About Presence

About presence: 

it becomes about presence, the only true gift to offer to another - to give of myself, aware, and sure of our connection. This is how I hold the world, an embrace that's empty of goal and agenda, simply allowing life to unfold in the way of its own effect. As if presence could interfere at all, that my will is separate from what unfolds. 

there's only presence.

the distinction, subtle, is the life built through my beliefs of being other, that I talk of presence as if it belonged to myself alone and something I could give to others. Yet even in its intimacy, presence isn't personal, it's not mine, but it includes all I hold in conviction as my own. Presence is my true life, and it allows my personal sense of self to be, to carry on its task of living in such a hurried world. But presence itself remains untouched through it all. 

when we offer something of real value to another, listening, a deep listening that allows someone to be truly heard - there's only presence, just the listening itself, and all but what's being shared recede to the background of the moment. This is how we see each other as well, recognizing ourselves as presence in the guise of someone other. Everything between us is shared, at least the real things, all of us belong as life, presence, living this connection. 

every spiritual practice is simply to remember this, to comeback to what I really am, and all of it serves to a certain surrender - eventually, as always, it's just about presence. There is no practice needed. There's nothing to remember. It now comes to living, an easy sense of being alive without pressure to perform. 

to simply be. 

~

Peace, Eric