Is There a Practice?

What Is It?

Letting Go: Being Here-Now

While I often emphasize the undivided, effortless, choiceless happening in which there is nothing to do (or not do) and no one to do (or not do) anything, I do in fact engage in and recommend what could be called a practice. I’ve never been an enthusiast for the word practice—it sounds too methodical to my ear. But as I’m using it here, I simply mean a way of life.

What I’m pointing to here is nothing more or less than the “practice” of simply being alive, being this moment, just as it is. This is not a result-oriented practice or a self-improvement project, but on the other hand, it's not about mindlessly being a miserable jerk either. It’s a non-methodical, present moment, discovery, cultivation and exploration of open attention, awareness, presence, surrender and letting go.

It involves open, nonjudgmental attention, dissolving the sense of separation, seeing through habitual thought patterns and stories, questioning beliefs, tuning in to the sensory aliveness of the moment and the felt-sense of presence, and consciously being this boundless awaring presence that we are. It's about opening and letting go, releasing and surrendering, not clinging to anything, not landing anywhere.

It’s experiential, not conceptual. It's about directly exploring the nature of this living reality and discovering how we add unnecessary suffering on top of the pain and painful circumstances that come with being alive. It's about waking up from delusion, not once and for all or forever after, but NOW.

It could be described as a path of devotion to every moment of ordinary life—devotion to the sounds of rain, the taste of tea, the sensations of breathing, the aliveness of presence itself—devotion to this one bottomless moment Here-Now.

It can involve sitting quietly, in stillness, doing nothing. But it's not limited to any particular activity or non-activity. It's our whole life. And it's always just this immediacy, this present experiencing, right here, right now.

Does It Take Effort? Is There a Goal?

Does it take effort? Well, yes and no. It has sometimes been called effortless effort. It’s not the kind of forced, willful trying that comes from the ego, but it does require a certain kind of engagement or devotion that comes from love and attraction. It’s the kind of relaxed effort that you might see in a great athlete at the height of their game. In the beginning, it tends to feel more effortful, but as we marinate in everything I’ve been describing and absorb it into our being, it becomes simply the natural way of living.

Is there a goal? Again, yes and no. It isn’t result-oriented; it’s always focused on right here, right now, not on any past or future attainment. There is, however, what might be described as a kind of aspiration to live in a wholesome way and a certain degree of intentionality at times. But it’s not forced or ego-driven. It’s open, spacious, relaxed. It moves from the heart, from love, not from the separate self trying to fix itself, achieve something or become somebody special.

What is this aspiration? It’s the aspiration to wake up from delusion. To turn our lives over to and live from the deepest dimension of our being and of all being, the wholeness in which there is no other. To let go of all the ways we resist and hold on and bring suffering to ourselves and others. And it’s always about right now, this one bottomless moment from which we never depart. And of course, we fail again and again. Delusion happens. And so, the vow is to begin anew, again and again, here and now. And then, along the way, we discover that there really is no failure, that everything belongs.

How to Begin

People can describe this kind of practice, but like swimming or riding a bike, each of us must discover it for ourselves. No one can do it for us or give it to us. We must each feel our way into it, and we’ll each have a somewhat unique version of it.

A good way to begin is simply to sit down, be still, and do nothing other than being aware of what happens, without trying to change it—simply hearing sounds, feeling somatic sensations, seeing shapes and colors and light if the eyes are open, noticing the movements of thought and the habitual thought-stories that arise, seeing how attention moves around, how it zooms in and out, how different perspectives or dimensions of experience appear and disappear.

One may come upon a sense of being that is boundless, centerless, spacious and free, where there is no body and no mind, no inside or outside, no separation. Everything is one fluid whole, and nothing feels solid or fixed. One sees beauty everywhere and finds perfection in the imperfection. And then, one may also discover all the ways attention narrows down and becomes mesmerized by thoughts, stories, memories, plans and mental movies. The “practice” is simply being aware of this whole happening and all the different ways this living reality that we are shows up, without trying to control it—being just this moment, this present experiencing, just as it is.

This same kind of open attention and presence can happen while walking or riding on a bus, train or airplane. It can happen in a waiting room before an appointment, or while washing the dishes or doing housework. It can even happen in relationship, while engaging with others—simply noticing when our buttons are getting pushed and how that upset and reactivity manifests in the whole bodymind. Feeling when we are asserting something or when we are feeling threatened, hurt, angry, defensive, misunderstood or unheard. Seeing the judgements that arise of ourselves and others. Simply being aware of all of this. Awareness is the transformative power.

I recommend taking time, whenever it invites you, to simply listen deeply to ordinary sounds and to deeply enjoy ordinary sights, to feel the breathing and all the sensations throughout the body. When drinking a cup of coffee or tea, or eating a meal, try doing it silently, without doing anything else—without reading, talking, watching TV, or anything else at the same time. Simply drink the tea or eat the meal. Enjoy it fully.

Discover what it’s like to simply be alive without looking at your phone or picking up a book or doing anything other than simply being here. And then, of course, everything is included, so it’s not about never picking up your phone, never reading the news, never watching Netflix or never multi-tasking. But pay attention to what moves you to do certain things and how you feel afterwards. It’s not about right or wrong, but simply awaring it all.

And if there is physical pain, or emotional pain, or challenging moods and states of mind, or difficult circumstances, find out if there are ways of being with this that are helpful, and notice what kinds of thoughts and reactions make it worse. Be curious about how unnecessary suffering is created.

You can also engage in various contemplative explorations. For example, you might watch closely as choices and decisions unfold to see if you can find anyone in control. You might wonder, if you don’t refer to thought, memory, second-hand information or knowledge, in this moment, what are you and what is this present happening? Don’t think about it or look for a verbal answer, but simply experience what’s here without any labels or explanations.

You might close your eyes and feel into whether you can find an actual boundary where inside of you turns into outside.

These kinds of contemplative explorations are done not by thinking and reasoning, but by looking directly and feeling into them. It’s not about getting the right answer. It’s about tuning into the non-conceptual living actuality that is here before any explanations and labels are overlaid on top of it. The labels and thoughts may pop up—that’s okay—but don’t focus on them.

Surrendering: Taking Your Hand Off the (Imaginary) Steering Wheel

There is an old saying to “let go and let God.” For some people, God is a loaded word associated with oppressive religions and the superstitious belief in some patriarchal sky deity, while to others, the word God is synonymous with presence-awareness, unconditional love, the heart, wholeness, unicity, emptiness, no-thing-ness, aliveness. It refers to the deepest, truest, most subtle dimension of our being and of life itself.

Whatever words work for you to describe this, the “practice” I’m pointing to is a kind of surrender to this dimension, a letting go and allowing it to take charge, rather than us (as the little me) trying to get somewhere, make something happen, have some particular experience, get rid of something, or figure it all out. Instead, let go and let God (or awareness, or presence, or the universe, or whatever word works for you).

And yes, nothing is really other than this one indivisible wholeness. But being awake to this wholeness is a very different experience than being lost in thoughts of separation. Heaven and hell, nirvana and samsara, are right here in every ordinary moment. The same glass can be seen as half empty or half full. We can be lost in delusion, confusion and suffering, or we can find peace, joy and freedom even in the darkest moments.

Is This a Choice?

Is this a choice we can make? Yes and no. In fact, that’s a wonderful question to explore in each moment. Not by thinking about it or asserting a foregone conclusion, but by wondering freshly in this moment whether it is possible to let go, to open, to simply be present with everything just as it is—and to find out. Sometimes it may be possible, sometimes it may not. Find out! And then don’t turn the finding in one moment into a fixed belief or an ideology. Remain open to new possibilities.

It All Belongs

Perhaps the suffering and the confusion and the times we seem to fail are all a vital aspect of how this life unfolds. We don’t need to take them personally or give them meaning as indicators of how poorly we are doing. We can see them as impersonal weather and let them go. They’re all part of the texture of life, and often they are the grit that creates the pearl and the crack where the light gets in.

The challenge is always to be right here now. And of course, we always are right here now in one sense—there is truly nothing else—but heaven and hell are two very different experiences. Hence, practices have emerged to help us find our way home to the home we have never truly lost.

Who is doing them? Look deeply, and you will find the One and Only, no-thing at all.

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Love to all….