How to be here now

What should I do?

Response to a question about where to put the attention:

I’d say, just as an experiment, forget the “shoulds” and relax all your efforts to “do” any kind of intentional “being here now.” Let your attention go where it naturally goes. Approach this playfully, in an easy, relaxed, open way, not trying for a result, not trying to have any special or particular experience, not trying to hold onto anything or get rid of anything, just enjoying the flow of experiencing exactly as it is. Just this.

Notice that however it is momentarily appearing (expanded, contracted, pleasant, unpleasant, depressed, elated), it is always simply this present experiencing, and however much it changes, it never departs from the timeless immediacy of right here, right now. However far you travel and however old you get, it’s always showing up in and as this immovable aware presence, this unbound, seamless, centerless experiencing that is always right here, right now.

Notice that it’s all happening by itself. You don’t have to “do” any of it. In fact, what exactly is this “you” who sometimes seems to be at the center of your experience authoring your thoughts, making your choices, and doing your actions?

Explore that thought-sense of a “you” and see what it’s made up of. Can you actually find this “you”? Or do you simply find aware presence and present experiencing? There might be an idea (e.g., “I’m in my head, looking out my eyes”). There might be a sensation, maybe in the chest, that feels like it’s you. There might be a bunch of stories (I’m this name, this body, this history, this gender, this nationality, this age, this job). There might be a mental image (how you look in the mirror). But what is beholding all of that? Where is it appearing? How substantial is any of it? Does this aware presence that you most fundamentally are have an age, a gender, a nationality, a life story, a boundary or a location? Is it encapsulated inside the body, or is the body appearing in it? Isn’t this presence-awareness the common factor in every different experience?

Explore “the body” by closing your eyes and actually feeling it. How solid is it? Is there a definite boundary between inside and outside?

Don’t think about all this or try to reason it out. Instead, explore it experientially with open attention. Feel into it. Look, listen, sense, aware. Thought is always dualistic and partial, it divides and reifies. Presence / awareness / experiencing is nondual, infinitely varied but undivided and indivisible. Whole. Don’t get stuck on the words. They’re only pointers. Keep going to the direct experience, the felt-sense of being here now, the bare actuality of present experiencing, just as it is.

As you give open attention to your actual experiencing, it may become apparent how reality isn’t what we think it is. Thought is a kind of abstracting process that mentally cuts up reality into discrete parts, labeling and categorizing them, and then they seem to exist and persist as actual, independent, separate, bounded things. This is a useful illusion, a useful map for everyday functioning, but the map is not the territory. The reality is much more fluid, evanescent, ungraspable, alive, nonsubstantial and yet vividly present, unpindownable, dream-like, ever-changing and yet always here-now in this timeless immediacy.

The “you” who seems to be having this present experience and trying to control it is an illusion, a creation of smoke and mirrors, a mirage made up of impermanent thoughts, sensations, mental images, stories, memories and ideas. There is no thinker behind the thoughts, no observer behind the observing. Explore the process of apparently “making a decision,” and see how it actually unfolds. It may become clear that everything is happening spontaneously, including all your urges, impulses, desires, fears, interests, aversions, preferences, abilities, opinions, thoughts, choices and actions. “You” are inseparable from the whole universe. It’s one indivisible whole, one seamless movement.

So if it interests you, experiment with simply being here, effortlessly, without intention or purpose, enjoying being alive and being curious about how it is, how suffering happens, how choices and decisions happen. You may find yourself listening to traffic sounds or feeling the breathing, and then a bird song catches your attention and you listen to that, and then you see a beautiful cloud formation and your attention goes to that, and then a thought arises about what you need to do tomorrow and maybe there are more thoughts about that, but eventually that thought-train ends and you find yourself hearing a plane that is flying over, and you’re listening to that, and then maybe there’s a kind of vast, global openness that seems to embrace and behold everything, and then the attention zeros in on a sharp sensation in your leg.

It’s all happening by itself, including any periodic attempts to control it, and including any thoughts about the thoughts (e.g., “I shouldn’t be thinking.”)

Sometimes the attention gets completely engaged in a thought-train, a storyline, an imagination or a mental movie of some kind, and then at some point, there is a spontaneous waking up from that. “You” don’t “do” that waking up. It happens by itself, as does the thought-train or the mental movie.

When consciousness spontaneously wakes up from a thought-train it has been absorbed in, immediately a new thought, posing as “you,” might pop up and reprimand “you” for being lost in thought. This secondary thought might instruct you to stop thinking and pay attention to the sensory world again, but there’s no “you” authoring that thought either—it, too, just pops up spontaneously. Maybe your attention does go back to the sensory world, or maybe the storyline is so compelling that the attention goes back to that for a while longer. And if that happens, eventually there is again a spontaneous waking up from that thought-train. Maybe then another thought pops up judging you for again being lost in thought, maybe telling you that you’re a failure at meditation.

It might be noticed how thought creates the idea of a “you” who is a failure and another “you” who is judging, instructing and trying to improve the first “you.” It’s as if there’s a bad you and a good you. Is it possible that both of these versions of “you” are nothing more than thoughts, ideas, mental images, imaginations? Check it out. Look and see. Feel into it. Notice how thought continually poses as “you,” the apparent center of experience, the apparent thinker-author-chooser-decider-observer-experiencer, and then how it judges, evaluates and instructs you.

It may be discovered that no “you” can actually be found. There’s no substance there, no actual “you” apart from the flow of experiencing. There’s no center to experiencing. It’s all happening by itself. The “you” is only a thought, a neurological sensation, a grammatical convention, a character in a story, a mirage that shows up intermittently but is never actually what it appears to be. It pops up before or after actions happen and takes either credit or blame.

Because we live so much in the world of thinking and conceptualizing, taking in so much verbal and written information, it can be very liberating to consciously take time whenever it invites you to shift attention to the sensory realm instead. It’s not that sensing is good and thinking is bad. And of course, thinking will still happen, and when it does, notice that it too is simply another shape that experience is momentarily taking. Don’t fight it. Don’t get lost in thoughts about the thoughts.

Simply feel the breathing, listen to the traffic or the birds, taste the coffee or the tea, explore all the sensations in the body. If pain arises, explore the actual sensations. If depression, anxiety, restlessness or boredom arises, feel it in the body, notice the storylines, discover what else is going on (the bird songs, the traffic sounds, the breathing). Enjoy the wonder of simply being alive, being this one bottomless moment, right here, right now, just as it is. Being what you cannot not be. Just this.

You can’t get it wrong. In fact, there’s really no “you” doing any of it! It simply is as it is.

Play with all this. Explore it. Be curious. Never mind what all the so-called authorities have said about it. Let all your beliefs and preconceptions go, if only for one instant. Look for yourself. Look freshly in THIS moment, right NOW. Be open to surprise.

There’s no final answer, no goal post. It’s always JUST THIS. This one bottomless moment. Eternal. Timeless. Unfathomable. Ungraspable. Unavoidable. Here. Now. Just This!

If you ask, “What is it?” (Is it awareness, is it consciousness, is it a dream, is it material reality, is it One, is it many?), you’ve already stepped away into the dualism of thought. And yes, that, too, is it. This indivisible it-less-ness never departs from itself, however it momentarily appears. But maybe there’s no need to step away into useless, confusing, painful thinking. Maybe it’s possible, right now, to STOP and simply be. Just this!

Love to all…