Presence Makes Us Real

All presence is intentional. There are degrees or levels of presence, largely determined by the character of the intentionality at their core. Those levels of presence are the levels of our reality, of how real we are. Without presence we do not feel ourselves to be real, and in this deeper sense, we are not real because we are not here. Without presence we are skimming rootless along the surface of life, bouncing from one thing to the next.

Attention is a central factor in presence. If our attention is captured by a thought-train and taken by that, then this is not presence. It is narrow, shallow, and passive. The attention at the core of presence is intentional. Attention can be intentionally receptive, open to a broad or narrow field. And attention can be active, focused intently on a broad or narrow field.

But attention is not the only factor in play. Attention is a combination of will and energy, as is presence. The will is the intentionality factor. Energies are the fuels that translate intentions into actions, both outward actions and inner-world actions.

For example, putting our attention on our right hand, both attracts and generates the sensitive energy to and within the hand. Holding our attention in our hand for even a few minutes brings into the hand a fine vibration of vivid aliveness, which is the sensitive energy. Our inner work with the sensitive energy can grow to encompass entire limbs, all four limbs, and even our whole body, filled with sensation. That is the first level of presence: sensing our body, particularly our whole body. It is an act of will that directs our attention into our body and into the sensitive energy to stabilize ourselves there.

The next level of presence intentionally engages the next higher quality of energy: the conscious energy. As we come toward a more stable presence in the sensitive energy, and extend that in time, we begin to find the silence behind our thoughts, the peace behind our emotions, and the stillness behind our movements. As we abide in that silence, peace, and stillness, we enter the spacious, boundless field of consciousness. Here we find a deeper, freer kind of stability, a timeless presence, a complete, three-centered wholeness.

The next two levels of presence are distinguished more by the stance of the will involved than by the energies in play. In the third level of presence, we feel completely ourselves. We come into our core and become our attention, or more accurately, we become that in us which directs our attention. We become our I. We feel that we are our I. Thinking about this does not help. We look into and move into our attention. We see that we direct it. We see that we choose where to put it and how narrow or wide to cast it. And we become that in us, that will, that I, that directs our attention. This is like an action of our body, a movement of our body. Only in this we are moving in our inner world, we are moving into the domain of will. We center ourselves in that I, in that core, which encompasses everything in us. We inhabit the whole of ourselves. We have come into our own.

For the fourth level of presence, Sacred presence, Real presence, we open yet more deeply, behind our thoughts, behind our senses, behind our self, even behind consciousness and behind our I, into the Sacred Void of the deeper realms of will. There we find the higher, Sacred Will that is everywhere, in everything, and is the truly Real on all the levels. We let go of being our self, of being our individual I, to merge back into our source, and then let ourselves emerge from that. We connect with our Sacred Source, which is the same everywhere and in everyone. We become what we truly are: the One that is All. We open our innermost gate, the back door at the root of our attention, the root of ourselves, to our Source, so that we can be from that depth. We let it flow into us so that we continually arise, emerging from that depth, as that depth.

Emerging from our Source, from the Source of our will, matters. It addresses the question of the degree and level of our presence. Emerging from our common source, we emerge as our will, as our I, and also as the Source.

It is possible and even necessary to practice all four levels of presence, not only in our sitting meditation sessions, but also as we go about our day. We seek to stabilize ourselves in presence, to live our life in presence, to make ourselves Real.

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