“Take a luxurious bite
out of the present,
and whistle along the road
of your destiny.”

~ Pablo Neruda

"We're all hallucinating all the time, including right now. It's just that when we agree about our hallucinations, we call that reality."

~ Anil Seth

"The trouble with the present is
that it's always in a state of vanishing.
Take the second it takes to end
this sentence with a period – already gone."

~ Billy Collins

"What is home?"

~ Pádraig Ó Tuama

"Half of what’s about to occur is unknown, both inside you and outside you."

~ David Whyte

How still we became,
witness and thing seen

~ Dorothy Walters

But do not ask me where I am going,
As I travel in this limitless world,
Where every step I take is my home.

~ Dogen Zenji

All I have is all I need
And all I need is here now

"The dominant story of modernity has been progress. Although still hardwired into our institutions, that story has lost most of its plausibility. new genres are taking its place: apocalypse and nihilism. Apocalypse is the imminent and triumphant conclusion of our most cherished stories. Nihilism is their collapse. Both are stories about the end of stories."

~ David R. Loy

Caretake this moment.
Immerse yourself in its particulars.
Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed.

~ Epictetus

"It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here."

~ John O'Donohue

Nothing will tell you
where you are.
Each moment is a place
you’ve never been.

~ Mark Strand

"The only way I've found to try to keep my balance in a globe permanently on the move—and ever more cluttered with stuff—is to step out of the world on a regular basis, and to step back from my life, so as to see what's truly inside them. Otherwise, I can feel I'm standing two inches away from a vast and constantly shifting canvas, terminally unable to make out the larger picture."

~ Pico Iyer

"One of the beautiful things about the early twilight at this time of year, as it fades into the dark of the long nights, is that you can just surrender yourself to it. Allow the twilight to remind you that it is a time of consideration and renewal. Know full well that in this world the darkness and the light are one. There is no new dawn without the night; their seeming separateness disguises a unity that reflects the unity of life, an unfathomable dance of opposites. This paradox is the very essence of what it is to be alive—joy and pain, sickness and health, light and dark, wonder and fear."

~ Phillip Moffitt

"This simple act of acceptance – which may only last a few seconds – offers a taste of that open space of essence love, an acceptance of the warmth that is your basic nature, the heart of your own being."

~ Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Everyone is doing their best, even when it seems like they are doing their worst.
Everyone is dreaming or having a nightmare, battling with pain you may never understand.
You don't have to condone their actions.
You may not be able to wake them up.
You don't have to like what happened.
Simply let go of the illusion
that it could have been any different.

~ Jeff Foster

I am listening in a cafeteria at breakfast.
The women's voices rustle, fulfill themselves
In a ritual no doubt necessary.
I glance sidelong at their moving lips
And I delight in being here on earth

"How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god?" ~ Alan Watts

When we are fully present, we are receptive to phenomenal world around us. Opening to sense perceptions, we become a sensate being, embodied. Being fully present, when we look, we actually see; when we listen, we hear; when we smell and taste, we savor it; when we touch, we truly feel. Connecting to the phenomenal world in this way is the key to contacting reality directly, beyond concept.