Staying

Remember yourself always and everywhere. G.I. Gurdjieff

Frequency, intensity, breadth, depth, and duration are the metrics by which we can assess our presence, our attention [1]. Of these, duration stands out in its transformative power

These metrics give us a way to measure our presence, subjectively at first, while aiming toward objectivity. They also offer direction for our efforts of presence. We can work to come back to presence more often. We can work to intensify our presence, make it more vivid. We can work to broaden our presence, to take in more of our inner and outer experience. We can work to deepen our presence by opening to its Source, to our Source, to the source of Attention within us. Yet with all such practices, the temptation is to drop the effort soon after making it, which limits and weakens its effects. Duration is different.

By working to extend our presence in time, working to stay in presence once we come into it, we add a drop to our being, we add a little more stability to our soul. Extending presence in time embeds it in the fabric our personal reality. We not only awaken, we stay awake, and in so doing we begin to transform.

How to work at this? Clearly, it does not help to just throw our hands up in frustration that we cannot stay in presence. We start small and build on that. If we can be present for a five-second moment at one point, the next time we can try for a six-second moment of presence. Not that we actually time ourselves against the clock, rather we accept our subjective impression of how long we last. If we stay with ourselves and realize we are still here in unbroken presence for slightly longer than was possible before, that tells us something important.

If we wish to extend our engagement with presence, we cannot come at it from an entirely active approach, where we push at the forward focus of our attention. That exhausts itself too quickly, because the leading edge of attention must deal with a continuing stream of life events. For continuing presence in the midst of that stream, what is behind that leading edge of attention matters. We create a broad foundation for presence, to anchor us in the Now. And we ourselves come into the source of attention, so that wherever attention points, we are here behind it.

To be clear, presence has five elements. The most vivid is the energy of physical sensation that puts us in contact with our body. The two other forms of that sensitive energy also play a role in presence: awareness of our emotions and of our mind. Together, our contact with these energies forms the foundation of three-centered presence. Transcending these three as the background in which they appear is the conscious energy: the plenum of pure, silent, cognitive, unbounded awareness in which we live. Presence both demands and enables us to be engaged with the conscious energy. And finally, the fifth element, and the core of presence, is us, the one who is present, our I, usually appearing in the form of attention. At the beginning, we work on partial presence, engaging with the various elements individually and in partial combinations. With enough practice, complete presence can arise in an instant.

The duration issue is: how long does it last, how long do we last? It turns out that duration enables duration, stability fosters stability. The longer we stay, the longer we can stay. Staying transforms our being by holding the elements of presence together long enough for them to begin blending into an integrated whole. Staying in presence helps create something stable, something lasting in us. It establishes a place not just for us, but for the higher, the sacred, for our Source to touch us, to reconnect us, to welcome us back. As such, staying in complete presence cuts a hole in time and space, and fills it with Light.

For this week, please practice staying in presence. Extending your presence while in sitting meditation is excellent practice for extending your presence during your daily life. Staying here matters, both on the cushion and off.

[1] Tracol, Henri; The Real Question Remains (Sandpoint: Morning Light Press, 2009)

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