. Otherwise you can't be a modern person.
Eugene GreenYou cannot be present in an abstract way. Presence is not about disappearing into nothingness. You can only be present with something that is actually here.
Leonard JacobsonPresent-moment living, getting in touch with your now, is at the heart of effective living. When you think about it, there really is no other moment you can live. Now is all there is, and the future is just another present moment to live when it arrives.
Wayne DyerLet anyone try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or to attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.
William JamesThird, consider the insistency of an idea. The insistency of a past idea with reference to the present is a quantity which is less, the further back that past idea is, and rises to infinity as the past idea is brought up into coincidence with the present.
Charles Sanders PeirceThe future has become uninhabitable. Such hopelessness can arise, I think, only from an inability to face the present, to live in the present, to live as a responsible being among other beings in this sacred world here and now, which is all we have, and all we need, to found our hope upon.
Ursula K. Le GuinFor almost half a century, Fermilab has occupied center stage as physicists have sought to understand the fundamental structure of the universe. The lab deserves a good history, and I'm happy to say that in this book it has one. The authors present a compelling, nuanced, and richly detailed account of the place from its beginnings to the present.
James TrefilPost-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present.
John BergerThe essence of all religions is One. Surrender is the main duty of everyone. Surrender means the feeling of oneness, I and God are One. Why? The reason is that the One who is present in you is present in me.
Sathya Sai BabaOur thoughts are always pulling us into the future or the past, away from the present. But it is in the present moment that we find Spirit, our essential being and the force that animates all life.
Deepak ChopraThere are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.
Abraham LincolnYou spend very little time in the present moment. Reality exists only in the present moment. Therefore you spend very little time in reality.
Leonard JacobsonI needed to get into a nightclub and stand up and present the material that way. I needed to present it live.
Dwight YoakamOld & New put their stamp to everything in Nature. The snowflake that is now falling is marked by both. The present moment gives the motion & the color of the flake: Antiquity, its form & properties. All things wear a luster which is the gift of the present & a tarnish of time.
Ralph Waldo EmersonIn a true you-and-I relationship, we are present mindfully, nonintrusively, the way we are present with things in nature.We do not tell a birch tree it should be more like an elm. We face it with no agenda, only an appreciation that becomes participation: 'I love looking at this birch' becomes 'I am this birch' and then 'I and this birch are opening to a mystery that transcends and holds us both.
David RichoThings that are present - whether it's a conversation with someone who is really grounded in the moment, a movie that feels authentic, or a moment in nature where you feel nothing but the present. It motivates me to truly ground myself, breathe, and push forward. Crashing waves.
Jonathan KeltzThe present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding.
Ariel DurantI'm not writing anything out of some sense of obligation, or for marketing purposes. This is just what I prefer to write. Even though I write mostly for kids, I'm not out to teach a moral lesson or present a guidebook for life. My primary goal as a writer is to create fun, entertaining books that present interesting ideas and themes, so kids can have a break from the stresses of their lives. I got a fan letter once from a girl who said one of my books made her feel good about herself, and if there's anything I'm reaching for, it's that.
Hope LarsonThe nature of the video camera really makes you focus on the present. Since I have always been a diarist filmmaker, not one who stages scenes with actors, it has always been about the present moment.
Jonas MekasAs modern-day neuroscience tells us, we are never in touch with the present, because neural information-processing itself takes time. Signals take time to travel from your sensory organs along the multiple neuronal pathways in your body to your brain, and they take time to be processed and transformed into objects, scenes, and complex situations. So, strictly speaking, what you are experiencing as the present moment is actually the past.
Thomas MetzingerIt is an irrational claim to believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ and at the same time to hold that the greater part of his teachings have no application at the present time. If you say that the reason why the powers do not follow them that believe (as Christ said they would) is because you have not faith enough and are not pure enough-that will be all right. But to say that they have no application at the present time is to be ridiculous.
Swami VivekanandaCompletely desist from defending your point of view. When you have no point to defend, you do not allow the birth of an argument. If you do this consistently - if you stop fighting and resisting - you will fully experience the present, which is a gift. Someone once told me, "The past is history, the future is a mystery, and this moment is a gift. That is why this moment is called 'the present'."
Deepak ChopraI'm no longer interested in making political films. There's something old-fashioned about them. Young people now don't care for politics. It isn't present in life as it used to be. And increasingly I like films which reflect present-day reality.
Bernardo BertolucciRessentiment is always to some degree a determinant of the romantic type of mind. At least this is so when the romantic nostalgia for some past era (Hellas, the Middle Ages, etc.) is not primarily based on the values of that period, but on the wish to escape from the present. Then all praise of the โpastโ has the implied purpose of downgrading present-day reality.
Max SchelerGod exists in eternity. The only point where eternity meets time is in the present. The present is the only time there is.
Marianne WilliamsonHistory, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.
Benjamin CardozoAll of the pleasures of this present physical life can be continued into the next life as well, since we will have a body which is similar to our present physical body, but so much more glorious and wonderful and supernatural. We will be able to eat, drink, be merry and have fun without ever suffering pain or sickness or weariness or death.
David BergTo me, making a horror movie is about how you can present similar genre familiarities, but present them a little bit differently. Part of what interests me is the nonchalant realism of it, because you don't get that in the big studio horror movies. I like seeing someone walk around a house and sift through the drawers, and things like that, because that reminds me of what I would do, and of weird personal choices that people would make. That, in contrast to seeing someone get chased with a knife, makes it all the more interesting.
Ti WestGod isn't present in the past or future. The great 'I Am' is in the present moment. When I claim that presence, I can get through anything today.
Regina BrettCivilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be discovered.
Cyril ConnollyPeace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. Every breath we take, every step we take, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment.
Nhat HanhWhy do we not exhaust the heritage of the ages, spiritual and material for our immediate pleasure, and let posterity go hang? So far as simple rationality is concerned, self-interest can advance no argument against the appetite of present possessors. Yet within some of us, a voice that is not the demand of self-interest or pure rationality says that we have no right to give ourselves enjoyment at the expense of our ancestors' memory and our descendants' prospects. We hold our present advantages only in trust.
Russell KirkWhen a reader enters the pages of a book of poetry, he or she enters a world where dreams transform the past into knowledge made applicable to the present, and where visions shape the present into extraordinary possibilities for the future.
AberjhaniI do not mean to be the slightest bit critical of TV newspeople, who do a superb job, considering that they operate under severe time constraints and have the intellectual depth of hamsters. But TV news can only present the "bare bones" of a story; it takes a newspaper, with its capability to present vast amounts of information, to render the story truly boring.
Dave BarryIn whatever position one is in, or in whatever condition in life one is placed, one must find balance. Balance is the state of the present - the here and now. If you balance in the present, you are living in Eternity.
B.K.S. IyengarIn general people experience their present naively, as it were, without being able to form an estimate of its contents; they have first to put themselves at a distance from it - the present, that is to say, must have become the past - before it can yield points of vantage from which to judge the future.
Sigmund Freud