Greg Egan Quotes

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

We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive.

Live for today. Multitudes of people have failed to live for today.... What they have had within their grasp today they have missed entirely, because only the future has intrigued them.

The present moment has always been available to spiritual seekers, but as long as you are seeking you are not available to the present moment. "Seeking" implies that you are looking to the future for some answer, or for some achievement, spiritual or otherwise. Everybody is in the seeking mode, seeking to add something to who they are, whether it be money, relationships, possessions, knowledge, status.. or spiritual attainment.

As long as we have some definite idea about or some hope in the future, we cannot really be serious with the moment that exists right now.

Are you stressed? Are you so busy getting to the future that the present is reduced to a means of getting there? Stress is caused by being "here" but wanting to be "there" or being in the present but wanting to be in the future. It's a split that tears you apart inside. To create and live with such an inner split is insane. The fact that everybody else is doing it doesn't make it any less insane.

We do not rest satisfied with the present.... So imprudent we are that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not thinkof the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us.

To dwell in the here and now does not mean you never think about the past or responsibly plan for the future. The idea is simply not to allow yourself to get lost in regrets about the past or worries about the future. If you are firmly grounded in the present moment, the past can be an object of inquiry, the object of your mindfulness and concentration. You can attain many insights by looking into the past. But you are still grounded in the present moment.

Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.

I have always wanted to live in the present and never the past.

I've known for years that you're supposed to be present. I know that thinking about what's happened or thinking about what I want is not going to get me anywhere, but until I quit doing it I'm not present.

I've always been someone who's really tried to live in the here and now. My memory isn't very good so maybe that's why, but it just seems like I've been living this life, my current chapter, for a really long time and I don't really remember what it was like before. It's just been sort of ingrained in me. What I deal with day to day.

Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.

It's ungrateful to be wishing you were doing something else at the moment you are living. You haven't lived in the moment that you are really living, you are wishing you were somewhere else.

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

I'm here in the present, and I want to make sure I don't stumble on my own feet.

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.

In zazen, one is one's present self, what one was, and what one will be, all at once.

To be happy, you must live in, but not for, the present moment.

Even in a moment of stress, you can say, "OK, can I enjoy the doing itself? Can I enjoy the flow of energy of this moment?" And of course you can!

To be in touch with yourself requires great sensitivity to everything that's going on here and now.

We can learn not to keep situations or events alive in our minds, but to return our attention continuously to the pristine, timeless present moment rather than be caught up in mental movie making.

Balance lives in the present. The surest way to lose your footing is to focus on what dreadful things might happen.

Just watch this moment, without trying to change it at all. What is happening? What do you feel? What do you see? What do you hear?

The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.