"Be Here Now" - Perfecting the Practice of Presence
by Daniel Reid
A
lament often heard from modern Western novices on ancient Eastern
spiritual paths soon after receiving their first introductions
to the depth and complexity of the practices is, “Why is it
all so complicated!” This is particularly true of those who
choose the highly disciplined practice paths designed to awaken
awareness, such as the “Complete Reality” (chuan jen)
branch of Chinese Taoism and the “Great Perfection” (dzogchen)
path of Tibetan Buddhism.
Years
ago, at a retreat in India with my first Tibetan teacher, the great
Kagyupa meditation master Kalu Rinpoche, someone asked the venerable
lama why the foundation practices he taught were all so complicated.
His reply crackled with the swiftness and clarity of lightning: “Because
the human mind is so complicated, that’s why! It takes complex
methods to dismantle the complex delusions the ego constructs to
blind the mind to the light of truth. Truth itself is as simple
and clear as the morning sun. In fact,” he said, sweeping
his hand around the room, “the truth is right here in front
of you, right now, this very moment, but you just don’t have
the eyes to see it!”
It’s
true: the Tao of “Complete Reality” and the “Great
Perfection” of the awareness which reflects it like a mirror
are utterly simple, self-evident, and ever-present, here and now.
There is nothing to seek: all we need is the vision to see. It’s
our human minds that are complex and tricky, not awareness and
reality. Both Buddha and Lao-tze stated very clearly that the disciplines
they taught were designed to awaken the ignorant and enlighten
the blind; those who know the truth and see how simple it is don’t
need the discipline of practice.
Most of us, however, spend a lot
of time and energy weaving elaborate veils of illusion around our
minds, like silkworms in their cocoons, to protect
our delicate egos and desires from rupturing in the radiant light of awareness
which we keep locked deep inside our hearts. Despite our barriers of doubt
and fear, it’s always here within us, each and every moment, a treasury
of wisdom, love, and power waiting for us to claim it by awakening to its
luminous presence. Depending on how deep asleep we are in our dream worlds,
the work of waking up can be easy or difficult, fast or slow. Either way,
the first step is to dodge the tricks our egos play to distract our attention
from practice and lull us back to sleep, and find a way to steer our minds
directly to the luminous clarity of our original awakened state.
The
entire corpus of complex practices taught in the traditional schools
of Taoist and Buddhist cultivation boils down to a single simple
teaching that can be summarized in three words : “Be here
now.” This is the keystone that supports the entire foundation
of all the practices. This precept has become such a popular “New
Age” slogan that it’s usually dismissed as a trite cliché,
but it nevertheless remains the essential link connecting all the
major Eastern practice lineages, and it holds the key that unlocks
the gate to success in them all. Let’s take a closer look
at this supreme yet simple teaching, word by word, and see how
it works.
“To Be or Not to Be…”
That’s
the basic question in the quest for enlightened awareness: to be
aware or not to be aware. It’s also the choice one makes when
choosing to follow the Taoist and Dzogchen paths of practice, which
are designed to awaken the practicioner to a direct experience
of being present in the primordial state of awareness. This is
a state of being that can only be experienced when you stop doing.
That means withdrawing the energies of body, breath, and mind from
their ordinary expressions of “doing” in activity, speech,
and thought, and resting instead in the stillness and silence of
simply “being.” In Taoist tradition, the deliberate withdrawal
of energy from the active state of doing into the still state of
being in order to experience the nature of awareness is called
wu wei (“not doing”). In Buddhism, this basic meditation
practice is known as shamatha (“dwelling in tranquility”).
Disdained in modern life as a waste of time, “sitting still
doing nothing,” which is the Chinese term for “meditation,” is
in fact an indispensable condition for all spiritual discovery.
Meditation is your ticket for a front-row seat in the theater of
complete reality, where the curtain doesn’t rise until you
sit still and be quiet.
Life
in the world today spurs us into a constant gallop of non-stop
activity and traps our attention with a relentless onslaught of
sensory distractions, allowing us little chance to slow down, stop
moving, stop talking, stop thinking, and simply savor the essential
flavor of being alive, being aware, and being present in the moment. “Being” involves
a totally different state of mind than “doing.” It’s
a totally different expression of energy that reveals a completely
different dimension of experience. Doing manifests our energy in
a dynamic state of activity—action, speech, and thought—hooking
our attention in the temporal dimension of linear time and space.
Doing always has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and activity
always manifests in a finite field of space and time. When you
stop doing and just be, your energy remains at rest in its original
potential state, permiting your attention to experience the still
depths of your mind in its basic state of awareness. Energy at
rest abides in a state of infinite potential, and stillness is
the boundless crucible of all creation. This is the immortal dimension
of pure awareness, the primordial source from which all temporal
form and activity arise and to which they all return, like waves
rising and falling on the ocean. If the mind is like an ocean,
then awareness is like the water: always calm and quiet deep down
inside, but constantly rippling with waves of activity on the surface.
In order to experience the nature of the ocean’s water before
it forms itself into waves, you must sink down below the surface
and submerge yourself in its depths.
All
forms of doing—activity, speech, and thought—give rise
to movement, and all movement creates the illusion of linear time,
with a beginning, middle, and end. Not doing (wu wei) makes time
collapse in the infinite stillness and radiant space of being in
primordial awareness, which has no beginning, middle, or end. When
you stop moving, speaking, and thinking, time stops and awareness
expands into infinity, dissolving all dualistic boundries between
self and other, here and there, now and then. What you realize
in this still and silent state of awareness is that everything
arises from and returns to its original source—the empty,
luminous, infinite potential energy of the primordial state. Here’s
how Lao-tze expressed it in the Tao Teh Ching:
Something formless yet complete
That existed before heaven and earth,
Without sound, without substance,
Dependent on nothing, unchanging
All pervading, unfailing. . .
It’s true name I do not know :
“Tao” is the nickname I give it.
The nickname the Buddha gave it is “Dharmadatu:” “the
way things are.”
“To
be or not to be” is therefore the first choice you make when
embarking on the path of cultivating awareness. There is nothing
particular to do to reach the primordial state of enlightened awareness,
because you’re already there before you start. However, it
takes a lot of practice stop interfering with it and simply let
it be. You must arrive at the realization that it’s already
here within you, right now, and learn to recognize its radiant
light. This is the path as well as the goal of all the practices
taught by the masters of theTao and the Dharma - to be present
in awareness.
“Here , There, and Everywhere. . .”
Taoists
refer to body, breath, and mind as the “Three Treasures” of
life. Buddhists call them the “Three Gates” of energy.
Keeping these three vehicles of our life force working together
in harmony, rooted in the same ground of being and doing, is an
essential point of attention on the path of awareness. This seems
simple enough in principle, but in practice it’s not so easy
because the human mind is like a monkey: it hops here, there, and
everywhere, leaving body and breath elsewhere. Training the mental
monkey to sit still and pay attention to where your body is here
and now, is a primary task of practice that takes time and patience.
Body
and breath are always right here, firmly rooted like flagpoles
at your present location. Where else could they possibly be? It’s
the mind that’s always drifting away to another place and
time, floating to and fro like a leaf in the wind. Left unattended,
the mental monkey is always hopping around out “there,” leaving
body and breath stranded like a car without a driver in the traffic
of life. As the monkey wanders off to worry about the future, romp
through the past, chase fantasies, chat with phantoms, and meander
through mental mazes far removed from the present locus of body
and breath, it takes along a big supply of your vital energy, burning
it frivolously in the bonfires of random thought and robbing your
body of its essential fuel of life. The breath grows shallow and
irregular, the body loses balance, and vital functions stagnate,
while the mind fritters away the energy upon which the whole system
depends.
The
solution to this problem is to focus the spotlight of attention
on your breath, and to shift your breathing from autonomic to voluntary
control. Since breath and body are inseparably linked, conscious
breathing keeps the mind firmly grounded in the body, here and
now. All you need to do to make this transition is summon the intent
to steer your attention away from the monkey’s madcap maneuvers
and lock it onto the perpetual flow of breath in and out of the
body, and to feel the body’s rhythmic response to the movement
of the breath. Follow the breath in, follow the breath out; feel
your belly rise, feel your belly fall. Your breath and your belly
are completely real, and they are both always right here at home
in your body. You may therefore use the breath and the belly as
buoys to keep your mind anchored in reality, rather than letting
it wander away with the monkey. That’s why conscious abdominal
breathing is such an important foundation practice in both Taoist
and Buddhist systems of cultivating awareness.
All
this may sound, as they like to say in Australia, “too easy,
mate!” And in fact it is easy, once you get the hang of it,
but like everything else in life that’s worth doing well,
it takes practice to get it right. Verily it is said, “practice
makes perfect,” but the practice does not always need to be
so complicated. It can be as easy yet profoundly effective as breathing,
if you pay attention to the way you’re doing it. The Great
Perfection of enlightened awareness is only a breath away, but
to realize that you must pay attention to your breathing and not
get distracted by the monkey’s mental marvels. The Taoist
adept Liu I-ming clarifies this point in Awakening to the Tao:
The Tao is simple and convenient. There is
no need to seek afar, for it is right here at home … It
is utterly simple, utterly easy, there is no difficulty involved … The
ridiculous thing is that foolish people seek mysterious marvels,
when they do not know enough to preserve the mysterious marvel
that is actually present … So many Taoists seek at random,
all the while casting aside the treasure at hand.
“It’s Now or Never…”
The “treasure
at hand,” described by Taoists as the “precious pearl” and
by Buddhists as the “wish-fullfilling gem,” is the luminous,
infinite potential energy of fully awakened awareness. This jewel
is always shining right here within our own mind and body from
the day we are born until the day we die. It’s not something
we must seek elsewhere. “What is of real value is in ourselves,” writes
Namkhai Norbu in The Mirror, “in our own original state: this
is our wealth.” This original state of awareness is known
in Buddhism as bodhicitta (“awakened mind”) and in Taoism
as wu-dao (“realization of truth”), and it’s our
most precious possession in life, an infinite source of wisdom,
compassion, and power waiting for us to reclaim it. However, because
we look for truth in “mysterious marvels” outside ourselves,
rather than turning to the infallible source within, and because
we habitually mistake material possessions for wealth and force
for power, most of us go through life without ever discovering
the real treasure of truth, vision, and infinite potential which
we all carry within us every moment.
The
moment itself is the ultimate marvel, and presence in the moment
paves the way to mastery of all mysteries. What could be more marvelous
than the infinite energy of creation that unfolds each moment in
all the myriad forms of the universe, pulsing like a heartbeat
from the twinkle of distant stars to the murmur of the sea, from
the wind in the trees to the hum of the bees, from the radiance
of a rainbow to the glow of a candle. The light of pure awareness
reflects all the manifold creations of universal energy right here
within our own minds, moment by moment, as clearly and unconditionally
as a mirror. Since everything manifests from the same basic energy,
every moment reveals the fundamental mechanism of creation and
vibrates with the mysterious marvel of life. In order to become
aware of all this , we must keep our attention on the mirror of
the moment and practice the perfection of presence. Presence of
mind in the immediate moment permits us to experience the infinite
marvels of the eternal present. After we’ve learned to anchor
our minds here in our bodies by using breath as a buoy, we must
then free our minds from the trap of linear time by realizing that
it’s always “now,” and that the present moment is
therefore timeless and eternal. A single moment of direct experience
in the eternity of the present teaches us more about the true nature
of time and reality than a lifetime of study and thinking.
Most
people spend their entire lives roaming across the frozen mindscapes
of a dead past and unknown future, completely ignoring the vibrant
present, except for those rare moments when reality suddenly grabs
their attention with the proverbial Zen slap in the face. The fragmented
segments of linear time as measured by the tick-tock of the clock
produce the artificial mental paradigm of a chronological past
and an imaginary future that stretch infinitely in opposite directions
from the fleeting moment of a swiftly passing present. Presence
in the stillness of the eternal moment produces the opposite effect—a
direct experience of indivisible whole time in the seamless eternity
of now. This experience awakens awareness of the timeless present
as the only reality, and shatters the illusion of past and future
projected through the lens of linear time. What we learn from the
practice of presence is that the only “real time” is
now and that the present is the dimension of eternity.
It’s
always “now,” and the present is always here where we
experience it, reflecting the whole universe in the mirror of the
eternal moment. The only reason most people are blind to the vision
of complete reality which every moment reflects is because they
rivet their attention on the express train of thought that’s
constantly running through their heads, rather than dwelling tranquilly
in the stillness of the timeless present. Someone once wrote, “Time
is space thinking.” Since the mind is essentially empty, like
space, it follows that “time is mind thinking,” which
is the mental form of “doing.” When mind stops thinking,
i.e. “doing,” and dwells instead in the stillness of “not
doing” (wu wei), time stops, and mind experiences the timeless
state of presence in the eternal moment, i.e. of “being here
now.” Stillness doesn’t do, it just is. Stillness is
therefore the master of presence: it teaches you how to “be
here now” and experience Complete Reality in the Great Perfection
of awareness in the eternal moment. In Carlos Casteneda’s
books, Don Juan teaches Carlos essentially the same lesson when
he says that we can “stop the world” and experience the
pulse of eternity simply by stopping the “internal dialogue” in
our heads.
We
are always in the present moment, here and now, and it provides
the only view of the world that’s not imaginary. The past
and future are mental constructs, but the present is the living
ground of awareness and the cradle of creation. In "The Way
of the Peaceful Warrior", Dan Millman states that the most
profound lesson his teacher ever taught him was contained in the
declaration, “There are no ordinary moments.” Every moment
is extraordinary because it always reflects a complete and perfect
picture of the whole universe, like a flawless gem of awareness.
However, in order to perceive reality with the flawless vision
of the moment, we must perfect the pratice of presence.
As
we begin to awaken to the infinite potential of presence in the
eternal moment, we also begin to realize that the primordial awareness
through which we experience presence is as immortal as the moment---that
our awareness is something that “is not born and does not
die.” We realize that the infinite luminous energy of awareness
is the very source of the world which we perceive through our senses,
and that we are always the authors of our own lives, free to set
the stage and write the script as we wish. That’s why Tibetan
teachers describe the “Clear Light” of primordial awareness
as a “wish-fulfilling gem.”
The
Dzogchen master Namkhai Norbu refers to the experience of undistracted
awareness in the moment as “instant presence.” When you
practice instant presence, you experience the waves of the world
rising and falling in the infinite ocean of awareness, and you
realize that the world you perceive is never separate from the
awareness which perceives it, just as the images reflected in a
mirror are inseparable from the mirror which reflects them, and
the waves rippling and roaring on the surface of the ocean are
inseparable from the still and silent water in the depths from
which they arise. The world we experience is a product of our awareness,
not a separate reality. It’s very important to recognize the
distinction between the reflections and the mirror, and to realize
that the waves on the ocean are just a fleeting form of the water
below, for one is impermanent and inconstant while the other is
immutable and immortal. In order to enjoy the ephemeral play of
life’s energies, we must avoid attachment to their passing
forms and not mistake the servant for the master, for it is not
the impermanence of things in life that causes us sorrow, but rather
our attachment to impermanent things. Instant presence makes this
distinction clear, for it teaches us to value the treasure that
we can never lose—the luminous pearl of primordial awareness.
Taoist
and Dzogchen teachings place such strong emphasis on being aware
of our real condition, as it is here and now in the present moment,
because this is where we’ve always been and always will be—in
the very center of our experience of the universe, which unfolds
like a flower from the luminous heart of our awareness. Our experience
of the world is always complete and perfect just as it is at the
moment. In real time , there is no past or future, only the eternal
present, and as soon as we stop thinking, the timeless perfection
of the moment blossoms. When we rest our minds tranquilly in stillness
(shamatha), the moment is all there is. In an interview in the
Winter 2003/04 issue of Dragon Mouth, Liu Ming notes this point
as follows: “Rather than offering transcendence, the teaching
introduces us to where we actually are. . . the place we really
are is the place we’ll be forever. There’s nothing missing
in the experience we’re in.”
It’s
also important to realize that the Great Perfection of awareness
in the present moment can only transform our lives and liberate
our minds from illusion if we learn to apply it in the active “doings” of
daily life as well as in the still “non-doing” of meditation.
Otherwise it’s just a formal exercise that ends with each
meditation session and has no practical value in daily life. Even
when the body is busy doing something, the mind should experience
the activity with the instant presence of awakened awareness. The
whole point of cultivating awareness in the non-doing stillness
of meditation is to bring the awakened state of presence into the
doings of daily activity. “In order to realize the inseparability
of meditation and daily activities,” states Dzogchen master
Namkhai Norbu, “we must apply the practice twenty-four hours
a day.”
This
means, for example, practicing instant presence while frying a
fish, pouring a cup of tea, driving a car, or embracing a partner
in sexual union. To do this, you must keep your attention fully
focused on the nature of the activity your body is doing in the
present moment and be aware of how your energy is manifesting in
that activity, here and now, on the spot. Feel the sizzle of the
frying fish in the handle of the pan; observe the hydrodynamics
of the tea pouring from the pot; be alert to the manifold mechanics
of operating the car; experience the energy of your partner in
sexual embrace rising like a tide on the sea.
While
meditation allows us to experience our energy in its still state,
the activity of daily life lets us experience the way our energy
manifests in movement. Both aspects are equally real and equally
important, and instant presence is the key to experiencing the
nature of both as they manifest in the perfection of the moment. “A
true practicioner,” writes Namkhai Norbu in The Mirror, “can
appear to drink and laugh like others in a pub, but we can be sure
that, without assuming the meditation posture, he is continuing
in his state of presence.”
Both
Taoist and Dzogchen teaching include specific methods that help
the practicioner learn how to maintain the state of instant presence
in the midst of ordinary activity. Often refered to as “moving
meditation,” these practices are designed to integrate inner
stillness of mind with outer movement of body, and to unify the
states of “being” and “doing,” awareness and
action. In Taoist tradition, various forms of chi-gung such as
Eight Brocades, Tai Chi, and Pa Kua are practiced to harmonize
body, breath, and mind in smooth rhythmic movements of the body
synchronized with the natural flow of the breath, all balanced
by presence in a meditative state of mind. Chi-gung develops the
ability to engage naturally in the external activities of daily
life while remaining in a calm state of awareness inside.
In
Dzogchen, yantra yoga is practiced as a form of “moving meditation” to
bring body and mind into a balanced state of awareness that fuses
inner stillness with outer movement. Chi-gung and yantra yoga train
practicioners to integrate stillness with movement, and to experience
the mind’s essential emptiness as well as its intrinsic energy,
without getting distracted by either. Moving meditation should
be applied to ordinary activities “until,” as Namkhai
Norbu notes, “there is no longer any distinction between meditation
and life.”
“The Precious Human Existence”
In
Western religions, people generally disdain their bodies as obstacles
to salvation and view the world we live in as a sink of sin and
corruption, far removed from a future paradise to which they hope
to gain entry after death by behaving in a way prescribed by clerics
during life. This view rejects our own experience of life in this
world as a valid source of truth and instead demands faith in unproven
dogma in exchange for a dubious promise of eternal bliss in an
uncharted heaven that can only be reached in death. This is not
a good bargain and a highly risky investment of our faith.
Better
by far to work with the resources life has given us, here and now.
Never dismiss your body as a viable vehicle for reaching the goal
of enlightened awareness, for without it you don’t stand a
chance of success. Your body is the only anchor that keeps your
mind grounded in reality and lets you to learn the lessons life
has to teach you. By paying close attention to your body and its
experience of the world, you prevent your mind from wandering off
into false realms of fantasy and dissipating your energy in illusory
distractions. Always utilize your breath as a bridge to keep your
mind and body linked together in the present moment by breathing
consciously at all times, not just while practicing meditation,
chi-gung or yoga. Breath is the most effective tool we have for
keeping our minds aware of what our bodies are doing in the present
moment, and for synchronizing the microcosmic pulse of our personal
energy with the macrocosmic pulse of universal energy. By using
breath as a metronome, we can harmonize body, breath, and mind
in an integrated state of awareness that allows us to experience
the real time of the eternal present rather than the artificial
time of past and present conjured by linear thinking.
The “bottom
line” is this : if we wish to attain the Great Perfection
of enlightened awareness and understand the Tao of Complete Reality,
we must do it here and now, in this body, in this life, while we
still have the “precious pearl” of primordial light to
illuminate our way. We must always remember that the Clear Light
of immortal awareness resides only in the hearts of living beings,
and that at death the spiritual Light in our hearts returns to
its original source in the primordial heart of the universe. The
Light does not illuminate the dark night of death, so unless we
merge our minds with the immortal Light in life, while we still
have the chance, we will die with minds still clouded in illusion
and wander aimlessly through the dark corridors of the illusory
astral realms. Known in Tibetan Buddhsim as the bardo (“in-between
state”) and in Chinese Taoism as chung-yin (“middle shade”),
these astral realms include all of the heavens, hells, and “other
worlds” ever imagined by the human mind, and after death they
trap the unenlightened minds of those who invested belief in their
falsehood during life. The only way out of these shadowy realms
of delusion is to get another chance at winning the prize of immortal
awareness by getting another life and another body with a heart
of Light to serve as a vehicle for practice. Tibetan teachers compare
the chance of gaining another human body to the chance that a blind
turtle swimming aimlessly in the bottom of the ocean will rise
to the surface and stick its head through a ring tossed randomly
into the water. Those aren’t very good odds, which is why
Tibetan masters always refer to this life we have here and now
as the “precious human existence:” because it offers
us the precious opportunity to receive the teachings and gives
us the vehicle of a human body to practice the methods which can
lead us directly to the radiant treasure of enlightenment and the “precious
pearl” of immortality.
The
Great Perfection of awakened awareness is not attained by rejecting,
transforming, or transcending the human condition. It can only
be discovered through direct experience of the world as it is,
here and now. When you practice instant presence in all aspects
of your life, each and every moment has the extraordinary potential
to reflect the whole truth of reality in the mirror of your mind
and awaken you to the Great Perfection of your own enlightened
awareness. There is nothing to reject, nothing to transform, nothing
to transcend, and nothing particular to do, because the Clear Light
of awareness is always shining here and now in your own heart.
All you need to realize it is presence.
In
closing, I would like to quote the last line of my favorite Tibetan
prayer. It’s a call to all one’s teachers to ask for
their blessings on the path of practice, and it neatly summarizes
the essence of everything written above:
“Grant us your blessings that we
may attain
the supreme accomplishment of being aware
in the Clear Light of Great Perfection,
right now, immediately, here in this very place!”