We’re here to be here, but as I said, being here isn’t actually something you can do. Being here isn’t the result of effort. Rather, it’s what’s left when effort falls away. If you’re trying to be here, there’s still someone trying. The key is to drop that someone and drop the trying. Encourage your whole organism, your whole system, to let go of any effort, and then I think you’ll find that being here happens by itself.
Being here is also not something that can be identified with, not something you can own or accomplish. Rather, it’s simply what’s happening when there’s no one trying to be here—no one trying to get something, or get away from something, or understand something.
Take a look right now. Stop and listen into this moment. Sense into this moment. Feel into this moment. Notice any agitation, restlessness, or aversion: any kind of struggle in your mind or in your body. Are you distracted, having trouble paying attention? Is your mind spinning, pulling you off into the past or the future?
Now take a step back and notice the quality of that attention you’ve just brought to your experience. When you tune in like this, there’s a kind of pointedness that arises, a sense of presence, focus, and aliveness. Recognize that aliveness—that’s being here. Your surroundings may suddenly become more vivid: colors, sensations, energy shining brightly in your field of awareness. That’s why we call it awakening. We’re shocked awake, awestruck by the brilliance of this moment. So notice that awe. Be that awe.
After a time, you may find you’ve dropped back into sleep mode, or daydream mode, or analysis mode, off in the mind again. If that happens, don’t judge yourself. Instead, with tenderness and forgiveness, just gently bring your attention back to this moment. Guide yourself to be here. At some point the imaginary self that really isn’t here will vanish, and then you’ll feel the heart connection, the love, the energy, the peacefulness—the presence.
You may also feel some agitation or discomfort. The expansion of awareness can be very pleasant, but it can also allow uncomfortable feelings to come to the forefront, pain or struggle you’ve been repressing or keeping at arm’s length. If you find you’re having a hard time, see if you can, as my mother would’ve said, “make nice on yourself.” Offer yourself some comfort, some loving, tender compassion. In fact, stop reading and take a moment right now to make nice on yourself. When you come back, I think you’ll feel the difference.
Notice also if you tend to externalize your energy. Do you project it out onto other people in the form of judgments? Bring all those projections back, and realize that everything that you see, feel, and sense is just a mirror—a mirror reflecting you back to yourself. Embrace that reflection. Bring it all back home. This is about inclusion, about embracing everything.
Now, I’m not suggesting that the conditional personal self should embrace everything. The embrace I’m talking about happens from the Big Heart, this vast field of awareness and presence. The same is true of compassion and forgiveness, which in their truest form come from that same Heart of Vastness. Of course they will also impact our human psychology, our human body, and our human heart, but it’s important to distinguish clearly to avoid misunderstandings. Otherwise people can easily misinterpret these teachings and get caught up in yet another level of being and doing.
I find it helpful to keep things simple, to as much as possible reduce things to the lowest common denominator of awareness itself. I want to help you become more and more intimate with that awareness and to begin to really trust how it reveals itself to you and how it guides you. The more you can allow awareness to come to the foreground, the more that trust will be present and the more you can relax and be guided.
It’s been said that spiritual practice is like a cauldron, or a pressure cooker, and you’re already cooking, already steeping in this awareness. You wouldn’t be reading this book otherwise! You wouldn’t have been attracted to it. You wouldn’t have been ready. That’s how far out this really is. We think we’re guiding our own path, making a series of decisions that take us from one place to another, but that’s not quite right. We’re not doing it; it’s doing us.
Of course, cooking is a hot process. Depending on what’s been held in unconsciously, a lot can come to the surface—physical pain, emotional pain. This path is a cauldron of healing, and healing can be difficult. The healing process can be painful. But we’re all cooking together! We’re all in this together. So if you’re struggling right now, hang in there. Be gentle with yourself. Be nice to yourself. See if you can give yourself a loving, nurturing hug.
As I mentioned in the previous chapter, you may notice something that feels like a subtle energetic force field when encountering these teachings. If you are aware of that field, let yourself fall back into it. It can feel like you’re floating on your back, like you’re weightless. Or you might feel heavy; you might become aware of some energetic heaviness in your body that needs to be discharged.
As much as you can, stay outside of your mind. Don’t think about this too much, and don’t worry about understanding it or making sense of it intellectually. Relax and let the process develop as it needs to. Let what needs to happen, happen as it will. If your mind begins spinning out of control, then just redirect your attention into your breath, into the bodily sensations that are arising in the field of your awareness. As best you can, let the thoughts play out and pass on their own. You may find that in even considering that idea, your relationship to your thoughts begins to shift in an entirely new direction.