Whole body attention on sensation, relaxation and presence steps in. ‘I’ am present.
There is another step. I can enter His presence.
When ‘I’ am present there is a feeling of being here as the being ‘I’ have always been. When ‘I’ surrenders, a larger Presence steps in. This is not a matter of effort but, rather, a deep release of effort. The heart reflexively turns up to invite this larger Presence.
In Vajrayana Buddhism, they say the child jumps into the mother’s lap.
The Universe experiences itself through me.
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July 17, 2024
Tags: His Presence, in presence, present, work notes
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January 17, 2024
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 yet they assert with confidence what they assume to be my identity. What a strange and disorienting event.
This makes me examine what and who I imagine myself to be. Certainly it must be true that everyone I engage with has a different view and then there is how I see myself which also changes many times within a day. Is there any part of me which is constant, reliable, unchanging. Are there certain qualities and gestures which arise from a source that is not easily misinterpreted or pretentious. Is there a true identity which I can inhabit?
And in reply:
Humans have the extraordinary capacity to say ‘I’, to identify, which gives me a separate existence. ‘I’ gives me the dynamic power to choose my experience, even my purpose for being.However, ‘I’ can adopt as itself any self-image, behavior or role and the process of doing so is what is called identification. We are almost always identified, which simply means to be occupied by a temporary, false sense of who we are. All such identities consist of unconscious habits and conditionings learned from outside. In work terms, this is sleep.
When I am identified, there is no room for anything else. There is no space between.
The antidote is to be present. In presence the ‘I’ is able to merge with something other than unconscious imagery and behavior. Presence is the true home for ‘I’. In presence, my habits may continue but I am separate from them and able to observe them. There is space and time to act differently. In presence, a sense of being a source of attention penetrates the present moment. With it comes a sense of familiarity, a sense of being who I have always been.
What does it mean to be present? It means not to be identified. It means to observe impartially what I am actually doing, my physical behavior as it occurs, not analytically but in real time. Not asserting what I think I am or should be but what is happening now. If I wish to penetrate presence, I must see identification, see it as a process, watch myself fall into its web. Only presence can know itself and its opposite. Presence offers the possibility of ‘a true identity which I can inhabit’, but as a dynamic state of continual renewal, not a stable resting place.Tags: identification, presence, present, work notes
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June 12, 2023
Being present in the present is the first step in sobriety and the path of re-membering.
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June 3, 2023
To be present is to step out of personality and recollect being in the field of impartial attention.
Tags: aphorism, personality, present
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June 1, 2023
To be present is more than to be in the present.
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August 6, 2022
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, other things can enter, the possibility of feeling, of open perception, an objective view. My state is a prayer. I stand at the doorway.
Being present does not last long. The reverberations of the machine…the body and mind…continue and pull me back into habitual living. The life of the world beckons. How to remain in the real world? We are advised to waken the machine. What does this mean? In the waking state, body and mind have no negative emotion…no emotion that drains my energy down and out. (Negative in the electrical sense, as much true of euphoria as anger.) I am translucent. I have energy. I am an energy transformation device converting sensation to consciousness and consciousness to love. I enter the real world.
You may think you can ‘do’ this…become present, waken the machine, join the work. Perhaps you can release your personality for a moment and call your presence to be. To waken, much more is required. Your attention must be able to hold, note every flutter of habitual sensation, thought and emotion and release them as they arise. With no discharge, you fill with energy and higher functioning is possible. This is exaltation.
Some teachers of the work state the rules of procedure for waking the machine. You cannot rely on them. The rules come after the experience. They become clear when you have travelled the path. You cannot begin with a view of the end point. You struggle to observe self. You see that all higher states are gifts. You slowly fall in love with the simple, with nature, with smiles and small gestures.
Trying to awaken is like trying to put hay through the wrong end of the elephant. One day, your experiences will begin to waken you, when you have stopped your pathetic need to react to everything habitually and your ambitions fall away. Then you can work.Tags: awaken, invoke, pivot, presence, present, Real World, work
