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Presence Quotes

Browse 511 quotes about Presence.

Presence Quotes

“Did I live? The human world is like a vast musical instrument on which we play our individual part while simultaneously listening to the compositions of others in an effort to contribute to the whole. We don't chose whether to engage, only how to; we either harmonize or create dissonance. Our words, our deeds, our very presence create and leave impressions in the minds of others just as a writer makes impressions with their words. Who you are is an unfolding narrative. You came from nothing and will return there eventually. Instead of taking ourselves so seriously all the time, we can discover the playful irony of a story that has never been told in quite this way before. -- Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs”

PlayCreativityPresenceUnfoldingPlayfulnessDissonanceHarmonize
Author:Stephen Batchelor
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“The moving force in Showing of Saying is Owning. It is what brings all present and absent beings each into their own, from where they show themselves in what they are, and where they abide according to their kind. This owning which brings them there, and which moves Saying as Showing in its showing we call Appropriation. It yields the opening of the clearing in which present beings can persist and from which absent beings can depart while keeping their persistence in the withdrawal.”

LanguageAbsencePresenceSayingClearingAppropriationShowingEreignis
Book:On the Way to Language
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“Only by fully preparing oneself for people's absence can one be at ease with their presence. A recluse, I have begun to understand, is not a person for whom a connection with another person is unattainable or meaningless, but one who feels she must abstain from people because a connection is an affliction, or worse, an addiction. It has not occurred to me, until I met Trevor, to ask: 'Will I see you again?' What had precluded me from asking is this: 'Perhaps I won't see you again, and if so, goodbye for now and goodbye forever.”

AbsenceConnectionPresenceRecluse
Book:Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life
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“It was as if I finally understood what being present meant. I had heard it so many times in yoga classes but I had never experienced it. It was like a protective film that someone had forgotten to take off was peeled back from my brain, and I could finally see things clearly. How I wasn't truly stuck.”

PresenceEpiphanyAntidepressantsClarify
Book:On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard
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“Perhaps our dreams are there to be broken, and our plans are there to crumble, and our tomorrows are there to dissolve into todays, and perhaps all of this is all a giant invitation to wake up from the dream of separation, to awaken from the mirage of control, and embrace whole-heartedly what is present. Perhaps it is all a call to compassion, to a deep embrace of this universe in all its bliss and pain and bitter-sweet glory. Perhaps we were never really in control of our lives, and perhaps we are constantly invited to remember this, since we constantly forget it. Perhaps suffering is not the enemy at all, and at its core, there is a first-hand, real-time lesson we must all learn, if we are to be truly human, and truly divine. Perhaps breakdown always contains breakthrough. Perhaps suffering is simply a right of passage, not a test or a punishment, nor a signpost to something in the future or past, but a direct pointer to the mystery of existence itself, here and now. Perhaps life cannot go 'wrong' at all.”

SpiritualityAwarenessLetting GoPresence
Author:Jeff Foster
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“The seminal work of Stephen Porges ... suggests that presence becomes possible when there is a felt sense of safety ... When we are in the role of practitioner, if our autonomic nervous system is receiving what it needs to have a neuroception of safety (our system's felt sense, below the level of conscious awareness, that we are safe) then our social engagement system (the ventral vagal parasympathetic) will be alive in the room as our patients arrive. In this state, we become a potentially safe landing strip for them. When we are able to offer this safe haven, the possibility of the other person moving toward a similar felt sense of safety awakens the healing space between us through resonance.”

HealingMental HealthPresenceNervous SystemPolyvagal TherapyTips For TherapistsParasympathetic Nervous SystemTips For Psychologists
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
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“Whatever people are doing, they are doing for a reason. It is the natural outcome of their present level of consciousness. We can educate, inspire, and encourage, but we can only meet them halfway. The rest must come from the other person through deliberate, conscious choice. As they evolve, their choices will evolve too.”

RealitySpiritualityHealingConsciousnessAwarenessPerceptionAwakeningDimensionsPresenceInner Journey
Book:Enanika: Visionary Fiction
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“As Lara stared in the square Queen Anne mirror poised on the chest of drawers in her room, it seemed that the atmosphere changed, the air suddenly heavy and pressing. It was so quiet in the cottage that she could hear her own mad heartbeat. She caught sight of something in the mirror, a deliberate movement that paralyzed her. Someone had entered the cottage. Skin prickling, Lara stood in frozen silence and stared into the mirror as another reflection joined her own. A man's bronzed face... short, sun-streaked brown hair... dark brown eyes... the hard, wide mouth she remembered so well. Tall... massive chest and shoulders... a physical power and assurance that made the room seem to shrink around him. Lara's breath stopped. She wanted to run, to cry out, faint, but it seemed that she had been turned to stone. He stood just behind her, his head and shoulders looming far above hers. His gaze held hers in the mirror... The eyes were the same color, yet... he had never looked at her like this, with an intensity that made every inch of her skin burn. His was the hard gaze of a predator. She shook in fright as his hands moved gently to her hair. One by one he slipped the confining pins from the shining sable mass, and set them on the dresser before her. Lara watched him, quivering with each light tug on her hair. "It's not true," she whispered. He spoke in Hunter's voice, deep and slightly raspy. "I'm not a ghost, Lara." She tore her gaze from the mirror and stumbled around to face him. He was so much thinner, his body lean, almost rawboned, his heavy muscles thrown into stark prominence. His skin was tanned to a copper blaze that was far too exotic for an Englishman. And his hair had lightened to the mixed gold and brown of a griffin's feathers.”

PresenceMasculine BeautyLara And HunterHunter Crossland
Book:Stranger in My Arms
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“I started noticing something else, too. People will give their lives—literally give their one wild and precious life—to whatever they believe is sacred. Sometimes it’s faith. Sometimes it’s family. Sometimes it’s sex, status, politics, or money. I’ve watched people burn themselves out in service of sacred cows that never once fed them back. And I’ve also seen people light up with vitality when they—even for a moment—remember joy. When they reconnect to some tiny thread of playfulness. When they taste freedom again. Animals used for research being released into open pasture again. And I’ve come to believe this: anything that reconnects you with your truest, most liberated self—that helps you love more deeply, breathe more easily, move through the world with more softness and curiosity—that thing is sacred.”

SoulPlayJoySpiritualityHealingSafetyAuthenticityPresenceSelf ExpressionInner Child
Book:Sacred Silly
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“This is a book about learning to be ridiculous again. It’s about loosening the chokehold of perfectionism, shedding the husk of seriousness, and recovering the parts of you that don’t need reasons to giggle, or snort, or sneer. You don’t need to be funnier. Or more artistic. Or more outgoing. You just need to be willing. Curious. Kind to the parts of yourself that still miss recess.”

SoulPlayJoySpiritualityHealingSafetyAuthenticityPresenceSelf ExpressionInner Child
Book:Sacred Silly
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“If a PEAK EXPERIENCE is what happens when you actively unplug yourself from the Void – even if just for a second – then the Sublimity of Nature and Life itself is just God/the TRUTH/wholeness trying to unplug you from the dream so you can see yourself and truth as one.”

GodTruthSpiritualityNaturePerceptionAwakeningWholenessSublimePresencePeak Experience
Book:Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace
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“A famous aphorism tells us, „The Sufi is the child of the moment“ (as-sufi ibn al-waqt). One of its meanings is that the true Sufi lives in the constant awareness that his self is nothing but what he is at the present moment. And since each present moment is unique, each moment of the self is unique. In some Sufi texts, each moment is called a nafas, a „breath.“ The Sufis are then called „the folk of the breaths“ (ahl al-anfas), because they live in full awareness of the uniqueness of the nafs at each nafas, each breath, each instant. (p. 55-56)”

EnlightenmentAwakeningSufismPresenceSufi WisdomSufi WayThe Child Of The MomentThe Folk Of The Breaths
Book:Sufism: A Beginner's Guide
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“The lover drinks and the cup-bearer pours. The lover thinks but the cup-bearer knows: love begets love. Since this wine is love, then this cup is love, then this tavern is love, then this life is love.”

LoveLifeGodSpiritualReligionFaithSpiritualityEnjoyLove QuotesConsciousnessAwarenessWineUnityDrinkingDrunkOnenessBelovedBlissEnjoymentEcstasySufismPresentLoverLovingLive In The MomentPresenceSufiOne LoveTranscendenceTogethernessKamandKojouriKamand KojouriLove PoemsBegetsDrunkennessUnionEuphoriaSufi QuotesMerrimentTranscendLove Is LoveLove WinsDrinksCupTavernDrunkenPoursCupbearerLove Begets LoveSufi Poems
Author:Kamand Kojouri
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“More important than the words or silence is my inner stance of making room for what is stirring within him, becoming alertly still enough inside that his inner world senses safety, the precursor to him opening into vulnerability.”

ListeningSafetyTherapyPresenceTrauma HealingPsychological Safety
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
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“if our attention is what we're going to do next to accomplish a specific goal (often decrease a symptom) rather than openness to what the other person is bringing to the moment, we have stepped into our left hemispheres and out of relationship- and our patient will feel that as a kind of subtle abandonment. This interchange will likely happen below the level of conscious awareness and yet lead our person to step back a bit internally, awaiting the arrival of true presence, without agenda or judgement, so that safety can arise in the space in between. At that moment, the healing power inherent in this co-organizing/co-regulating relationship arrives. We have been returning to this crucial distinction in these pages, as much as possible with ongoing compassion for the challenge we experience as we open to the right remaining consistently in the lead.”

PresencePerson CenteredPsychological SafetyEmotional IntimacyAttunementTherapy TipsSafe RelationshipsHealing Space
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
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