Tag Archives: presence

Is Presence All There Is?

Posted on November 22, 2020 by Donna Quesada | 4 comments

Nothing, Except Everything—

I’ve spoken about the power of presence many times… And those much greater than me have spoken about it plenty… Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass, Pema Chodron, just to mention a few. I love Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s explanation of the wonders of presence, as expressed during my interview with him last year:

So, you say, “what’s so special about where I already am?” Nothing, except everything. Do your eyes work? What’s so special about that? Are you breathing? What’s so special about that? Can you think and feel? What’s so special about that? Only everything. So, we take everything for granted, until we lose it. Until our eyes don’t work. Or we can’t catch our breath. Or, it feels like life is falling apart. Or, the body is falling apart. ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

Except… Is that all there is? And the Peggy Lee song plays in my head, while musing that it’s just… not… quite… the whole story.

Change Your Frequency—

One of my teachers, Gurudhan Khalsa, always said, “If you want to change the way you feel, change your frequency.” Sounds a bit abstruse, but not if you accept the ancient model of the way subtle subtle energies move in the body. It is essentially the same model that Chinese, Tibetan, and Indian Ayurvedic medicine has been built upon, and which the practice of Yoga has been drawing from for thousands of years, while correlating this process with the quality of human enlightenment.

Essentially, changing your frequency has a physiological component. And in the language of Yoga, it corresponds to the seven revolving wheels of energy, called chakras, which correspond in turn, to organs and nerve centers in the body. Each of the seven chakras affect the way we feel, emotionally and spiritually.

You might say, they are an extension of our consciousness, itself. Our mind is not localized in the head… but rather, runs through our entire body. Thus, the mission of a Yogi, or one who practices Yoga, is to care for the health of these energy centers, which are situated along the spine, from its base, up to the crown of the head.

These energy vortexes are connected by way of an invisible highway, by which life force, or prana, travels in both directions. As this healing life force moves along the meridians, it influences everything we do and everything we perceive. In turn, it influences the way we feel.

Our physiology affects our psychology as our psychology affects our physiology. It goes both ways. Put very simply… one thought can affect your subtle energies, just as your subtle energies can affect what you think. And this is what my teacher meant when he said that what we are here to do is change our frequency. It’s why we go to Yoga, basically.

Put even more simply, by way of a metaphor… one thought sends out a wave of motion within the body that affects the way you feel, and by extension, affects who and what you “attract” to your world, just as one pluck of any guitar string will send out waves of vibrating sound, which will affect the other strings on that guitar, as well as anyone around who hears that sound… and by extension, will affect the whole world in myriad, unknown and uncountable ways, by the actions of those who heard the sound!

So, Now… Back to Presence (All Agree On One Thing)—

All wisdom schools seem to to agree on one thing: We’re anxious because we’re too preoccupied with ourselves. Eastern schools would take this even further by questioning the very notion of the self. To this end, some schools emphasize selfless service, while others emphasize prayer or meditation… all of which make us feel better by dislodging us from our self oriented concerns. By focusing on someone else’s happiness instead of our own, by letting go of our worries though the act of surrendering them to a higher power, and by training ourselves to continually stop identifying with our thoughts, these methods all work and all bring relief to our everyday anxieties. Essentially, they help us to come out of our heads and into this present moment.

And… Back to Energy Movement—

But, what if we couch the idea of anxiety in the language of chakras? We could say something like, all that self-interested, ego trouble is low chakra stuff.

Everyday worries, like getting credit, being recognized, being right, proving our point, having enough resources… friends… money… likes… anything… getting validated, being approved of… have an energetic equivalent, much like moods have a brain state equivalent.

Nothing Can Touch You When You’re Flying—

And so, the idea is that you clear the chakras and the energetic pathways, much as you’d clear a tunnel for the metro to move through it. And when the energy is able to move unobstructed, you feel better. And when you feel better, you do better, you say better, you look better, you think better. In short, you’re flying, and nothing can touch you. Not sickness, not poverty… nothing.

But wait, there’s more! When the energy has risen, and your higher chakras have opened, you can touch the angelic realm. This is where I’ve been able to ask for the deepest comfort from my angel guides during extremely challenging times. It is nothing less than the channeling of spirit. And it’s a profound comfort that can not be described.

Being a music lover as well, I now think of Jimi Hendrix’ words:

Angel came down from heaven yesterday
She stayed with me just long enough to rescue me

Presence Then, Is the First Gate—

It is certainly not that the practice of mindfulness or coming into presence is of lesser value than channeling. It is a healing place to be and a fine forever home. And if you should have the interest in traveling into deeper cosmic realms, it is a necessary dwelling place. It takes a tremendous amount of practice to be here, now. Since, at any given moment, the mind wants to swing. It wants diversion and distraction and endless entertainment. It wants satisfaction of habitual, but needless desires. Corralling the mind is a full time, tireless task.

And it’s not that everyday prayer is of any lesser value, either. It’s deeply healing to the heart, mind and spirit… the deep connection through prayer enables our self-important worries and sufferings to simply melt away.

What I’m saying is that, although presence is necessary, it’s not sufficient for “transfer flights.”

Like Reaching the Summit on Everest—

If the sherpa or mountaineering guide got you to Base Camp and then said “okay… we made it! Let’s go back down, now!” You’d protest that you really wanted to make the summit. You brought your flag to plant there and everything. You know there’s more. But base camp is the necessary pass through point. You have to acclimate yourself at base camp. It’s the portal to higher realms, for those that want to go and can manage the trek.

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Tagged chakras, channeling, enlightenment, jon kabat-zinn, presence, Yoga

Beautiful Sky (How Does Presence Heal?)

Posted on July 23, 2019 by Donna Quesada | Leave a comment

How does presence heal?

Not as an idea, it doesn’t… and won’t. Because as an idea, it’s just one more thing to work on. One more thing to master and inevitably, get wrong. And so, it becomes another project, another item on the list: Meditate for 15m…

But on this day, as I was taking my early morning walk with the dogs, grey clouds were stretched across the summer sky. The first sunbeams of the day were searching out any cracks they could find. I gazed up at all of this, while the dogs were sniffing around, and a few drops fell on my face.

The welcome contrast of a cloudy morning in the middle of the hottest and driest month took my thoughts back to the summers spent with my Italian grandmother, in Las Vegas. I remember going with grandma to the market very early, on many mornings, just to “beat the heat.”

~~~

But one morning, we were lazing about as a sweet rain cleansed away the swelter. The coolness that stood in, on that day, awakened new scents and sounds. The strangely pleasant smell of wet asphalt filled the room where we were lying together. And chirping… “It sounds close!” … “Must be very close!”

So, I hung the upper part of my nimble, 12-year old body down, to investigate. Peering into the darkness under the bed, something jumped right up at me, grazing my cheek. I yelled out and in a lightening flash, jolted back up again. It was a cricket! We laughed and couldn’t stop laughing. We laughed at my silliness and at the surprise of the moment. We laughed at the delight of it all. And at nothing in particular. And then we laughed some more.

~~~

And at that moment, this morning, while my dogs continued to sniff, I was jolted back… but, differently this time. Away from the to-dos and toward everything that matters. Like a cosmic reminder, a mute meditation bell, a dramatic call to nothing at all, it silenced the busy-ness of the mind, and made room for the bounty in front of me.

Do Your Eyes Work? What’s So Special about That?

Posted on June 20, 2019 by Donna Quesada | Leave a comment

Image result for jon kabat zinn

From my recent interview with Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, on the question of… What’s so great about now?

What is says in the great Mahayana teachings, the Heart Sutra… there is no place to go. This is the first thing people misunderstand about meditation. Now, I have to sit down and experience something cool. Something found. Something transcendent. Healing… that is better than my ordinary this moment, which is so boring and stressful. And of course, that is getting off absolutely on the wrong foot. It’s not about getting somewhere else. It’s actually allowing yourself to be where you already are.

Donna: I love that metaphor. It’s almost like, dropping in is turning our whole body and mind into a big sensory organ, like the eyes.

Jon: Which it is. The whole body is…

* The Whole Skyped Interview will soon be available to watch, on www.awaken.com (other interviews include, Dr. Dean Ornish, Byron Katie, Caroline Myss, and many others)

I Don’t Have to Figure It All Out Right Now

Posted on March 20, 2019 by Donna Quesada | 6 comments

A very simple question:

What’s the big deal about Now?

I remember one of the advanced monks asking this question to Roshi, at a Zen meditation retreat, many years ago. From Ram Dass’ 1971 classic, Be Here Now, to Eckhart Tolle’s contemporary bestseller, The Power of Now, and the ubiquitous self-help emphasis on mindfulness, it warrants the asking. It has become standard among mental health practitioners to champion this most basic of meditation practices, for its proven benefits for those suffering from depression, to PTSD to the more benign, but inescapable varieties of generalized anxiety, all as common as daily bread. And surgeons recommend it for pre-treatment nerves, as well as post-op recovery. Mindfulness is, at its most simple rendering, the ongoing act of bringing your attention to this present moment… here and now.

Sooo…..

What’s the big deal about Now?

First, let’s answer that question with another question…

Because… What if this moment, here and now, is full of pain and misery? (Why would we want to be present with it?)

The answer to this last question, is that this present moment is not full of anything, at all. It is only our heads that are full of commentary, or as my Zen teacher used to say, ruminations. He loved that word. It comes from the Latin word for chewing. Makes sense. We like to chew on stuff. And chew some more. Then, chew some more. Even when — and there usually isn’t, unless you’re solving some mathematical equation — there’s no nutritive value left in whatever it is you’re chewing on.

Why do we do this?

It’s a compulsion. And we all do it. We are all obsessive compulsive. We’re problem solvers. We want to figure out that which can’t be figured out. We want to solve… even when it’s unsolvable. And know the unknowable. We want to have all the answers, ironically… right now. We’re not so good with the idea that there’s more to come, just around the bend… and relaxing with that. It makes us feel nervous and insecure not to be sure… not to be certain about things. Although, as denoted in the Alan Watts book that started it all for me, The Wisdom of Insecurity, there is an unmistakable prudence in simply letting life dance its dance. We don’t obsess about getting to the end of the dance, or rush to get there.

When we can summon up enough faith to do that, we will have enabled within ourselves a different relationship with this moment.

And that is the answer to the first question… it’s not the now, that has so much importance, it’s our relationship to the now. When we’re living easily with what is happening now, then we will be resistance free. And being resistance free is what every spiritual tradition, everywhere, from the beginning of time, has extolled.

And how do we do that?

After 30 years of practice, I still wouldn’t call myself an expert at it. At all. But, that’s why they call it a practice. It’s never really, fully and finally, accomplished. But, I do like the Abraham-Hicks access code:

I don’t have to figure it all out, right now.

This is like a golden key. A doorway into the state of nonresistance… into a more peaceful relationship with whatever this moment holds. Use it like a mantra. Say it to yourself when panic taps its familiar tap. It works because it’s general. If it were more detailed, and applied to some specific problem, the mind would find some argument, and the ruminations would continue. But in generalized form, it dislodges the ruminations.

~~~~

Follow My Other Blog, Too!…

https://fiftyyearsafter.wordpress.com/

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Tagged abraham hicks, Buddhism, Eckhart Tolle, law of attraction, mantra, meditation, now, presence, Ram Dass, religion, Roshi, Zen

Eckhart Tolle — A Hidden Pearl (The Real Purpose of Life)

Posted on June 17, 2018 by Donna Quesada | Leave a comment

Below is a treasure of wisdom that is not found in any of Eckhart Tolle’s books. I transcribed it myself, from a talk that I attended years ago. In this exquisite passage, he expresses the true purpose of life, which is, essentially, to awaken. And what does that mean? It casts light on the reason why so many…who have achieved fame and fortune by external measures, still fail to experience joy in life.

~~~

True flowering is not the achievement of this or that. Sometimes, the flowering happens indirectly, through an achievement, which doesn’t help the person, either…if they still identify as the form of achievement.

The true flowering is the arising of presence in you…when you become transparent. And that can happen at any age and it doesn’t matter where you are in your life situation. It doesn’t depend on “success,” by worldly measures. Some people have succeeded, by world standards…and others, who have failed, by world standards…maybe in a year, they’ll be rich and famous.

I was a “failure” in the eyes of the world, 10 years ago…and now the world thinks I’m a success. Completely meaningless…completely meaningless.

It doesn’t matter where you are…what life situation you’re in, at the present time. The ultimate purpose of your existence is…for the form to manifest that which is beyond manifestation…to become an opening for the unconditioned…for the stillness, the awareness, that energy stream, that frequency.

I believe Ramana Maharshi used the expression, a current of awareness that flows through you. That is non-conceptual intelligence.

And it’s more than that, too. It’s love.

~~~

My new blog: https://fiftyyearsafter.wordpress.com
(Latest article: The Space where Ram Dass & Timothy Leary Diverge)

Free Will & Faith (Say Yes)

Posted on September 29, 2016 by Donna Quesada | 5 comments

We, the descendants of the Age of Reason, have been nurtured to raise a suspicious eyebrow at suggestions like have faith, or, trust the universe, or worse, let go & let God, because it insults our conviction in the power of our own free will…our capacity to be self-determined, autonomous individuals…masters of our own destiny…captains of our ship.

Then, by means of direct experience with the tumultuous and liberating changes that occurred throughout the sixties, or else by dint of our good fortune in happening upon a teacher, some of us became “spiritual.”

Part of being spiritual is the realization of our inter-connection with the world, and by extension, our influence on it; through every action, every word, and even every thought, we affect everything in known and unknown ways. Coming out of a God-fearing era, in which one didn’t dare assert one’s power over the mysterious workings of the divine, this was huge. By reclaiming our power, we assumed our role as creator, or at least co-creator. And we liked it. We took to the idea of manifestation like a cat takes to a newly-emptied box. It pleased our sense of doing and gratified our need for control. After all, if we can simply choose our thoughts and direct our intention, then we can shape the world we want to live in.

We can’t stop our thoughts, the reasoning went, so we might as well learn to master them and so we willfully embraced our role as co-creator of our destiny. The idea of activating our ability to manifest tangible things, like cars and money, as well as the more elusive intangibles, like health and well-being, made us feel powerful.

I eagerly stepped onto the bandwagon.

But, then I asked, what if this, too, were but a stepping stone, a bridge, to a more exalted plateau, still? What if, all of life amounted to this one question:

Can you release even that—the need to make choices at all… can you release the need to co-create?

In other words, can you say yes to life on its own terms?

But, rather than seeing it as a denial of free will, why not look upon this gesture of renunciation, as “the ultimate act of free will?”…as the most courageous choice there is, which is to melt away, that you may move about, like two feathers on a bird, where no difference exists between your will and divine will.

Yogis have always been renunciates. And by Yogis, I mean all seekers, who have abandoned material comforts, mundane temptations and distractions in their passion to find God. So intrinsically a part of spiritual life, renunciation is considered to be the final stage of life in India’s religious traditions.

I propose that the truest gesture of renunciation is internal, rather than external, which is to say, unseen. It is implied in our courage to let go of even the pretense of control. And to the extent of our willingness and ability to do this—to truly surrender—we are Yogis without necessarily looking like Yogis…Yogis as householders…as ordinary people in ordinary surroundings, wearing ordinary clothes, doing ordinary things.

The only thing extraordinary (but doesn’t have to be extraordinary) is the degree of presence one brings to one’s life, since presence is proportional to the extent of surrender, as every wily attempt by the mind, to grasp at anything, is a step out of this moment.

I am reminded of an old Zen Koan about the man who encountered a tiger.

A man was traveling by foot, when all of a sudden, a tiger came running after him. When he reached a precipice, and could run no more, he caught hold of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, he looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. As if things couldn’t get worse, he then noticed two mice, gnawing away the vine; the only thing that sustained him. It was at that very moment, that the man noticed a luscious strawberry within reach, so he ate it. How sweet it tasted!

Can we laugh at the ultimate paradox of life? The exquisite beauty that exists within and alongside the ephemeral. The moment we try to possess it, it vanishes.

Like the man hanging off the cliff, we all have the ability to “transcend” our situations and dramas, but that transcendence is discovered through the relinquishment of our perceived identities in this life, especially our role as the “doer.” More profoundly, it is expressed through our willingness to offer up thanks and laugh with the beauty and apparent absurdity of it all. But really what we’re doing is giving the whole thing over to a higher power.

And, “giving it over” isn’t to “give up,” in the ordinary sense, it’s rather, to begin to relate to a larger field of creation. Giving up, in the ordinary sense is the ego’s way of saying, in a passive-aggressive voice, “I can’t have my own way,” so I’ll act like I never wanted it, anyway.” There’s a lurking resentment there. Whereas, in the truest form of surrender, it is of the soul, rather than the ego. It is not only to identify with a larger—so large so as to be infinite—perspective, but to come into a genuine state of allowing. It’s as if the you, that you thought you knew, disappears into this infinite self. So that you are nothing, but at the same time, everything.

And this expansion occurs to the point where, even your need to figure things out, e.g., the hows & the whys, begins to fade. You just trust. It’s not that you trust any being in particular…you just trust. It’s a state of being.

And this brings us back to the ultimate act of free will; it’s a choice to trust. To trust that everything is going to be OK…that everything is already OK…that everything is unfolding just as it should….that even this tempest you’re in the middle of right now, is part of it all…and it’s perfect. It’s to know that the workings of the divine, and your purpose within it all, is beyond what the mind can comprehend.

So, you just live. And, like the man on the precipice, rather than trying to figure it out or outsmart the process, or improve God’s timing, you surrender to this moment and eat the strawberry. And everything is delicious. And perfect…as it is.

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Tagged be present, faith, God, koan, presence, religion, spiritual, Zen

Mindfulness vs Distraction

Posted on May 14, 2011 by Donna Quesada | 2 comments

Mindfulness vs Distraction

Seventh on Buddha’s eightfold path, Zen buzzword, and greatest hit of Buddhism in general, is mindfulness–which is simply the practice of being here. It at least sounds simple, and it is, but simple is not always easy. Which is why it takes practice. With slightly more elaboration, it is the deliberate, but nonjudgmental, attention we place on the present moment.

A student asked me one day about it, and why it was preferable to distraction, especially in the face of something unpleasant. For example, if you have a headache, what’s wrong with watching TV just to zone out? In brief, distraction immediately separates us from the situation, which might sound desirable, but the problem is, the discomfort remains, and worse, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to surrender, and worse still, of the opportunity to recondition ourselves out of old patterns. And as life is full of discomfort, we’ll simply continue to suffer as a result, as we try in vain to run, time after time, and find, time after time, that wherever we go, there we are.

The question is a bit like the one I was considering the other day.

Presence vs The Big Picture

During the first few days following my book’s release, I found myself checking sales statistics obsessively, looking for sales info and any other sign of excitement that would signify, what was to me, an important event. But, this kind of narrow focus only sets us up for disappointment. I reminded myself how fortunate I was just to be published and how wonderful it is that my book is finally available. Moreover, I reminded myself of the real purpose, which is to inspire other teachers. I marveled at how strange it is that being published—every author’s dream—suddenly wasn’t enough. We are funny creatures that way, endlessly grasping for the next thing while missing everything. This reminder to myself, of what is essentially at the heart of Buddha’s Noble Truths, engendered a swelling of gratitude that left no more room for frustrations.

Funny enough, the very next day, one of my Yoga masters told a story about pain. He described a midwife he knew, who had the habit of telling her screaming clients, while in the grips of agony, to remember that they are having a baby! It might sound like a silly reminder of the obvious, but it indicates importance of putting the pain into perspective.

But, isn’t this a departure from presence? You might ask. After all, the pain is as present as it gets!

But in neither case—my obsessive checking nor the laboring woman—does the reminder to see the big picture negate the importance, or, if I may, the presence of presence. It’s not obvious at first, but the fact is that seeing bigger means seeing more, and seeing more means nothing other than more presence!

You’re looking at everything, you’re in tune with all that is, rather than merely your own hang-up. And by getting in tune, you’re dropping your resistance to the current situation, and since resistance is what magnifies all discomfort and suffering, by dropping the resistance, you’re lessening, at once, your suffering.

As the Taoists would say, don’t push the river.

By coming back into reality, as it is, you’re losing the AVERSION to the discomfort, you’re with what is, rather than fighting what is…and you’re in peace.