Dan Millman Quotes

While the mind lives in the past and the future, the body lives in the now.

Our whole energy remains blocked either in the past or in the future. When you withdraw all your energy from past and future a tremendous explosion happens.

There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again.

We always project into the future or reflect in the past, but we are so little in the present.

Mindfulness means being aware of how you're deploying your attention and making decisions about it, and not letting the tweet or the buzzing of your BlackBerry call your attention.

We rob ourselves of so much by focusing on the wrong stuff. And the ability to get into the moment and deal with what is, that's the real opportunity.

Correct meditation means correctly understanding your situation moment by moment - what are you doing now? Only do it! Then, each action is complete; each action is enough. Then no thinking, so each moment I can perceive everything just like this.

If you think about the future, you lose perspective of the present.

Anytime you put your mind on the results, you lose something in the moment.

But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.

Bliss cannot be found by remembering the past or anticipating the future.

Which is worse, past or future? Neither. I will fold up my mind like a leaf and drift on this stream over the brink.

We all spend so much time worrying about the future that the present moment slips right out of our hands. And so all we have left is retrospection and anticipation, retrospection and anticipation. In which case what's left to recall but past anticipation? What's left to anticipate but future retrospection?

Don't worry about the past and don't try to solve the future.

To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. This total reversal of the truth accounts for the fact that in the ego mode the mind is so dysfunctional. It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it - who are you?

If you have one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, you're pissing all over today.

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.

If we live with possibilities we are exiles from the present which is given us by God to be our own, homeless and displaced in a future or a past which are not ours because they are always beyond our reach. The present is our right place, and we can lay hands on whatever it offers us.

Instead of 'watching the thinker,' you can also create a gap in the mind stream simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation.

If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.

Attention-yes! That's present! And present, you see, makes past and future.

Bring awareness to each act. Walking on the road, walk fully alert; eating, eat with awareness. Whatsoever you are doing, don't let the past and the future interfere. Be in the present. That's what awareness is all about.

Being in the moment means not being distracted by the melodrama and hysteria around you. Present-moment awareness allows solutions to emerge.

For the ego to survive, it must make time - past and future - more important than the present moment.

A mind that wants to wander around a corner is an un-wise mind. Now, is, be here now.