The art of being present is that of having one’s energies in the right place; neither morbidly drawn into intensive inner self concern nor pouring out into external activities and manifestations. But how are these opposing tendencies to be balanced? There is no substitute for constant vigilance. Whoever is too inward must open outward. Whoever is too outward must draw inwards until the balance is found. Constant work on the collected state can help us in this.
Also we have, when we learn to mobilize sensation, an almost miraculous power, able to protect us from all sorts of undesirable conditions in ourselves. Often people find it difficult to work with Mr. A or Mrs. B, or to do certain kinds of things that seem wrongly organized, or find themselves inwardly criticizing others and so on. They don’t know what to do about it. What to do is simple: when your attention goes off into these kinds of negative states, bring it back into your sensation.
Sensation will not remove all your troubles, but it removes an extraordinarily high percentage of them. Anyone who could really use this power of sensing can be free, by his or her own will, from very much that troubles people in ordinary life: all of the slavery to their relationships with other people, with their external activities, their likes and dislikes, all can be neutralized by sensation. But you must have a very great determination that this technique will be mastered.
–JG Bennett