SCHOOL
You Are Never Not Present: A One-Minute Lesson on Presence
I am going to teach you how to be present in less than a minute. Some people spend their entire lives searching for this and never find it.
First, you have no direct experience of the past. What you experience is a memory. A memory is a thought, and that thought is happening right now.
Second, you have no direct experience of the future. What you experience is an expectation, anticipation, or imagination. Those are thoughts, and those thoughts are also happening right now.
Third, who you think you are is also a thought. Your name, your story, your successes, your failures, your opinions - these are all thoughts appearing in awareness right now.
Fourth, the present moment cannot be a thought. It can only be experienced. The instant you name it, describe it, or conceptualize it, you are already thinking about a moment that has passed.
And finally, number five. As long as you identify with your thoughts and feelings, your sense of self will always feel somewhat unstable because thoughts and feelings are constantly changing.
When you recognize the difference between your thoughts and the awareness in which those thoughts appear, something shifts. You begin to identify with that which is present before, during, and after every thought and feeling.
And then you discover something remarkable:
You are never not present.
The summary:
The past is a thought happening now.
The future is a thought happening now.
The person you think you are is also a thought.
The present can only be experienced, not thought.
What you truly are is the awareness that is always present, not the thought-based identity that comes and goes. The story of who you are changes from moment to moment, but the awareness witnessing that story never leaves