How To Stay Present

20:08

20:08

How To Stay Present

by Corin Bryant

Rated

5

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Beginners

Plays

5

In this video, I share my best advice learned from experience on how to remain deeply present in all circumstances. Often we remember to become present but then remaining in conscious presence can be a struggle, particularly during periods of discomfort or stress. In this video, I highlight the reasons this might be and give a few pointers on how to integrate and accept even feelings of discomfort and recognize that all elements of experience happen in the here and now. Those familiar with the works of Eckhart Tolle will be familiar with this practice. I also include advice influenced by Zen Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta.

Presence Mindfulness Acceptance Non Reactivity Consciousness Zen Buddhism Eckhart Tolle Present Moment Awareness Sensory Awareness Mental Chatter Acceptance Practice Spontaneous Action

Meet your Teacher

Exmouth, UK

Meet your Teacher

Exmouth, UK

Transcript

Hi team. Staying present. Is simply the focusing of your attention entirely into the here and now. And we can even do this right now. Let's do this right at the start here. Just become very aware of the present moment. Whatever the current experience is that you're watching this video. Just be very aware. Of the video, The image. The sound of my words. But also all the other elements of your experience too. So the sensations in your body. The sensations of breathing. All the other sounds that you can hear. The quality of light. That's being received by your eyes. The temperature on your skin. The feel of the fabric, Of the clothes that you're wearing. Be very aware of all these things. And just like that, You're bringing your awareness into the here and now. You'll notice how peaceful that feels. How stable. How grounded that really feels. Allows us to step out of the mind. That constantly chatters about the future and about the past, Prediction and memory. Step away from all of that and just become very present. Ah, We discover the now. Just here and now. We can see clearly. There are no problems in the here and now. All the problems are in the mind. In the here and now, What's happening? Nothing is happening. Nothing. Just is. Everything just is. So this practice, The practice of presence. Is a core tenet of a lot of meditative and spiritual practices. And it's key in. Mindfulness. Just bringing awareness into the now, Very simple. But simple doesn't always mean easy. We find often we can become present when we remember to do it we might have certain prompts that can just remind us to to become present but then staying present is another matter. Even when you sit in dedicated meditation time. Right, I'm just going to focus on the here and now. Going to focus on the breath. I'm gonna focus on the body connect with the senses, Just the here and now. And then a couple of minutes go by and you find you're thinking about what to have for dinner tonight. You're thinking about that email you've got to send at work tomorrow. You're thinking about that weird thing that somebody said to you. Maybe even some of those dark memories from the past, All of those things to figure out. All that stuff on your healing journey, All the intense emotions. Then there's all the problem, Where's my life going? What am I going to do in the future? And just like that. You were very present, Peaceful, Secure, Grounded, And you've gone up into the mind. And we're lost once again in the turmoil, The chaos, The overthinking, The rumination, The anxious thoughts. What to do. It's very common by the way, So don't feel like you're. . . Don't feel like it's a failure if that happens to you. It happens to everyone who's ever tried to become present and stay present. Anyone who's ever tried to find inner peace. To become spiritually awakened, To become enlightened, To become God. Grounded, Centred and whole. Everyone's encountered this. It's essentially by being present you almost highlight. You become very aware of this tendency of the mind to do that. So I wanted to do this video to just give a few of my thoughts. Tips, The things that I've found very useful. Because I went through this cycle for a very long time, And there's a few principles, Techniques that work incredibly well. Just as you develop this habit of presence, Think of it like a habit, Something you develop. The first is to understand that awareness is key. So don't be frustrated. If you notice. That. You have become lost in thoughts when you sit either in meditation or you're just trying to be present during the day. If you notice you're lost in overthinking again, You've noticed that you're thinking anxious thoughts, You've noticed that you're endlessly replaying memories, It's actually a good thing that you've noticed this. The moment you've noticed that's happened, You have become present. So this frustration is actually unnecessary. It's actually a cause for a bit of celebration. It's like, Oh good. Oh good, I noticed. Yeah, We'd rather we didn't. Get lost in anxiety and rumination. Obviously. It's like a shame, Well it's a shame that that's happened, But just switch that around, Reframe that to, Oh good, I noticed. Because can you imagine? Can you imagine what it would be like if you hadn't noticed? What if you hadn't noticed? You would have fallen unconscious again, In the spiritual sense of unconscious, Meaning you're not present, You're not conscious of the here and now, You're lost in thoughts. Just going by whatever mind identified, Going by whatever the mind is saying. Imagine if you were lost in that without noticing, Oh, I'm lost in thoughts again. Time to return to presence. So awareness is key. And the moment you've become aware that you're lost in an uncomfortable state of mind is the same moment that you have regained presence. Naturally, This leads us to a K. So I've noticed I'm. . . Anxious, I've noticed I'm stressed, I've noticed I'm replaying old memories, Or even I've noticed there's a There's an uncomfortable emotion present. I've noticed that. And yes, I'm present. But it sucks. It sucks. It's really uncomfortable. I am present, But I'm present with some very uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. What to do then? Again, So noticing that. It's that discomfort emotional or psychological discomfort that actually stokes the fires of overthinking and anxiety. It makes us so uncomfortable we try to get away from the present moment. We think, Ah, The present moment is so uncomfortable, I need to. . . We often then distract ourselves or we indulge in a bad habit or we try to soothe ourselves or We we often. We often act in our most negative ways when we're trying to avoid the discomfort of the present. So. . . The technique here is actually to practice a deep acceptance. Of whatever is. It's really uncomfortable in the now. That's fine. That's fine. I don't need to run away from this. I don't need to suppress this feeling. I don't need to bury it. I don't need to push it away, And I don't need to get away from it. Instead, I choose to just feel it. Whatever the discomfort is, Whatever the cause of the current. . . Dissatisfaction is the current frustration the current pain, The current hurt. It's a very deep principle to just say, You know what, Actually, I've been running away from all this stuff my whole life. And for all my running away, I've never managed to get a single step away from this feeling. I'm actually just going to feel it. Now is the time. I'm just going to turn and face it. What is this? What is the core? What's the core of my dissatisfaction? What's the core of my frustration? Where does this anxiety come from? Why do I keep replaying these memories? What's at the heart of this? You'll find there might be a quite uncomfortable feeling in the present. But the deeper you accept this, And the more you just stay in the here and now, The more you realise maybe it's not such a massive problem after all. Introduce a sense of inclusion into the present. So, You've got an uncomfortable feeling, Or whatever the situation is, Could be internal, External, Whatever. Whatever, As the Buddha said, Whatever. Whatever's going on is whatever's going on. Don't quote me on that. I don't think that's a direct. . . I'm paraphrasing. I don't think he exactly said whatever, But it's pretty close. Whatever's going on, Internal or external, There's an acceptance of this, And then include whatever's dissatisfying, Frustrating or painful in the present. So you're just here and now with whatever is here. And let's say you've got some anxiety, You can say. . . So anxiety is here as well as. . . Everything I can hear, Everything I can see. Temperature in the room, The fabric of the room. Clothes on my skin. And the anxieties here as well but I can also smell the scent in the room, I have the residual taste in my mouth. I'm aware of the sensations of breathing. I'm aware of my body. And I'm aware of the anxiety too. So there's a sense of inclusion, We're bringing everything into. The here and now. And by accepting all elements of your experience like this. You're actually. . . You're dissolving the resistance. You're dissolving the tendency to suppress, Or avoid, Or resist, And you feel, Okay, Wow, Wow. Oh, I can be, I can be present even with this hair. Yeah, Yeah, You can. You find by doing this, The anxiety, The stress, The discomfort, The pain, Whatever it is, It will pass. It will pass and it will pass far quicker if we're just allowing ourselves to just be okay with whatever is. It'll pass quicker but we can't try to hurry it along. If you try to hurry it along. If you try to get to the other side of the discomfort. You actually perpetuate it. It makes it worse. The moment we accept it. The sooner it will pass, But by the point that you've accepted it. You no longer mind whether it's there or not. I've been really surprised by this on my journey, That the deeper I can accept something, At first, I just don't want this feeling to be here. I just don't want this situation to be here. I don't like it. But the more you switch that around from the, I don't like it, You change that to the, I don't mind. I just don't, I don't mind. I'm not going to waste any more energy trying to change something that can't be changed. It's pointless. It's a waste of time, A waste of energy. So I'm just going to accept what is. And oh, And you find you have some more freedom, You actually have more power then. It's paradoxical, But you do. Things change. Things change. Through accepting. Including. . . Whatever it is in the present that's making the mind agitated because it wants to get away from it. Now you just, Well you're just including it and accepting it. Are really powerful. Principle here is don't react. Don't react to anything, Even your own thoughts and even your own emotions. You can just observe them without reacting. Just don't react. Just leave it. Be like teflon non-stick consciousness just Let everything flow through. It can just arise in the field of conscious awareness, Stays for a while and then it's gone. You're not interested, All you're interested in is remaining conscious and present. What you're conscious of in the present moment becomes totally secondary. It's just not important anymore. You're totally neutral, Totally non-reactive. Unattached. Disengaged. Doesn't matter. All is well. I don't mind. I just don't mind. I don't mind what comes up. I don't mind what stays and I don't mind what goes. You find, Oh, What a relief. I don't have to react. I don't have to react to every thought. I don't have to react to. . . Every feeling. I don't have to react to every perception. You start to find you don't have to react at all. Just remain conscious and present and all is well. But crucially even if it's uncomfortable or not what you prefer Just try accepting it. See what happens. And if something very immediate and very urgent does come up that does need some action, Well, The action spontaneously arises. There's a famous story of the lady who went to a Zen master. She was very present, Very established in her spiritual practice and her meditation. Said she was sitting in the park. She was practicing her meditation was very peaceful. Very zen. And then some children came up nearby and they were kicking a football around. And they were using foul language and they were just being kind of disturbing and unsettling and anti-social, Really. We've all had that experience where it's just, Oh, It disturbed her. And she was trying to stay present and just kind of endure through it. She was trying to just. . . Just remain fully awakened and conscious despite the fact that these kids were there kicking a football and using foul language and being disturbing. And eventually, Eventually, She'd had enough. She got up and moved to a different bench. And she asked the Zen master, She said, So what's the, What would the enlightened approach be? What, What's the, What's the remedy for this? How do, How do I rectify this? What would you have done? And the Zen master said, I would have got up and moved sooner. I find that quite. . . There's a power in that. I've found the same as well actually when I'm practicing total acceptance and total surrender. In my old way of looking at things, If that had happened to me, I would have stayed on the bench and put up with being disturbed. Under this idea of I shouldn't have to move. Whereas now, The more I practice acceptance and surrender, It's, Well, Yeah, You shouldn't have to, But it's a good idea to do it anyway. So sometimes you do need to move to shift. You do need to change something in your environment. But often you don't. Often you don't. Don't need to change anything external or internal. The cafe's not playing the music that you like. I don't mind. The gym aircon isn't the temperature I'd like, I don't mind. The bit of equipment I wanted to use in the gym is being used or it's out of order. I don't mind. It doesn't matter. It's not worth it. It just doesn't matter. That annoying person who bugs you is messaged again with something annoying. Doesn't matter. The way your colleague worded an email that would usually rub you up the wrong way. And you'd usually get involved, You'd start a conflict or an argument. Actually now, It doesn't matter. I don't mind. All is well. You'd usually spend so long worrying about all the money you just had to spend repairing your car. I'm not going to worry about it actually, I'll just take the hit, It doesn't matter. Not everything needs to be fought. In fact, Not anything needs to be fought. Everything just comes and goes. It's fine. Anyway so that's a few tips on presence there i hope some of that's useful thank you so much for watching i appreciate every single one of you let me know if some of that's been useful if you have found anything in that that you might be able to apply to your own practice and let me know if it's effective thank you for following. Take care! Be well and stay present.