Being Present

What are you experiencing right now?

We live in a busy world. We have a multitude of items we're trying to remember, several events we're trying to juggle, and many relationships that are in need of our attention at any moment. We have three email addresses, four phone numbers, two mailing addresses, plus our IM address and of course the 'open door' to our office, and information is coming in on each of these continually. We are barraged daily by requests from spouses, children, parents, friends, our boss, our co-workers, our customers, bulk emailers, telemarketers... it never stops. We plug ourselves into the grid and we start sprinting just to keep up with the inflow.

Take a deep breath. What are you experiencing right now?

Spiritual teachers focus much of their attention and energy on practicing and teaching the art of 'being present' or 'being in the moment'. What does it mean for me to be present?

To be present is to be fully aware of the moment. This means observing every detail, within and without. This means experiencing with the richness of all the human senses each cell of my body and each square inch of the world around me. When I am present you know every feeling and every thought that comes up within me and I embrace them without trying to suppress them in any way; whether it be good or bad, exciting or boring, right or wrong, beautiful or frightening. There is no conscious judgement of self or the surroundings, no opinion of the circumstances, other than what bubbles up from deep within, and that is allowed to run its course and is then let go. Being present means being hyper-aware of the instant, fully and completely. It means being simply who I am now, this very moment.

To be present is to be at ease with the past. What is done is done; the past cannot be reversed, relived, improved upon. That which has happened is forever a part of me, for the past formed and reformed me into who I am. I may have learned or grown from it, I may be embarrassed about it, I may have missed it completely; either way, it is over. Being present means being who I am now, not who I once was.

To be present is to be comfortable with the future. I do not know what tomorrow brings; I can guess, and I may be right and I may be wrong. I can ponder and prepare, but until it happens, I won't know exactly what is coming. Being present means being who I am now, not who I hope I will become.

To be present is to be wholly myself. You can only be me, here; anything else is fallacy. I can wish you were someone or somewhere else, but these are just wishes; they do not make it real. I can ponder what it will be like if ..., when ..., but this does not make it so. Being present means being who I am now, not who I wish I were.

It is impossible to be present by this definition all the time. Most of the time, much of my surroundings goes unnoticed. There are times for considering the past and predicting the future. There are times for imagining myself in different shoes. There are times to judge myself and others. These are all valuable tools that, when used appropriately, are pathways to change. They are, however, just tools, and the price I pay to use them is that I miss out on the moment, on this moment.

The real value in being present is experiencing fully this moment, this experience. For we only get this moment. And this moment is beautiful and precious and is worth the entire experience of life, if only we see and hear and smell and taste and feel it fully, completely, in all its unfiltered glory.

So I ask again: What are you experiencing right now?

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From the editor

I have exciting news: my new website is up! I've been unhappy with the feel of the old website for some time now, but I haven't had the time to update it. Now it's been done. The format is totally different than before, being more issue-based than description-based. Now you can add public comments to issues as well as emailing feedback to me. Best of all, when you go to the website, you always get the newest newsletter right there.

Many of you receive this by email, and many of you are subscribed to the RSS feed. If you are receiving this via RSS, you can continue to use the existing feed address or you can change to the new one. If you don't know what RSS is, you don't need to do anything.

All-in-all, I think it's better; check it out and let me know what you think!

Healthy thoughts,
Jeff