Devotion to Presence

the delicate aliveness of being

Sitting quietly, feeling a deep sense of Presence—

Open Silent Still Listening Presence

infinitely subtle, precious beyond measure, sacred, ungraspable

Outside the open window, the leaves of the redbud are moving slightly in the gentle breeze of a hot June morning. Everything is green, rich and marvelous, bathed in light, and that light is love. The sounds of the wind are so delicate, so soft

Everything is deeply quiet

open, spacious, vast,

this presence is all-inclusive, boundless, undivided, most intimate, vibrantly alive, pulsating with energy

no name or explanation can touch it; it cannot be reasoned or figured out

This morning, all the names, explanations and theories have fallen away,

there is simply being here

open

listening

being

enjoying this vast aliveness

wide open

immeasurable

there comes a time
when you have to let go
all the words
all the teaching
and trust the infinite

– Billy Doyle, from The Mirage of Separation

We search for certainty and something to grasp. But in holding on to nothing at all, there is immense freedom.

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Maybe later, the spaciousness clouds over, the mind tightens and spins, grows confused and troubled by uncertainty, caught in anxious thoughts and worries—the body contracts, compulsively reaching for something to soothe the discomfort, something that will in fact only magnify it, while the old grasping for certainty reaches for some conceptual formulation that it hopes will provide a satisfying final answer, which it never does—thinking and thinking, judging the phantom “me” who seems now to be such a hopeless mess, the “me” who was totally absent earlier when there was only the green leaves and the breeze and the vast openness —

Is it possible in such a moment of confusion and distress to simply let all of this be just as it is? To relax the grasping, to open and be still in the midst of the storm, not needing it to abate or resolve, simply beholding the whole of it with love, allowing it to dissolve in its own time? Not getting caught in the trap of looking to repeat the morning’s wonderment, but being fully present with what’s here now?

In his new book on consciousness, A World Appears, Michael Pollan quotes Zen Roshi Joan Halifax telling him that Zen is about “being radically open to things just as they are, not grasping at or rejecting phenomena, but simply being present and at ease with moment-to-moment uncertainty and groundlessness and letting openness or not-knowing deconstruct our version of reality. It is the method of non-method.”

Or as Toni Packer put it:

“No matter what state dawns at this moment, can there be just that? Not a movement away, an escape into something that will provide what this state does not provide, or doesn’t seem to provide: energy, zest, inspiration, joy, happiness, whatever. Just completely, unconditionally listening to what’s here now, is that possible?”

Every moment is new. When we stop and enter it deeply, it reveals the infinite subtlety

of these ever-changing faces of experiencing, all of them jewels when truly seen

in the delicate infinitely subtle aliveness of this immediacy, this awake presence

the beauty, the joy, the love, the wonder is in the presence

precious beyond measure, sacred, ungraspable

never the same way twice

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In his book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle describes his awakening. He writes, “The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminous filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes… Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marveling at the beauty and aliveness of it all.”

Ever since I read those lines, I see light as love. Everything is bathed in love.

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Practicing the Presence of God

(or simply, Practicing Presence)

Jim Finley, uncredited photo found on internet

After I wrote this piece, I found myself listening to a beautiful talk by James Finley on Brother Lawrence and “the practice of the presence” that moved me very deeply.

It feels like a perfect addition to this post. It’s the first talk on Brother Lawrence in Jim Finley’s “Turning to the Mystics” podcast series. It's about 30 minutes long and would best be listened to meditatively, with your full attention.

I’ve always had a deep love for Brother Lawrence, a humble French Catholic religious brother in a Carmelite order who lived from 1614 to 1691. Brother Lawrence worked for years in the monastery kitchen, engaged in what he called practicing the presence of God. Jim uses passages from Carmen Acevedo Butcher's translation of Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence as a stepping off point.

Jim Finley is a contemporary Catholic mystic (pictured above) whose powerful autobiographical book, The Healing Path, had a very deep impact on me. Listening to Jim always carries me right into presence. He survived an abusive childhood, spent a number of years as a monk in a Trappist monastery with Thomas Merton as his spiritual director, studied and then practiced psychotherapy with a focus on trauma after leaving the monastery, remains a devote (and very open-minded) Catholic and has explored many other traditions as well, especially Buddhism. Now in his eighties, Jim was married twice and has two adult daughters. He is a truly beautiful man.

If you’re allergic to the word God or to any form of Christianity or to expressions that point to something outside the purview of logic and rationality, this probably won’t be for you. I would have stumbled over a few parts of it not that long ago. But this time, I was open to it, and it opened my heart in a profound way and touched me very deeply. If you’re open to it, I very highly recommend it.

You can listen to the podcast and find more information here, and you can also listen (audio only) on YouTube here.

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Love to all…