Thread: Being Present

Originally Posted by ApisMellifera

This is the long way of saying practice makes perfect, but only if you practice correctly. So I pose the question to you: What is the proper way of being present, and how do you know you are doing it? Does it only happen when you meditate? Is it merely acknowledging that you are where are? Is it a state of thoughtlessness (no daydreams, no planning, no internal dialogue - just soaking in your environment through all your senses)? If the overall goal is to live presently rather than just be present when you think about it, could that be disruptive?

I'm not sure whether there is a "proper" way of being present since experience is subjective. But I can tell you that you know that you're being present when you become aware of your internal state (your mind and body) and your external environment (your perceptions through your five senses).

Personally, for me, being present involves mindfulness and concentration. It means acknowledging my current state: my current emotional state, physical sensations, thoughts currently drifting through my mind. It means awareness of my current existence, where I am in space and time. It also involves being present of the thoughts and emotions of people around me.

A few things I do to stay present:
1. Remind myself to be present at least a few times throughout the day (reality checks).
2. Meditation. ("Practice" being present.)
3. Exercise and sports. (More practice. You have to be present when playing a sport.)

For me: Is it a state of thoughtlessness (no daydreams, no planning, no internal dialogue). My focus is changing from one object to the other. A littlebit visual focus, a littlebit audio focus. The basic is inner silentio. This is for me the most simple and most heavy thing. just looking, hearing and fealing. Doing it for 5 minutes properly is a real challenge. Maybe 5 times i was in the real present.

I'd say a good place to start is being aware of your emotions and learning to manipulate them.

Originally Posted by Muso

I'd say a good place to start is being aware of your emotions and learning to manipulate them.

I find your answer interesting. I believe I'm pretty good with being aware of my emotions, but I've always told my self to accept them as they are and let the time deal with the feels. Now, manipulate your own emotions?

Please elaborate, I'd really appreciate it.

Well, to be present is to be "there." If you're not "there," you can't experience or participate in what's going on "there," if you're present, then you can.

I personally tend towards the "minding my thoughts/emotions/reactions" but also incorporate surroundings as well, with the frequent subject of "is this dream-like?" I do not go to "ADA-style" full senses barrage as I think that tends to actually lose the "self" in the minutiae of sense detail. However, if a bit of detail is interesting, why not have a good look? Just realize what it is you're doing.

For me, "being present" is just another term for "mindfulness" or "self-awareness," with self-awareness in my mind being the actual operative goal. "Being present" always seemed a bit vague to me, too, and I figure the term either emerged from weak translations of eastern languages (probably by gurus/yogis looking for English words for their message), or else from new-agers looking for a different way to say what they knew had already been said so many times. Or both.

In any case, practicing self-awareness is indeed a great tool for lucid dreaming, because lucidity essentially is the presence of your waking-life self-awareness in a dream.

If I were you, ApisMellifera, I would step away from "being present," and start looking into mindfulness or self-awareness practices, as the folks using those terms might be a bit more clear in their instructions and definitions.

Finally, per your OP, here is a small exercise that I recommended in my DVA WILD class that might help you gain moments of self-awareness:

How do you develop self-awareness? There are many ways, and we’ll likely talk about others during upcoming conversations, but the exercise I’ll offer today is simple introduction to the practice, sort of a Reality Check in reverse:

Here’s what to do: At random intervals during the day – at least once an hour but no more than three times in that hour – stop what you’re doing and wonder. Just hold still for a second and remember where you were five minutes ago, imagine where you’ll be in five minutes, and know that everything you’re doing right now has an effect on everything and everyone around you, and everything and everyone around you has an effect on you – even if you don’t realize it.

The important part here is to think deeply about your place in all the stuff that’s whirling around you at any given time, and to really think about what all that whirling is doing to you, and what you might be doing to the whirling. During waking life, you might find yourself very often assuming that there’s not much whirling about at all or that there’s not much of an exchange of effect going on. There always is, whether you can feel it or not. Think about the fact that there is an exchange of atoms between your feet and the floor you’re treading: in a sense you’re changing reality itself, if ever so slightly, just by standing there! It is therefore extremely important to take a moment and remember that you exist, and your existence matters – even if you don’t think it does. [Edit: Your focus during this questioning period should be on your interaction with your local reality -- things/people your presence has influenced, are influencing, and will influence, or things/people that have/will do the same to you. You should avoid getting too metaphysical or galactic, as that atoms example above might imply. For example, perhaps you were just sitting on the couch in your living room 5 minutes ago, doing nothing... sounds like nothing to wonder about, unless you think about the dent you left in the couch, how it will still be warm for the next person in the room, how your comfortable situation on the couch caused you to ignore an important phone call from your boyfriend; the list can go on and on, if you look).]

You don’t have to recite all those questions every time; that would be annoying, and the process of reciting all that might diminish the effect. Basically you should put it all into a single quick thought that means something to you, and allows wonder to linger after you’ve resumed moving through your waking day. It will be difficult at first, but with practice you won’t be using words at all when you pause, as the questions will have become second nature. Be very careful that the questions never lose their wonder, though. If they become rote -- just a bunch of words you say whenever your iPhone app goes off -- then you will have lost the point of doing the exercise because you will not be acknowledging your self.

Originally Posted by ryzaack

I find your answer interesting. I believe I'm pretty good with being aware of my emotions, but I've always told my self to accept them as they are and let the time deal with the feels. Now, manipulate your own emotions?

Please elaborate, I'd really appreciate it.

Practice staying in a neutral state. Most people ARE their emotions. The happy you is totally different from the angry you. The longer you stay in a neutral state the less your emotions influence you and you start to simply observe them. You'll begin to take your emotions into consideration but they won't be making choices for you.

Manipulation is easier said than done. Everyone is always trying go from negative to positive or neutral to positive but the thought of going from positive to negative or neutral to negative sounds insane. To me the former sounds just as crazy. If I notice I'm feeling extra positive I'll give myself a dose of negative to pull myself back to a neutral state. For example: I beat someone in a game of chess, feel a wave of happiness, remind myself the other person had to lose for me to win and put myself in their shoes to cancel out my happiness. You might go even deeper and ask why winning made you happy in the first place. I see this as staying in the present because you'll be constantly questioning and altering your mental state.

The more you play with your emotions the better you'll understand them. Lets say you're trying to make a cup out of clay. The clay ( your mind ) starts to get very dry ( negative ) and so you get it wet ( positive ) with a bit of water. Just enough to keep it from cracking but not so much that it starts falling apart ( neutral state ). If you get the clay too wet you'll have to dry it before you can use it properly. Out of curiosity you might never add water to see how cracked it'll become. Or you might add way too much water and watch it fall apart. Be careful though. You don't want to lose your clay.

Keep in mind that it isn't about suppressing emotions. It's about bending them.

I agree with Theory Cat that everyone has a bit of a different take on it. For me, it's palpable and can happen in an instant at any point during the day in which I truly take the energy to ground my focus. I pretend I'm becoming lucid in a dream for a second. Surely in a dream I'd want to soak up every possible detail of this unique dream. I remind myself not to add anything to the dream and that in dreams there is no past and there is no present.
I recommend reading The Power of Now. He does a really good job at putting such an abstract concept into words. The more times I read it, the more I get out of it.

Originally Posted by Muso

Practice staying in a neutral state. Most people ARE their emotions. The happy you is totally different from the angry you. The longer you stay in a neutral state the less your emotions influence you and you start to simply observe them. You'll begin to take your emotions into consideration but they won't be making choices for you.

Manipulation is easier said than done. Everyone is always trying go from negative to positive or neutral to positive but the thought of going from positive to negative or neutral to negative sounds insane. To me the former sounds just as crazy. If I notice I'm feeling extra positive I'll give myself a dose of negative to pull myself back to a neutral state. For example: I beat someone in a game of chess, feel a wave of happiness, remind myself the other person had to lose for me to win and put myself in their shoes to cancel out my happiness. You might go even deeper and ask why winning made you happy in the first place. I see this as staying in the present because you'll be constantly questioning and altering your mental state.

The more you play with your emotions the better you'll understand them. Lets say you're trying to make a cup out of clay. The clay ( your mind ) starts to get very dry ( negative ) and so you get it wet ( positive ) with a bit of water. Just enough to keep it from cracking but not so much that it starts falling apart ( neutral state ). If you get the clay too wet you'll have to dry it before you can use it properly. Out of curiosity you might never add water to see how cracked it'll become. Or you might add way too much water and watch it fall apart. Be careful though. You don't want to lose your clay.

Keep in mind that it isn't about suppressing emotions. It's about bending them.

I think you underestimate emotions. Dwelling in them gives you power and meaning. Why would you want to be numb unless you're afraid of emotions because you're sacrificing a tad of control for them?

I often wanted to be more neutral and equanimous. It's not about being neutral though, it's about being balanced. It's easy to be balanced if you have nothing on either pan of your emotional weighing scale. That might be a shortcut to being balanced, but it leaves you empty.
"Vous êtes belles, mais vous êtes vides.", you know?

mind makes us human but emotions make us real


no, being present is not about controlling your feelings. It's about understanding them, understanding everything that's going on, whether it's your environment or your senses with which you perceive it.
it's about watching. Watching and accepting.

Originally Posted by Conscience

I think you underestimate emotions. Dwelling in them gives you power and meaning. Why would you want to be numb unless you're afraid of emotions because you're sacrificing a tad of control for them?

I often wanted to be more neutral and equanimous. It's not about being neutral though, it's about being balanced. It's easy to be balanced if you have nothing on either pan of your emotional weighing scale. That might be a shortcut to being balanced, but it leaves you empty.
"Vous êtes belles, mais vous êtes vides.", you know?

mind makes us human but emotions make us real


no, being present is not about controlling your feelings. It's about understanding them, understanding everything that's going on, whether it's your environment or your senses with which you perceive it.
it's about watching. Watching and accepting.

I certainly don't underestimate emotions. Dwelling on them is a bad idea. If I got angry at someone I'd want to neutralize that anger as soon as possible, not dwell on it. That's how things turn violent. It's not my intention to put an end to them but reduce their influence they have on me. I don't feel empty in a neutral state, I feel at peace. I feel relaxed.

I'd say the mind and emotion together make us human.

Control leads to understanding. Understanding leads to control. Whichever comes first doesn't matter. That's the way I see it. I don't claim to be well-versed on the matter of staying present but from my perspective if nobody made any attempt to control their emotions this world would be even more mad than it already is.

People disagree on what to do with the results of paying attention, but *paying attention* is at the core of it all. Nothing ambiguous about that.

Originally Posted by Muso

I certainly don't underestimate emotions. Dwelling on them is a bad idea. If I got angry at someone I'd want to neutralize that anger as soon as possible, not dwell on it. That's how things turn violent. It's not my intention to put an end to them but reduce their influence they have on me. I don't feel empty in a neutral state, I feel at peace. I feel relaxed.

I'd say the mind and emotion together make us human.

Control leads to understanding. Understanding leads to control. Whichever comes first doesn't matter. That's the way I see it. I don't claim to be well-versed on the matter of staying present but from my perspective if nobody made any attempt to control their emotions this world would be even more mad than it already is.

Depends on how you use your emotions. You can use your anger to fuel violence, but you can also use it as inspiration for art.
to be honest I don't really believe in anger, I think there's always an obscured emotion that causes anger, like fear, frustration or jealousy.
I just hope you don't suppress them, that's what I did for a long time.
I'm glad if you're truly happy that way. I was unable to be "neutral" without suppressing feelings, so I decided to accept them instead and use them for positive things, such as art.

You should read "The power of now" by eckharte tolle or watch some of his youtube videos. You will instantly understand what it is to be present.

For me, its when you realise that the present moment is now, and this moment you are in right now is the only moment we ever have, a constant flow of now. There is no past or future, only the now, become aware of it and feel it. When you become aware of the now, your thoughts go silent for a second. The more you focus on the now the more your thoughts disappear. This ties in with the practice of mindfulness, by observing the present moment and realising everything 'just is', there is no need to change anything (not that you could anyway) everything just is what it is at this present moment. Be mindful of the present moment, observe your thoughts and the world around you like a passive observer with no judgement. Just accepting everything in and around you without any judgement or opinion one way or the other.

A quick question for you... is there anything wrong with this moment you are in right now? sure you could be richer, healthier or happier but besides that is there anything wrong with this present moment? enjoy the now.

one thing that has helped me "be more present" is meditating its improved my recall greatly as well!