6 December

Those who work with presence, such as in mindfulness practice, often rightly point to the need to accept the moment for how it really is. And then commence some often incredibly elaborate process for 'accepting'. Which is not accepting, it's trying to get to a better moment than they're in right now. You see it in meditation practice, where people become still and withdrawn, trying so hard to achieve a certain state, which nearly always (for some reason) means refusing what they're feeling right now. They want to relax, to withdraw from what they perceive as an undesirable situation. To become less tense, less tight. And what do they achieve? A new level of tension and tightness, of 'trying to be less tense and tight'. Mistaking what they feel in their bodies as the problem. The problem is the trying to do anything. There is no separate mind and body, not trying in what we call the mind will automatically become not trying in the body. Lightness, ease.