Are you any less present when what you are present to is anger or hate? Granted, it feels crappy, but Is presence itself any less present when your skies are filled with intense black clouds? Can you not be present? Is that even possible? Wherever you go, there you are. You can’t get away from presence. You are the common denominator of all experiencing. If, like so many say, being present is the golden key to bliss and happiness, wouldn’t that limit presence to experiences that only feel good?

Trying to limit life to what you want, limits your experience of life. You feel happiness to the degree that you can feel sorrow. If we’ve closed down any part of our life, it doesn’t take a PhD to figure out that we are closed down, but even then, we still have the experience of, are present to, the sensations of being closed down.

I could ask the same questions about being authentic, genuine (a couple of supposedly spiritual keys). Is it possible to not be authentic? Even if you lock your heart and soul away to avoid life, you are still aligned with your understanding at the time, and genuinely, authentically doing what you need to do, what you couldn’t do otherwise. If you struggle to tell the truth, are you simply a liar, a reprobate, or are you living authentically, in tune with your model of the world in that moment. If it feels safer, consciously or not, to lie, you are genuinely responding in a way that is in line with your inner compass, whether others agree or not.

What about feeling. For the longest time I thought the holy grail was learning to open up and feel more. I didn’t realize that I was already feeling. I just wasn’t feeling what I wanted to feel. I was feeling numbness. I was feeling frustration. I was feeling disconnected. I wasn’t not feeling. It is impossible to not feel. You are always feeling something, even if it is feeling dread or a deadness.

Spiritual teachers like to tell you to be present, authentic, to feel your experience. Well, what if your experience is rocky and you are feeling numbness … authentically? The tendency is to deny the numbness because it doesn’t fit the bill for what you are supposed to be feeling, but even then, you are still feeling the pressure of denial.

Judging another’s experience appears to be a dead end. Judging your own, seems to be right there with judging another’s and yet judging happens, and when you are judging, you are present to judging, are being the only you possible, the authentic you, and you are feeling your experience as constricted or expanded, as tweaked as it is.

Don’t let anyone tell you that your you isn’t good enough, that you need to improve, fix or mend your precious expression. That silly idea is the root of all suffering, trying to be a you that’s not you. What’s cool, is that improvement happens quite organically, it can’t not, and it may even appear, probably will, that you’re doing it. 

That’s the marvelous mysterious magical nature of life. Life is truly magical. Like a phenomenal architect, it takes our sensations, perceptions, and feelings and makes something absolutely uniquely  personally perfect out of them — a new self-informed experience. We’re never done. With each new experience the architect waves Its bubble wand and creates anew.