Nathaniel Branden Quotes

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.

The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.

If you have your full attention in the moment, you will see only love.

The experience taught me to be present in the real Buddhist sense of paying attention to the moment.

Well... ...That's what you always forget, isn't it? I mean, you forget to pay attention to what's happening. And that's the same as not being here and now.

I believe in being fully present. That means you should be with the person you’re with.

There is ecstasy in paying attention.

For God's sake, keep your eyes open. Notice what's going on around you.

In naming that which is right before me, that which I'd otherwise miss, the invisible becomes visible.

The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence.

If I'm watching my son play soccer, that's what I'm doing. If I'm going to a school concert, that's what I'm doing. I turn the phone off. I actively tune into whatever I'm doing. I walk every evening with one of my sons and for that half an hour, 45 minutes, that's what I'm doing.

I try to impress upon my students the importance of looking, listening... paying attention, in other words. You must pay attention.

Relaxation means allowing yourself to fall into a state where you are not doing anything, because if you are doing something, tension will continue. It is a state of non-doing. You simply relax and you enjoy the feeling of relaxation. Relax into yourself, just close your eyes, and listen to all that is happening all around. No need to feel anything as distraction. The moment you feel it is a distraction, you are denying God. This moment God has come to you as a bird. Don't deny.

Enlightenment means choosing to dwell in a state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes to what is.

With the disappearance of the future, the only thing that remains in your hands is now. Then you can go deep into this now - whatsoever you are doing. You can be eating or dancing or making love to a woman or singing or digging a hole in the ground - whatsoever you are doing. This is the only time you have, why not do it totally? Why not celebrate it? Celebration and being total mean the same thing. You celebrate only when you are total in something, and when you are total in something you celebrate it.

Meditation is totally different. When you concentrate you close your mind to everything else. Meditation means just an openness, a relaxed openness. It is not concentration. While listening to me you are listening to the birds singing in the trees too. The wind passing through the trees singing its song - you are open to it too. The aeroplane passing by, or the train - you are open to it too. This is meditation - you are simply open, available, conscious, available, all doors are open.

In an age of speed, I began to think nothing could be more exhilarating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.

An amazing realization is in the present moment there is only what is, but there are no problems. And if your attention remains in the Now, you no longer inhabit a world of problems. Challenges you may still face, but they come to you in the space of Now.

If you are fully aware in the moment, there is only love.

The best advice I ever came across on the subject of concentration is: Wherever you are, be there.

If you are waiting for anything in order to live and love without holding back, then you suffer. Every moment is the most important moment of your life. No future time is better than now to let down your guard and love.

Staying present, living in Presence is the best gift anyone can give to those they love.

Waiting does not exist in the experience of those who recognize the presence of love wherever they are.

If your attention is focused only on the result, then you are no longer in the process. But if you're in the process, then the result is guaranteed.

Meditation means to look deeply, to touch deeply, so we can realize we are already home.