The Mystery of Presence: Beyond Mindful Moments and the Seeking Self

We spend so much of our time trying to kill time. It’s a violent expression when you really think about it—killing the very fabric of our existence because we are afraid of what happens when the motors stop. We are constantly in motion, driven by the separate self to achieve, to become, and to reach some imagined state of peace. But what if there is nowhere to go? What if the peace we are looking for is already the background note of every single experience, whether that experience is pleasant or unpleasant? When we talk about mindful moments, we often fall into the trap of thinking we are doing something. We think we are "practicing" being present, as if presence were a muscle to be trained or a destination to be reached. But presence is not a result of effort. It is the very capacity that allows you to hear these words or feel the weight of your body right now. How much effort are you making to hear? Even if you wanted to stop hearing, you couldn't, unless you physically blocked your ears. This effortless noticing is what we already are. It is the absolute, the totality, and it doesn't require a journey to find. In our usual way of living, we are addicted to labels. We see a lamp and we immediately think "lamp." We see a car dashboard and we think "utility." We have de-automated our wonder for the sake of survival. We need to know quickly if there is a cobra in the path or a tiger in the bushes. Because of this, our perception has become a series of frozen fragments—like taking a hundred still photos of a moving train. We see the photos and think we understand the train, but we have missed the iridescent, flowing movement of the life that is actually happening. We have replaced the mystery with a catalog of concepts. The separate self thrives on this fragmentation. It wants to judge the thoughts that arise, fighting the ones it doesn't like and clinging to the ones that feel good. We feel lost when the noise stops because we have defined ourselves by the noise. A thought arises, stays for a moment, and dies. If we don’t interfere, if we don’t try to change what is manifesting spontaneously, we might notice that thoughts have no power over us. They are just waves in the ocean. The wave never becomes the ocean; it already is the ocean, even in its rising and falling. So, what happens if we just stop? Not as a practice to notice what is already here, because there is no such thing as an enlightened person—there is only enlightenment, or more accurately, there is only the absolute. If we stop gesticulating, stop talking in all our various languages, and just stay still for a moment, an immense silence might interrupt the sadness of never understanding ourselves. This silence isn't something we create. It is what has been here all along, hidden under the noise of our activities and our "mindful moments" of trying to be better. We often fear this silence. When we first encounter it, we might feel anxiety, boredom, or a sense of isolation.