A
number of gateways into Presence have been introduced, including the breath, movement, body awareness, communication, and meditation.This chapter introduces a further three gateways that provide a range of opportunities to enter the present moment which are stillness, spaciousness, and nature.
Stillness of the Body
When the body is still, emotions and thoughts naturally follow. If we stay in a still position for long enough whilst remaining alert and relaxed, this will help us to become Present. This may happen in a few seconds or could take hours, depending on the conditions leading up to the physical stillness.
Personally, if I am relatively calm and relaxed, then I can achieve a state of Presence in a number of seconds or minutes. If I have been lost in thought for most of the day and feeling emotional, then it could take an hour or longer of physical stillness before the mind becomes quiet.
We can create opportunities to become still. Even if we are not fully Present, stillness will allow us to become more mindful and aware of our thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations. It helps if we can temporarily dis-engage with any thought-generating activity, such as watching TV, reading or using our phone during the practice. We simply sit or stand very still and wait patiently for the Presence to arise within us. This stillness practice is a form of meditation and is flexible enough to be introduced in most environments for anything from a few seconds to hours at a time. Using this practice before sleep and upon waking will increase sleep quality and help start our day with Presence. It can also be practised in public places such as when we are waiting in a queue.
Stillness enables us to work with our feelings. With most feelings, even the unpleasant ones, if we observe them diligently, they will pass within a couple of minutes. For example, when we are feeling anxious, we can locate
For Review Only
the anxiety in our bodies and observe how it is manifesting. If we are fully aware of the anxiety, then our mind will remain quiet without judging it or creating stories. To begin with, it can be helpful for us to use labels such as excitement, depression, fear, peace, happiness and so on to establish a con-ceptual connection with our feelings. As we become more advanced with this practice, we can let go of labelling our feelings with specific names.
Instead, we can label them as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.
When we look closely, we notice that feelings are unique in terms of their form and movement. We can experience them directly and let go of feeding them with unnecessary judgements and thoughts. This erodes part of the ego and helps us to gain freedom and peace from these types of feelings in the future. It sets us up to respond creatively in the present moment rather than producing and reacting to historical feelings that are no longer relevant.
The stillness practice teaches us about impermanence. We may realize at an intellectual level that all form (including ourself) is transient and noth-ing is ultimately fixed. By brnoth-ingnoth-ing awareness to our direct experience, we begin to understand this at a much deeper level. The deeper we understand this, the less we get blown around when things change in situations where we have a preference for them to stay as they are. This can apply to literally anything, ranging from a household appliance breaking down, the death of a loved one or a long-term relationship with our partner ending. A deeper understanding of impermanence cultivates equanimity, which is our ability to stay grounded and skilful amidst chaotic and challenging situations.
Our understanding of impermanence may be deepened through a signif-icant life event such as a serious illness, loss of a loved one or even signifsignif-icant personal gain. Regardless of whether we embark on a practice of Presence or connect with spiritual teachings, the universe will naturally teach us about impermanence. Even when we are not consciously working on becoming more Present, our conditions automatically provide the opportunities for us to learn and progress.
Two events relating to impermanence that everybody experiences are birth and death. Although death is something we can absolutely count on, most of us do relatively little to prepare for it. Understanding imperma-nence and becoming more Present allows us to experience illness and ul-timately to let go of our bodies peacefully when it is natural to do so. This then reduces the greatest fear of all for most of us, which is the fear of death.
Presence creates a more confident and peaceful existence in the relatively short time we inhabit the earth.
For Review Only
Space Between Objects
The third stage of Presence Meditation discussed in Chapter Four provides a technique for becoming Present through bringing our awareness to the space in-between form. This technique can also be used outside of medita-tion. Form includes everything we are aware of. Thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and things entering the senses are all part of form. When we have a moment whilst sitting or standing, we can practise this by investigating the space between the physical objects that surround us. For example, if we are seated on a bench and there are trees around us, we can explore the space in-between ourself and the trees. When we are seated at a desk using our computer, we can explore the space between ourself and the computer.
There is nothing in particular to look at, just empty space. Space is free from all physical characteristics, making it impossible to label or judge, which helps to calm the mind.
Exploring space in this way leads us into Presence. I often pause to do this if I am involved in an activity such as writing. When I feel tired, I stop and explore the space around me for a few seconds. This is enough to refresh me, clear my mind, enable Presence and allow that to flow into the writing when I continue. Taking pauses in this way aligns to the natural cycle of work and rest that can be observed in any balanced activity and in nature.
I do the same if I am stationary in traffic. I explore the space within my car or the space between my car and other cars. This technique provides a break from form, which is what we are usually focused on.
Silence
Exploring space between form includes exploring silence. Most environ-ments are not silent. Even in a quiet room, we may hear subtle sounds such as a clock ticking or the sound of our own breath. If we listen carefully, we can find pockets of silence between the sounds. If the sounds are continu-ous, such as the humming of an air conditioning unit, we can pay attention to the silence around them.
Every sound we hear has silence around it. When we are paying atten-tion to silence, we are paying attenatten-tion to nothing. Silence is empty. It is through this emptiness that we can enter a state of Presence. We may also use the pockets of silence in our communication as part of this practice.
When we are listening to people, we can pay attention to the silence between the words or the silence when they have finished speaking. If we have finished a conversation with somebody, we can give our attention to
For Review Only
the subsequent space and silence for a few seconds before moving on to our next activity.
There are opportunities everywhere to give our attention to silence.
When I use my laptop keyboard, I occasionally take the opportunity to place my attention on the silence in-between the key taps. Our breath con-tains brief pockets of silence at the end of the in-breath or the out-breath.
When a car engine or house alarm stops, you can give your attention to the space or silence that is perceived. I have suffered from tinnitus for most of my adult life. I continuously hear a very high-pitched sound. Even with this condition, it is still possible to give my attention to silence as the silence sur-rounds the high-pitched sound. This provides freedom from the condition in the same way that observing the space around physical pain allows us to be the awareness observing it rather than the pain itself.
Space Between Hindrances
In Chapter Five, a number of internal hindrances are introduced: Sensory desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt. They may be experienced through the ego feeding off worldly conditions. There may be certain times when the hindrances constitute the bulk of our expe-rience. This is more likely to be within situations that we find challenging.
I recall these hindrances playing a big part in my experiences during business conferences at work. These were often multi-day events where an-ything up to one hundred people would attend. I would take on the role as presenter or facilitator for part of the event. I would be expected to network and also take on board a vast amount of information that was being present-ed by others. I was outside of my comfort zone. My personality is introvert-ed. I usually influence my own working conditions to create an abundance of silence, solitude, space and breaks from thought, which suits me and pro-vides an environment to be productive and creative. As you might imagine, the contrast I experienced at these conferences was significant and remain-ing Present was a real challenge. The ego had a wonderful time. Durremain-ing the conferences, I would experience every type of hindrance a number of times.
This would include worrying about my presentation going wrong, feeling anxious about how I might be judged by others, craving to be alone, craving silence, experiencing ill will towards the odd person there who I did not like and doubting whether I was in the right job12.
I never expected to be fully Present throughout the conferences. That felt like too much to ask, given the challenges I faced. Gradually, as I
For Review Only
worked more on my practice, I started to notice gaps of thought opening up. To begin with, they only lasted a few seconds. With each conference, the gaps became more frequent and longer in duration. Even in that busy environment, ninety-nine percent of the time there was no real need to think. The bulk of my thoughts were related to the hindrances. So these conferences became beneficial to my practice. They provided a working ground. A calling to temporarily let go of controlling my environment, surrender to the experience whilst I was there and become more Present.
Because they were held every few months, they became a benchmarking opportunity where I could measure my Presence increasing. If I made progress, including a relatively small amount, from one conference to the next, I was grateful.
The learning point here is that we can always reframe a difficult situation into a positive opportunity. If we look closely enough at our experience during these times, we find pockets of spaciousness and peace between the hindrances. They may appear small and infrequent to begin with and as we evolve, they permeate more of our experience. As a practice, we can look out for these pockets of spaciousness in our planned and spontaneous med-itation. Regularly cultivating this gateway into Presence during meditation creates a habit to do the same outside of meditation.
Sleep
Bringing awareness to our physical experience when we are lying in bed at night before sleep and when we wake up in the morning allows us to enter into sleep through Presence and start the day with Presence. Many of us may find that without any conscious effort the opposite is true, which is that we are lost in thought when we fall to sleep and spend the first few moments of each day lost in thought. Becoming aware at these times is a practice that can take time to cultivate if we need to change old habits.
Small progressive steps are helpful and the process itself, in my opinion, regardless of the outcome, is thoroughly enjoyable and positively transforms our experience of falling to sleep and waking up.
With this practice, we are introducing two short planned meditations into every day. Everything else being equal, if we enter sleep through Pres-ence, our sleep quality and the amount of deep sleep we experience will increase. It is also a pleasant way of entering sleep and is far more helpful than experiencing thoughts based upon the hindrances such as anxiety or craving. The morning practice helps get our day off to a good start as we are
For Review Only
setting the tone with awareness and consciousness. We can also integrate this practice into any naps that we take throughout the day, which will open up further meditation opportunities.
Nature
A gateway for Presence that is readily accessible to us all is nature. What do we mean by nature? In the context of Presence and to provide a definition for use within this book, we can assume nature to be any form that has been created naturally. This could be a flower, a tree, the sky, the ocean, a droplet of water etc. It also includes seeing the nature within a human creation. If we look closely at a wooden table, we will see the wood grain that originated from the tree from which the table was made. We can also find nature in people, animals and insects.
To gain Presence through nature, we must experience it without la-belling. When we are looking, hearing, smelling or feeling nature, the intention should be awareness of our direct experience. When we label our experience, this involves thoughts, judgements or cravings which dilutes the experience. For example, we may see a dog and say to ourself, “That is a friendly dog. I have not seen a dog like that before. I am curious as to what type of dog it is. It looks a little similar to the dog I spotted the other week when I was with my friend. Maybe I should get in touch with my friend and arrange to meet again… etc… etc…” Before we know it, we are lost in thought. We may even call or message our friend immediately to share the news and in the meantime, the opportunity to continue to experience the beauty of the dog passes us by. We miss the present moment through being lost in the past and future. Our knowledge can hinder us in these situations as the more knowledge we have, the easier it can be for our mind to make connections with what we directly experience or filter the experience out altogether.
If we are knowledgeable about the sea, this can make it difficult for us to experience it directly without some mental commentary on the reasons for the size of the waves, temperature, colour and other characteristics. People who share what they know when they are in familiar environments or situa-tions sometimes display this. It is wonderful to share knowledge consciously when we are Present, but when shared unconsciously it can give the mind an opportunity to escape from what is taking place for us now. It also pro-vides the ego with an opportunity to strengthen through demonstrating knowledge regardless of whether it is useful for the recipients. We must
For Review Only
make even more of an effort to stay Present in surroundings and areas in which we are knowledgeable.
When we have an opportunity to observe nature, we can make a con-scious effort to observe it directly for a period of time. This can be an un-comfortable practice to start with because we are surrendering to the mo-ment and allowing it to connect us with something that is very vast and mysterious. Despite this being so wonderful and deep, it can be difficult to contain as our ego or the false sense of self will feel threatened and do its best to pull us back into self-referential thought to confirm that we exist as a fixed entity. This is delusional and causes us to suffer. The same thing can be experienced within our meditation if we become deeply Present. Being attentive to nature that does not involve humans is a good place to start. For most of us, when we observe people, there is more of a tendency to label and judge them. This is less likely with a flower, animal, tree, cloud or some oth-er natural object of the non-human kind. As we progress, we become more skilled at this and we then find it easier to place our attention onto people and be free from any discursive thought.
The time taken for nature to lead us into Presence varies based upon our state of consciousness at the time. When our mind becomes still and we experience peace or joy, we know that we are Present. When we go out into a natural setting we might spend much of the time talking to ourself in our minds about the past or future. Couples or groups of people do the same.
They are walking in a beautiful environment, which is longing for their attention. Instead of surrendering to it, they spend the whole time ‘catching up’ and talking about what has happened in their lives over the last few weeks and what they have planned. Reflecting and planning have their place and are helpful as long as they are performed consciously. So if we are taking a walk in nature with the conscious intention of talking about the past or future, that will work well and prove beneficial. However, if we are doing this in an addictive or habitual fashion, then we will be lost in thought and feeding the ego.
For Review Only
P O I N T S F O R R E F L EC T I O N
• When the body becomes still our emotions and thoughts naturally follow.
• With most feelings, even the unpleasant ones, if we observe them diligently they will pass within a couple of minutes.
• We can neutralize feelings through experiencing them directly and by letting go of feeding them with unnecessary thoughts and judge-ments.
• A deeper understanding of impermanence cultivates equanimity, which is our ability to stay grounded and skilful amidst chaotic and challenging situations.
• We can always reframe a difficult situation into a positive opportunity.
• Bringing awareness to our physical experience when we are lying in bed at night before sleep and when we wake up in the morning
• Bringing awareness to our physical experience when we are lying in bed at night before sleep and when we wake up in the morning