If you’re like most people, you’re not beginning a transformative prac- tice because you want to be more present. In fact, you may want to escape from—or at least improve upon—your present circumstances. You may want to feel happier, to find deeper meaning, to enjoy greater success. Often, these goals can seem like they’re achievable only at some point in the distant future. But, as author Peter Russell told us, transformation is about “waking up” to the present moment:
The experiences that I’ve had of waking up are not suddenly entering into a different consciousness. They’re having exactly the same experience, but with a complete letting go—and this is where it’s inevitable we start losing words—it’s a different context for holding that experience. One experiences the complete inner freedom, joy, love, and the bliss that the mystics speak of. And it’s realizing that that’s there all the time, but we keep ourselves constrained and held back from it. That’s why I think there’s some truth in what’s often said: “You are already enlightened, you just don’t know it.” Except it’s a long hard journey to go from the not-knowing to the realization of it. So that’s why I don’t like the term transformation of consciousness— because it implies we’re going somewhere different, as opposed to waking up to the present moment and not being lost in a whole train of thoughts.
(2002)
How can we find that deeper sense of joy and love that Russell and so many others have alluded to? The vast majority of our respondents told us
Why Practice?
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be found elsewhere, in the future or in some far-off land. It’s available to us right now, in the present moment. And indeed, many transformative prac- tices are engineered specifically to bring you more fully into the present. In fact, if you really think about it, connection, meaning, purpose, freedom, and happiness can only be experienced now, in the present. Over and over
again, we heard that learning to live in the moment is an essential aspect of living deeply.
For David Steindl-Rast—Benedictine monk, author of Gratefulness
(1984), and contributor to Gratefulness.org—surprise, gratefulness, and
chanting offer powerful methods for being in the present:
The goal of any practice, to me, is to be in the present moment. Whatever helps you with this: Zen, Sufi whirling, devotion. The thing that gets me into the present quickly and easily is grateful living. If somebody says that you can’t start with gratefulness, you can start with surprise. Have you ever been surprised at anything? It’s nice to be surprised. Allow yourself to be surprised by everything—your eyes when you open them in the morning, the idea that there is anything rather than nothing. Finding meaning starts with surprise. When you start being surprised, you begin to be grateful for the things you have taken for granted. So surprise is the first baby step.
The next step organically evolves from this one—that’s gratefulness. Gratefulness puts you in the present moment; this takes you out of the rat race, the maze, the merry-go-round. Before you know it, you are evolved—or at least on the road to evolving.
As a Benedictine monk, I do a lot of chanting. In the monastery we chant once during the night and seven times during the day—often just for five minutes or so. These chants put you into a trance… Whatever tradition I have had the privilege of chanting in—Buddhist chanting or chanting with Hindus—… if you do it well it puts you into a trance. It’s not a mindless trance, it’s a trance of mindfulness—a full presence in the present moment. That is what I feel the chants do for me in the Benedictine tradition. Chanting is my favorite devotional activity in the monastery. (2006)
Ultimately, practicing being present helps us to let go of those things in life that we cannot control or hold on to. As David Parks-Ramage, both a Christian minister and a Zen practitioner, told us:
What worked yesterday doesn’t work today—and what works tomorrow may not work today. Just being present here, just being right here, right now means that you leave the past and you leave the future.
This can be painful. Being present, you let go of the ideas that you have about your children when they’re not the way you want them to be. Life itself is one big preparation for the big let-go at the end. As you age and as you grow, you’ve also got to let go of your parents. And, too, there’s your self- image you have to let go of—like your ability to get out of bed … and stand up straight, without that pain in your lower back. Then, finally, we’ve got to let go of it all into this mystery that we’ve had these glimpses of. It’s pretty clear nobody gets out alive.
So, what do you do in the meantime? You get ready and then you catch these glimpses of where you’ve already let go of everything—and then death itself isn’t as scary anymore. Being present, you act more in accordance with the spontaneity of the universe, God, or self. (2006)
Parks-Ramage reminds us of the power of being present, and how it can lead to transformations in your perspective on, and behavior toward, fundamental existential issues.