Inner  Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

 

Inner Work


For the week of January 29, 2007


The Taste of Presence

Like a fish in water or a human surrounded by air, we overlook the obvious even when it’s crucial. The same situation confronts us on the path of soul development. We live in a state of non-presence and do not recognize it as such. When my thoughts ramble, when I eat without tasting, when my body moves without me being in that movement, when sounds enter my ears without me listening, when sights enter my eyes without me seeing them, when my mouth speaks without me being the speaker, when my body experiences or acts without me being the experiencer or actor — for all of this I take no notice. This is my unremarkable, ordinary, programmed and patterned mode of living, or rather half-living, my life. Such a life lives itself with little true humanity.

Nevertheless, another possibility awaits us: a deeper, more joyous, more meaningful, more productive, and more loving way of life. For that, we need to live in presence. To be aware of the sensations in our body, to be in conscious wholeness, to be the one who does whatever we do, to live kindly and mindfully, to live as attention and intention, to collect and organize our inner energies through meditation, to add to the sacred through prayer — all this and more belongs in a truer life.

The difference between the programmed life and the truer life is sometimes stark and sometimes subtle. But for this difference we need to acquire a taste. All of us live both kinds of life. Can we distinguish between them, in any given moment? Can we know which mode we are in now? And let that knowing prompt us to move from the half-life to the whole-life?

The taste of non-presence can be bitter, dull, or even sweet, but always has a layer of superficial emptiness and never truly satisfies. The taste of presence, on the other hand, adds a dimension of richness and depth to any experience or act. The practice of presence helps us acquire the taste of presence. And by contrast, the taste of presence helps develop our taste for recognizing non-presence.

These tastes consist of a nuanced inner sense of the qualities and levels of presence and non-presence. This sense enables us to recognize our inner state for what it is, especially in comparison with other possible states. Spiritual practice gives us the tools to move toward a higher state. But a finely-honed taste for presence and non-presence can help guide us through our inner landscape, help us know which tools to use and when.

The taste of non-presence can be our great ally in the spiritual path. For through it, through discomfort with our programmed-response, minimal-awareness mode of pseudo-living, we acquire the heart of longing that draws us toward the sacred, toward presence. The taste of presence, the self-evident rightness of true living, motivates our inner work in lesser states.

For this week, whenever you remember, develop your taste for presence and non-presence by noticing whether and to what degree you are present. And let that taste increase your motivation, your heart for the practice of presence.


     

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