The ground of being, awareness, presence – all names pointing to who we are beyond thought, time and space. In meditation we stop thought and this, our true nature, is revealed. In activity this ground of being or presence silently holds space, changeless and eternal and the substratum of all existence. Resting here, beyond thought, in meditation or not becomes a powerful place to direct our attention because it is our awakened state. The other day this question came up about presence:

“Isn’t presence like some sort of cheap escapism? I mean, I was having some restrospective thoughts, and sure I was feeling a little miserable, but then I felt better when going into presence, and yes, I feel OK now, but that doesn’t mean my problems aren’t still there, they are not going anywhere, I’m just basically ignoring them to experience this moment, I could very well be using this time to think about solutions, and try to punish myself into making some changes that could help me compensate for those regrets that won’t let me be happy. Also I’m sure once I stepped out of presence and start thinking again, reality is going to kick in, and it is going to remind me that I can’t change the past, and that the future looks tough, then I will feel miserable again until I find something else to distracts me. I don’t see how presence is going to solve anything, it only gives me a break, that’s all.”

Here is my response:

Ah, but presence is so much more than a break from our thinking minds – more than simply a moment of peace. Presence is an expansive field of awareness with infinite depth. As we spend more and more time here this Presence grows in us. We merge with it and become it, and we begin to know it intimately as our own true nature.

It’s not that presence itself solves our problems, but out of it can arise an intuitive sense, or even a direct knowing, of a way forward that is beyond what the lower polarized mind might tell us. By detaching from what Buddhists call the “monkey mind”, we begin to enjoy the peace, and also the heightened perception, that goes along with it. Our lives begin to change in expansive ways, and the practice of presence becomes our joy.

Poet and mystic Edward Carpenter in his collection of poetry, Towards Democracy, beautifully describes the quiet power of this inner presence in his poem:

NOW IS THE ACCEPTED TIME

Amid all the turmoil and the care – the worry, the fever, the anxiety
The gloomy outlook, fears, forebodings,
The effort to keep up with the rush of supposed necessities, supposed duties,
The effort to catch the flying point of light, to reach the haven
of Peace – always in the future –
Amid all, glides the little word Now.

As when the winds of March with their long brooms sweep the dead leaves from the surface of the ground, and the Earth in virgin beauty with the growing grass once more appears;
So when all this debris of thought from the Past, of anxiety about the Morrow, is at last swept away,
Does the vast ever-Present beneath reveal its perfect rondure.

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Photo: Rick Erbach