This is a straightforward one, not requiring any great deal of research. It’s another quote from Jack Kornfield’s Buddha’s Litte Instruction Book. This quote’s from page 80. It also sometimes appears in an abbreviated form, as in this tweet:
Be where you are; otherwise you will miss your life. -Buddha
— Live, Love, Inspire (@LoveAdvicePolls) August 20, 2012
Buddha’s Litte Instruction Book is not a book of Buddha quotes, as you might think, and as, evidently, a lot of people have thought. As the back cover of the book tells us:
For this small handbook, a well-known American Buddhist and psychologist has distilled and adapted an ancient teaching for the needs of contemporary life. (Emphasis added.)
Unfortunately the title seems inadvertently to have misled many people, and Buddha’s Little Instruction Book is the single largest source of Fake Buddha Quotes on this site.
Sigh! Well the advise is good but Kornfield should have figured out another title for the book.
You probably only realize these things in retrospect…
J. Kornfield, on February 22, wrote on his FB page:
A lot of travel and meetings and busy-ness lately…reminding me of this from the Buddha,
“As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are. Otherwise, you will miss most of your life.”
…as if those had been the true words of the Buddha.
I wonder if he manages his own FB account or whether an assistant does it for him? That would explain why he was quoting himself as the Buddha.