Meeting someone from my past that I have not had contact with for 10 or 20 years, they begin to elaborate on what they ‘know’ to be me, as if nothing has changed or moved in all that time, even their original perception seems distorted, nothing that they are remembering is recognizable as myself and Read More

The post A Reader’s Response to Identification first appeared on In Presence.

When I invoke presence, I pivot, I turn towards the real world. What is the real world? It is easier to describe what it is not. It is not the world of my personality, the world of the things I want, my anxieties or ambitions, my worries and fears, my roles in life. Being present, Read More

The post Pivot first appeared on In Presence.

There are very few sacred spaces left on this earth, it seems to me. What is a sacred space? It’s a place where the veils of ordinary existence are thinner and it is more possible to engage and penetrate the subtle worlds of feeling and meaning which are so easily hidden by worldly engagement. The Read More

The post Entering first appeared on In Presence.

I am sure you know this, but I will say it anyway. There is a great difference between entering the present and being present. But perhaps this is a distinction that is easy to lose? From my perspective, entering the present is perhaps the most important transition that I can make of my own will. Read More

The post Into the Present first appeared on In Presence.

I am receptive to the view that Vajrayana Buddhists have of what happens after death…that our consciousness enters a bardo between death and rebirth where we re-experience mental simulations of the unresolved emotional states of our life. I am also careful to say that I do not know any of this for certain and I Read More

The post Black first appeared on In Presence.

One of the mysteries of zikr is that it seems to take place in another country which is not known to me in my ordinary state. In my everyday life, I know where I am.  I have a physical and psychological orientation, a map of my personal territory, which is as fixed as a street Read More

The post Friend first appeared on In Presence.