Enlightened Presence

When you enter into this presence, it starts to work on you. It’s a purifying process, like submerging in freshwater and scrubbing yourself clean of yourself. There is no effort needed on behalf of your intelligence or body. It happens by itself when left alone, without your involvement, without your interference.

This is why it is nice not to call it meditation. Meditation, for many, means you have to find an appropriate time, setting, place, and practice. You have to sit down in a certain way and do a particular thing to get particular results. This is not that. Meditation isn’t that either, but for the sake of it, let’s momentarily let go of the word “meditation” altogether.

What is left?

Just simple presence is all we are talking about, resting the mind into its infinite nature. Letting the body resolve and dissolve into an array of sensations without holding a single one. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Nothing to follow, fix, or figure out.

Zen Master Dōgen says, “Body and mind dropped off...” Then what is there to achieve, attain, or even realise?

Like this, perceptions and conceptions unbind themselves. What was concealed, naturally reveals itself. What is happening is happening all by itself. The awareness of it all, however, is undisturbed.

If you want to realise your essential nature, you have to stop seeking it. If you want to attain merit on the path, you have to give up the path of attainment. If you want to achieve enlightenment, you have to give up the ambition to achieve it. Everyone seeks enlightenment, yet enlightenment is free of seeking.

This simple presence is the highest practice. It is to remain as your infinite being: no meditation, no goal, nothing to practise, just returning to this, just this.

Being in this moment, the world rises and passes, opens and folds. It is like a flower blossoming eternally, just offering its aroma to everything.

If I were to ask you to take a step in the direction of yourself, in which direction would you step? Where would you face? If you say you’d turn inwards, well, where is that exactly?

To awareness, there is nothing inwards of it, nothing behind it. To awareness, there is no direction, space, point, or reference. This is why momentarily dropping preferences can tell you more about yourself than stepping in any direction can.

If you want to discover “your truth”, you must first start by discovering the Truth of yourself.