Open Aware Presence

Finding the Sacred Everywhere

Spirituality, as I mean it, is not about beliefs, ideas or philosophies. It’s not about attainments, special experiences or leaving everyday life behind. It’s about being awake, right here, right now—holding on to nothing, dissolving in presence, giving open attention to the offering of this moment, listening, seeing, awaring, being this radiant aliveness.

The kind of meditation that has interested me is not about concentration or trying to control the mind. It’s about discovering what happens when we stop all our usual activity and all our efforts to control the uncontrollable, when we drop out of the thought-realm into silence and stillness—doing nothing, going nowhere, simply being this vast unbound awaring presence that we are—hearing sounds, feeling sensations, seeing the beauty everywhere, feeling the energies and currents of life, deepening and opening into listening stillness—being and beholding this whole happening in ever more subtle and surprising ways.

This isn’t about trying to stay in some thought-free state all the time, which would be impossible. Instead, it’s simply noticing how thinking bubbles up, how it captures the attention, how it hypnotizes us, how we naturally wake up from it—noticing how it feels to be lost in thought and how it feels to wake up from the thought realm and be fully present to the sensory world and the spaciousness of this open awake presence that we are, the unconditional love that beholds everything, the vastness of right here, right now.

Meditation is seeing how we turn away from this simple being and get drawn into the world of conceptual thought—the story of me and all the stories and concerns about ourselves, our loved ones and the world—the conflict, the opinions, the beliefs, the identities, the upset and suffering, the confusion—all the efforts to understand and grasp and get somewhere and be somebody. It’s not about going to war with all this, but simply awaring it, seeing it for what it is.

It’s not that the goal is never to think about our lives or the world, or never to listen to the news, or not to care, or to be in some state of carefree thoughtless awareness all the time. But rather, it’s about seeing how the attention moves, how we become mesmerized by stories and ideas, how thought turns the inevitable pains and painful circumstances of life into unnecessary suffering by the ways we resist and think about these things and by the stories we tell ourselves and the ideas we believe.

Awareness is the great transformer, the alchemical power. Simply by illuminating what is, the false is exposed and gradually loses its grip and its believability—and at the same time, the ever-present source of freedom and well-being is discovered and seems to become more easily accessible.

This source that I’m pointing to is very, very simple. Very ordinary. Totally available. Never really absent, only unnoticed. It’s always right here. Most intimate. Closer than close, and yet boundless and limitless. It’s this very moment, this aware presence, this present experiencing, this here-now-aliveness. Instead of thinking about this, or trying to “get it,” or trying to make something happen, or trying to get rid of something that we believe is in the way, what if we are simply here, effortlessly present and aware, just as we are?

This aware presence is the natural state—it’s never not here, even when we ignore it. Nothing is ever really in the way. The apparent obstacles and distractions are not solid or substantial—if we go deeply into them with open attention, they are no-thing at all, they are vibrations of energy, and at the very core of them is the vastness of open presence. Everything is this. It’s always right here. So this takes no effort. It’s a relaxing and letting go, a dissolving, a releasing, a care-free-ness, allowing everything to be exactly as it is.

Of course, everything always is as it is, whether we are allowing or resisting it. And even that allowing or resisting is also what is, and all of it is an impersonal movement of the whole universe, a movement that could not be different in any moment from exactly how it is. In the ultimate sense, none of it is a problem. But in everyday life, there’s a palpable difference between, on the one hand, being lost in painful thoughts about what a failure we are, or how somebody wronged us, or how the world should be different than it is, and on the other hand, simply listening to the sounds of traffic, smelling the rain-drenched air, hearing the birdsong, feeling the breathing, sensing the open spacious vastness that we are and that Here-Now is. This is the difference between heaven and hell, between nirvana and samsara—the circumstances are exactly the same, but the way of being with them and seeing them is different.

Is this a choice? We can’t really say. Any conceptual formulation about choice or choicelessness is a mental map of a living actuality that can never be grasped or pinned down by any conceptual formulation. Most of our activity and thinking tends to be conditioned and habitual, often centered around the “me” story and our acquired beliefs, opinions and views with which we identify and to which we cling. In that realm, there is little or no choice.

But the more we knowingly abide in the freshness and aliveness of open aware presence, the more an ability opens up to respond in new and different ways. None of the ways we language this growing response-ability are quite right—because there isn’t really a “me” apart from everything else who is abiding or not abiding, thinking or awaring, allowing or resisting, opening or closing, reacting or responding, freely choosing or being helplessly moved about by larger forces. That “me” is a mirage made of mental images, thoughts, stories, ideas, memories, emotions and sensations. By giving open attention to the living actuality here and now, this can be discovered directly.

We can discover how ephemeral, fluid, nonsubstantial and momentary everything that appears is, and at the same time, how this aware presence, this one bottomless moment, this eternal Now, is immovably ever-present, always right here, utterly immediate. We can never actually depart from here-now, and nothing is actually other than this aware presence. And although this presence is invisible and unfindable as an object, its radiance is showing up everywhere as everything, and through simple open attention, its depth and its treasure can be discovered.

The moment you enter the Now with your attention, you realize that life is sacred. There is a sacredness to everything you perceive when you are present.

–  Eckhart Tolle

As your attention returns to the present moment, you may notice a new a vividness, a brightness. As you arrive here fully, things become enlivened. In Zen they say you will be enlightened by all things, and you will enlighten all things.

– Jon Bernie

Attention is the most basic form of love.

– John Tarrant

As you relax and deepen into the present moment, no matter how ordinary it appears to be, then slowly and gently the deeper levels of Presence will open up…

God cannot be known with the mind. God cannot be understood or defined. The best that the mind can do is believe in God. But to believe in God is a very poor substitute for knowing God through your own direct experience. And once you know, there is no need for belief.

For me, God is the silent Presence at the very heart of all things present… If you want to experience the living Presence of God in all things present, you will have to come to where God is. You will have to come out of the mind and become present. When we become fully present, we will begin to sense the Presence that is in everything. This Presence is what I mean by God.

– Leonard Jacobson

We don’t need to call it God, of course. We don’t need to call it anything. What matters is discovering this unbound aliveness for oneself. And in my experience, when we are fully present in this way, we see and feel the sacred everywhere. And by sacred, I mean precious, infinite, worthy of our deepest attention. The sacredness, the beauty, the love, the joy is in the presence. That’s why we can see beauty in a piece of trash when we are fully awake to it, and why we can feel bored looking at the Swiss Alps if we are lost in thoughts.

Waking up is a lifelong present moment act of devotion. It is its own reward. We can call it prayer or vigilance or practice or meditation or simply being here now, being as we are, being no-thing and everything, being just this. Being the open aware presence that we are. This presence is by its nature devotional—devoted to revealing and appreciating the sacred here-now.

Perhaps this devotion, this open attention, this unconditional love is the greatest gift we can offer to this often troubled and confused world. Perhaps we can find the beauty and the grace even in the apparent trouble and confusion. Perhaps we can appreciate the whole show being exactly the way it is, which is never how we think it is, and never the same way twice. In open aware presence, every moment is fresh and new. Everything is grace.

And one final reminder: this isn’t about beliefs and ideas; it’s about direct, firsthand, unmediated, present moment experiencing, here and now, just as it is. And it’s not about having any particular experience, or some special experience, or “the right” experience, or a different, better experience; it’s about THIS present experiencing, THIS awaring presence, THIS ever-changing, ever-present aliveness right here, right now, just as it is.

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Love to all….