Presence is Absence
What is called “presence” in spirituality is actually an absence.
An absence of what? An absence of resistance.
When we are not resisting What Is, we find ourselves experiencing a kind of fluid groundedness. We are alert yet softened, awake yet at rest at the same time.
Suffering is resistance.
When we resist Life, whether by “should-ing” other people or repressing our emotions or trying to change our thinking, we are in direct opposition to how things are.
Resistance is the opposite of acceptance. The state of acceptance is a very awake, highly discerning, dynamic openness that transcends through inclusion.
A lot of us live in a state of constant resistance to such a degree that we have identified with it. Working through our resistance (both internal and external) feels threatening to who we take ourselves to be even when we simultaneously long for a deeper, more peaceful, and more awake life.
Working through our resistance, feeling into the zones of ourselves we normally wouldn’t look at is an essential step in our emotional and spiritual maturation.
A big way that resistance can manifest is when we try to impose our will onto situations or people or when we deaden ourselves to Life as a “solution” to life’s difficulties.
We each can get lost in moments of self-righteousness and entitlement - driven by shame and fear. Exploring these zones of ourselves along with the pain that drives these states cuts through our resistance, and therefore our suffering.
Exploring the moments when we “lose heart” and numb ourselves or collapse, is also essential so that we can mobilize the energies in us that have become flat and frozen.
At a felt level, resistance is the result of undigested pain. And at a mental level, it is the result of our unquestioned beliefs and assumptions about the way things are.
Exploring Truth in both these levels reveals a kind of peace that surpasses understanding. This state of acceptance (and peace) can form a truly sane foundation for any action necessary.
The actions that arise from non-resistance tend to happen spontaneously and can seem to come out of nowhere. This way of living is based not on the past (on conditioning), but arises freshly in each moment as if intuitively resonating with the needs of each moment.
There is an innocence to living as the unknown when we are no longer driven by how we want things to be (against how things are).
Resistance is rigidity. Freedom is non-fixation.
This doesn’t mean anything goes! There’s a time and place to be firm with people, for example. It is entirely possible to stay connected with a sense of openness and innocence even as we take strong actions.
The absence of arguments with Life doesn’t mean we have no preferences either. Preferences continue just like emotions and thoughts also do, but they are seen exactly for what they are!
A thought is a thought and nothing more or less, the same is true for a preference and an emotion. There’s a simplicity here along with the peace and joy that accompany it.
Freedom is seeing things as they are including our very sense of self. As we explore our sense of self, we find nothing that can be pointed to since “self” is not a thing.
What we leave behind is our misconceptions and imaginations about who and what we truly are.
We are sentient openness - an absence of resistance.