The faces of Presence
Here it comes...another huge devastating wave. I could hardly restore my breathing after the previous one.. and now the new one is on its way towards the shore. And I’m here, waiting for a chance to climb up the wave... I’m all ALERTNESS. In moments like this one you just don’t have the luxury of being lost in your thoughts, thinking about past or future...It’s down right dangerous. So you’ve gotta have your mind quiet and keep your eyes peeled, so to speak.
Twenty minutes ago a lifeguard was talking to me with a hilarious Cretan accent “Dude, get outa de water..Swimming is dangeroz. Coupla days ago a guy almost drawned”. I listened to him, gave him the look of understanding and waited till he walked away...and here I am again, in the water, in beautiful raging sea, swimming and conquering wave after wave.
It’s dangerous...even though I’m a good swimmer and I can handle those waves with ease.
Well, It flatters my ego of course... I’m like that guy who’s larger than life, capable of facing the powers of nature.. But if I were to ask myself a question like “Why am I really doing this?” the answer would probably be “Because activities like this leave me no other choice than to be in the moment, to be fully alert and PRESENT”. I feel like I can fully relate to people who engage in extreme sports. Because that’s the beauty of it – completely blank and quiet mind, alertness and aliveness in every cell of your body. And all you are is just that - PRESENCE.
Now of course, being a devoted sea lover that I am, I’m still 100% an urban guy and I spend at least 350 days of year far away from sea. So I had to look for other ways to get in that enjoyable state of presence, something more mundane and safe than annoying lifeguards with my dangerous swimming activity. For me being present was still a bit of an extreme-thing. “Well, if most buddist monks have never swum during storm how come they are known to be the masters of presence?!”, – I thought:)
When we are involved in extreme activities presence feels more like an emotional high, you get those intense ‘raging fire’ sensations in your body. Other times while being present we can be very calm and peaceful. So I realized that presence can be different – sometimes you feel it being ‘raging fire’ and other times it’s just ‘steering coal’ but it’s still presence.
It all comes down to a simple concept that can be felt more than understood. Because most of your understanding is done by your mind, so your mind, if used in a wrong way, will sabotage your presence. That’s why if we try to explain presence like “it’s a space out of which every form arises” we might have a hard time understanding what it really means. There are more vivid and even funny metaphorical ways to explain presence: e.g. “it’s like that bad breath you have in the morning, and then if you eat something you think it’s gone, but it’s still there”!
Presence is a choice of where you focus your attention or awareness. In any moment of your life you simply have a choice to be present or to let your mind drag you back into the past or future. And it doesn’t really matter what your activity is at the moment. Because, as they say, the WAY you do something is more important than WHAT you do. HOW is more important than WHAT. A good example of that is a famous saying of a chinese master who once was asked what’s his secret to happiness, he replied “When I’m hungry I eat, when I’m tired I sleep”.
So, being present is a simple concept. Simple but not easy. It’s like losing weight – you simply have to make a decision to stop eating too much, but that’s not an easy decision. That’s why kids sometimes have better success with it..with being present of course, not with losing weight :)
Kids simply don’t have that much of emotional baggage that we adults accumulate throughout the life.
We adults have our mind nagging us with judgements (about self and others), worries etc. So sometimes presence is more challenging for us than it is for children.
As humans, deep inside we know that being present is good for us. That’s why we tend to gravitate towards alcohol. When you’re drunk you’re present because you simple are not able to think far into the future. But of course alcohol numbs your senses and ruins your health, so it’s not the best way to get into the state of presence .
We also love sex because during orgasm our mind is quiet and thus we’re present. Our focus of attention shifts away from thoughts towards the pleasurable sensations our body gives us. But the presence we feel during orgasm is still short-lived and fleeting. That’s why if we are present at all times we can have more fulfilling sexual experiences, men can last longer and women can have longer and more powerful orgasms.
The sex-part is taking too much space, it’s time to wrap it up :)
It’s a good idea to practice presence. One of the ways I like to do it is to focus my attention on 2-3 different sensations in my body: on the air flowing in and out of my nose, and on the sensations in my chest and belly while I breath. Good way to quiet your mind once in a while. But it’s more like a sitting meditation.
If you’re always in a hurry, try 'walking meditation' instead. When you walk towards your workplace, just for a couple of moments, begin to enjoy every step you take, you might actually like it. You might be late for work if you walk like this, but being present is totally worth it :)
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