Meditation on Being Present

 Now find a quiet place and sit comfortably. You may choose to sit cross-legged or in any position that feels natural for you. Gently close your eyes and breathe naturally.

 

Move your shoulders slightly and notice whether they are tense. If they are, allow them to relax.

 

It is very important to relax the body. If the body is tense, we are not meditating—we are fighting. When the body relaxes, we become open and receptive to a deeper dimension of awareness.

 

Bring your attention to your body. Is there any tension? Allow it to soften naturally.

 

Have you ever noticed that when we are asleep, the body is in its most relaxed state? When we are deeply relaxed, where are our worries, obstacles, and suffering?

 

As the body relaxes, it becomes easier to observe the mind. Much of our pain and suffering is sustained by our thoughts.

 

Once again, bring your attention to the body and allow it to relax.

 

We can truly connect with the present moment only when the energy of the body is relaxed. Insight arises naturally when we become open and receptive.

 

Relax the body and remain attentive and aware.

 

When the body is relaxed, our energy returns to its natural state. The original state of awakening is a state of naturalness. If something is attained solely through effort, it is not the effortless presence of our true nature.

 

Relax your shoulders. Relax your entire body.

 

If any thoughts arise, simply be present with them. Just be present.

 

The moment we are present with our thoughts, we begin to discover something. Insight naturally emerges.

 

What happens to our thoughts when we are fully present with them? Where do they go?

 

When we are present with our confusion and obstacles, what happens to them? Are they still the same? Do they begin to change?

 

Whenever a change arises, pay attention to it as well. This attention is presence itself. When we are present, pain and worry begin to transform.

 

Why do they change? Why do they disappear? If they were truly solid and permanent, why would they dissolve? If they were absolutely real, why would they constantly change?

 

Relax the body once more. Notice how thoughts continually arise, change, and dissolve.

 

Simply follow whatever arises and remain present with the pain, fear, or obstacles. As we continue to stay present, we eventually come into contact with a vast and timeless emptiness—the unchanging nature that has always been here, yet has long been forgotten.

 

What we are doing is not striving to become something. Rather, we are uncovering what has always been here. The obstacles that obscure our true nature are like coverings over a lamp. We do not need to create the light; we only need to remove what conceals it.

 

Once again, bring your attention to the body and allow it to relax.

 

The body, the mind, and the ego carry anxiety, memories, difficulties, and accumulated burdens from life. As the body relaxes, these energies gradually recede.

 

At this moment, if we observe our worries and problems carefully, we may discover that much of our suffering comes from attachment—from insisting that life should unfold according to our preferences and expectations.

 

These thoughts, expectations, fears, and worries veil the natural state of present awareness.

 

Bring your attention back to the body and relax it.

 

When the body relaxes, the state of presence arises naturally.

 

 

By Suzhen Liu

 

If you enjoy Suzhen Liu’s writings, please check out her latest book, “Discover Love Within—Release your suffering,” available on Amazon

 

https://www.amazon.com/Discover-Love-Within-Release-Suffering-ebook/dp/B0G4L29MVN

Peace and contentment

 I woke up at 4:30am this morning after a good night’s sleep and felt content. It’s amazing, thoughts do not get activated when we feel that nothing is missing. I tried investigating what makes this feeling come about, and sure, some support of circumstances seems to matter like having the financial means, being in a supportive relationship, good health, the situation our loved ones are in, etc., but it’s more than that. A necessary condition seems to be to have a pure heart. It’s like an energy circuit runs though the heart chakra keeping the mind in a state of vibrancy but stillness.

I read suggestions from our spiritual community of how we are not our thoughts but at the time when the thoughts are flowing it’s already too late—the thinker is the thought! In silence, the thinker disappears. In thought the thinker is still an insight away from peace and contentment. 

The Turning Point of Awareness

 When we are able to relax the body, a different quality of the awareness begins to emerge. The clarity, peace, and stillness that guide us no longer come from the thinking mind, but from a deeper dimension of our being. It is through this experience that we truly begin to understand what it means to be present.

 

Many friends who learn with me know that I seldom speak about theory. Over the years, I have observed that theory mainly works on the level of the mind—the cognitive part of us. We may be convinced by an idea for a few hours or even a few days, but before long we often return to our familiar obstacles, habits, and even karmic patterns.

 

That is why I feel the most direct path is not through accumulating more concepts, but through being present with our obstacles. When we stay present with what arises, those very obstacles can lead us beyond the limitations of the mind.

 

Through this simple practice, we can enter very deep places within ourselves. Yet it is not as difficult as we often imagine. The first step is simply to relax the body.

 

As we relax, the mind begins to reveal its activity. Thoughts arise. Worries surface. Obstacles appear. The key is whether we can notice them at the moment they arise. This is the turning point. It is the moment when we have the opportunity to move beyond the mind rather than becoming entangled in it.

 

As we continue in this direction, we gradually come to understand the true meaning of presence. We begin to enter a state of being rather than merely functioning through thought. In that state, clarity, peace, and wisdom arise naturally, guiding us from within.

 

By Suzhen Liu

 

If you enjoy Suzhen Liu’s writings, please check out her latest book, “Discover Love Within—Release your suffering,” available on Amazon

 

 https://www.amazon.com/Discover-Love-Within-Release-Suffering-ebook/dp/B0G4L29MVN

Undivided moments (video)

We have many undivided moments which exist in contrast to “the story of me.” Become aware of being. When we are really sensitive we can see the sacred in the mundane, and when “the story of me” gains the upper hand again, mindfulness is the portal connecting us with the undivided moment.

Video attached:

https://youtu.be/2zdawj0zowA?is=AheT49L9m9vSxHyn

From Limitation to Wholeness

 In our lives, we often define ourselves through a series of limitations: I don’t have enough, like, I don’t have wealth for example, or I don’t have someone who truly loves me, I don’t have a place where I belong, I don’t have enough money, etc.

 

These beliefs are quietly planted deep within us from a very young age, often without our awareness.

 

These inner settings are woven from pain and reside in the deepest layers of our hearts. They permeate every aspect of our lives.

 

We live within the boundaries created by these beliefs, as though we have locked ourselves inside a prison of our own making.

 

By Suzhen Liu

 

Have a little—spiritual—fun!

 Just be happy. Have fun, enjoy life and don’t get caught. When I say, “don’t get caught,” I am not talking about someone else catching you. I am talking about your own mind. Choose the kind of fun that won’t bind you.

Swami Satchidananda

I drink two cups of coffee a day. Enough stimulus to work on my book but not enough to send my monkey mind into nowhere. Just as Nisargadatta Maharaj insisted that his smoking didn’t interfere with his spiritual abilities, I don’t perceive a little coffee as much of a hindrance either.

My wife brought a mini bottle of bacardi from her business trip. She got it on a plane and didn’t want to throw it away. The other day after a few hours of writing I thought I could have a glass. The taste was pleasant enough but twenty minutes into the effect I realized something was off.

What is an attachment and what is spiritual living? It’s a knowing, a feeling, a sensing—and in the case of coffee and alcohol—even a taste. God gives us two eyes, one for spotting the clinging and the other for seeing God in a coffee cup so to speak. Believe it or not, one day that happened.

Death and Love

 Death is the one true unknown. We cannot experience it beforehand, so it always remains unknown to us. We simply have no way to fully understand it, and our feeling toward it is fear.

 

If we only discuss physical death, there is actually not much meaning in it. Even if we could live for two hundred years, the body would still eventually decay.

 

The important question is this: what we fear is not death itself, but the many ideas and interpretations we have about death. It is these thoughts that create such deep fear within us, making us afraid to touch or face this part of life.

 

If we do not understand our life and the way we live, then we cannot understand death, because the two cannot be separated.

 

Let us look at how we live each day. What fills our lives? We need to honestly observe the way we are living.

 

No matter how rich or full our lives may appear on the surface, inwardly there is still an “escape from ourselves.”

 

We escape from ourselves through busyness, through engaging in “meaningful activities,” so that we do not have to face our pain or our loneliness. And so we keep ourselves constantly occupied.

 

When we speak about this, it is not to say that it is good or bad. There is no good or bad. At the root of it all is simply “escaping from ourselves.”

 

Within these patterns there are moments of laughter and small tastes of sweetness; it is not that there is nothing pleasant in them.

 

But if we compare these small pleasures to the moment when “the mind stops moving” and we reconnect with what is already whole within us, then those pleasures are like a grain of sand.

 

The moment you no longer cling to these patterns of living, the moment they come to an end within you, are you not then together with death? Is it not the moment when the “you” dies?

 

When the mind — that machine which constantly creates problems — becomes still, we naturally reconnect with the love that has always been inherently within us.

 

By Suzhen Liu

 

If you enjoy Suzhen Liu’s writings, please check out her latest book, “Discover Love Within—Release your suffering,” available on Amazon

 

https://www.amazon.com/Discover-Love-Within-Release-Suffering-ebook/dp/B0G4L29MVN