Anticipation

Being present is really much more active than it sounds. It's not like we finally arrive at a lounge where comfort abounds, servants attend our every need, weather conforms to our moods and there's never any decisions to make. It's not a place or a state that we settle into, at all.

Being attuned with the flowing moment demands as much involvement as balancing on one foot does. With practice, it feels more natural and becomes more stable, but without dedicated attention, balance wanes. Even if it was possible to become perfectly still in absolute balance, the world happens. Water falls and flows, wind stops and blows, and the earth moves beneath our feet. Internally, our past calls out to us, fears and fantasies paint imaginary scenarios that we call our future, and every bit of fluff floating down the stream of thought beckons to be held.

Stillness coexists with chaos. This truth is undeniable. So, focus can't be on finding or maintaining an illusory ideal; rather, it has to hover in anticipation, reaching out with all senses and sensibilities to detect the very next thing, the instant it arises.

We learn to trust that the body is capable of balancing itself. In fact, our efforts to achieve and/or sustain balance with our minds is counter productive. So we willfully establish our intentions and consciously observe, but the balancing, itself, happens from elsewhere.

Similarly, we can't think our way into the silence that accompanies our being present; and, thoughts simply can't keep pace with the now. To be present, we have to set our intentions, (initially) place ourselves in an accommodating environment with some dedicated time, and allow the quietude to manifest within and around us, as we simply observe while steadily maintaining clear intent to see purely.

The thinking/reasoning mind has a rather high opinion of itself. And in truth, the guy's got game. But if/when it tries to intercede in the act of balancing, listing and swaying will surely follow. Our bodies know what to do and will skillfully tend to themselves, if we just get our dreams and doubts out of the way.

As consciousness is freed from the confines of the assumed and expected, a torrent of awareness, understanding and questions can begin to flow. The thinker then feels an urgent need to label, analyze, judge, decipher, categorize and prioritize these experiences, in an attempt to integrate them into the “known”. Assimilation is much more honest, complete and detailed when not slowed down by or filtered through thought, which, by its very nature, only deals with the past or future. Our beings know what to do and will skillfully tend to themselves, if we just get our dreams and doubts out of the way.

Do you feel it? The present has its knuckles curled and is swinging them toward your door, right now.