How words keep us from experiencing the fullness and freedom of the Present

Image from Lucy's album

"In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better."Edward de Bono

It is said that as soon as you teach a child a word for something, it ceases to see the thing.  Instead, it sees an old image of the thing rather than the present image of it.  If and when it does see a present image, it can be a shock or a startling experience instead of being the natural, unmediated experience of the thing.

The implications of this are profound and far-reaching.  As adults, we have accumulated encyclopedias of words, as Edward de Bono so incisively states, whose original references stick with us and which, in turn, prevent us from seeing and experiencing afresh.

This is the reason why it is also said that clichés are expressions or observations that serve best the moment in which they were first created.  Thereafter, they become clunky vestiges of a once novel and original experience which we insist on reusing, hoping in vain to recapture their original power and dynamism.  In the process, our natural creativity doesn’t get the workout it thrives on because we have uncreatively repeated something whose purpose can only best be served once!

In the simplest of terms, our use of words, fetched rapidly and automatically from the repository of our intellect, does not serve our natural ability to be ‘present’.

But before we go any further, let’s examine that word:

present

These days, pretty much everybody has heard or used reference to the word ‘present’ whose use, for our purposes, stems from the practice of meditation.

The practice of meditation calls us to be ‘present’.  So what exactly does it mean?  To be ‘present’?

Well, for one thing, it means not being focused on the past or the future.  Right, so it means being focused on the present. 

And what exactly is the ‘present’ revealing to us? 

Well, when we sit in practice (or if we are used to practicing at all times), the present may reveal any number of things.  Let me give you an example of what I mean.

As I sit typing this, the ‘present’ for me is

·       An awareness of each letter as it appears on my screen

·       An awareness of the movement of my fingers across the keyboard

·       An awareness of the hard and smooth surface of the keyboard under the palms of my hands and the spongy feel of the keys as I press and release them

·       An awareness of the sounds of traffic, the clock ticking, an aircraft, the tapping of keys

·       An awareness of my feet in my boots and the watch on my wrist

·       An awareness of the contact my posterior is making with the couch and my back with the cushion behind it

·       An awareness of the thoughts I am thinking including thoughts about you, an audience of some sort, indistinct but real insofar as I feel I am communicating with you

·       An awareness of the tightness of the hair tie around my hair

·       An awareness of a sigh as it is happening

And so on…

Now, all this is not necessarily sequential.  I am often aware of many things simultaneously.  In fact, the more we practice being ‘present’, the more awarenesses we have simultaneously. 

Notice, being ‘present’ is really being ‘present’, attending to what is happening in real time where the past and future are not featured EXCEPT as awarenesses of our thoughts about the past and future.

This is really important.  There is a difference, a very big and important difference in thinking about the past/future and being aware of our thoughts about the past and future.

Thinking about the past keeps us trapped in a repetitive cycle.  Thinking about the future, if it merely a projection of past experiences and anticipation, is uncreative.

However, being aware that we are having thoughts about the past and/or the future is awareness and awareness keeps us unattached, which means it frees us!

Oh wow!  If you want freedom, this is it!  Stay aware!  Stay present!

It is when you are ‘present’ and ‘aware’ that you see things as they truly are, not as replays of past images or stories but as real time apprehensions of what is.

Think about that for a moment.  As an instance of application, when you see a friend, do you see them as they are right at that moment or is your perception of your friend layered with memories of what you know of him/her?  How do these memories (largely stored and communicated through words) help or hinder your ability to be really ‘present’ with and to your friend?

Now, here’s something to really get your mind around:  When you keep thinking in terms of words, words that have been used and reused billions of times, you cannot have a real-time, fully present, fully creative, fully sensorial, fully integrated experience of what is.  Instead, you have a hugely limited, largely intellectual experience of what was, aided of course by that vast repository in your brain called your memory.

In our so-called modern, western civilization, we have been conditioned into a disproportionate use of our intellect at the expense of allowing our multi sensorial faculties to function. 

Often, when I ask someone how they are ‘feeling’, they might say something like

I feel stupid

I feel okay

I feel like this is too hard

I feel like giving up

I feel powerless

‘Stupid’, ‘okay’, ‘too hard’, ‘giving up’, ‘powerless’ are concepts that are lodged in our memories.  We’ve come across them before either in the context of someone else’s experience or our own.

But what is the full, sensorial, integrated, multi-dimensional experience of how you are feeling right now?

Right now, if you were fully present, you would not be ‘feeling’ any of those things!  It’s impossible to ‘feel’ concepts unless you are relying on memory!  And even then, you’re thinking rather than feeling/sensing them.

If you were truly present, you would discover a freedom, that upon reflection might be mind-blowing, but in the moment, would feel so natural, so you!

And that has a great deal to do with leaving words out of the experience, or put another way, of not allowing words to mediate i.e. make meaning of the experience for you.

Now, imagine being increasingly in this state of freedom.  Imagine spending more and more of your day and your daily activities in this state of freedom.

Right now, it may seem so unrealistic or impractical or even undesirable to you.

What would I gain by being ‘present’ and experiencing ‘freedom’ when I have a job to go to, kids to raise, debts to pay, commitments to keep, obligations to fulfill, goals to achieve, relationships to make or break, dinner to prepare…

What good would being ‘present’ and experiencing ‘freedom’ do?

Let me describe to you what the status quo is for many of us:

·       We believe we must perform to justify our place in this world, in this society, in this family, in this workplace

·       We feel the stress of this pressure expressed in our internal dialogues, in our interactions with others and in our bodies

·       We believe that we are not entirely in charge of our lives and our wellbeing because there are always things that we cannot control

·       We believe not everything is possible because we are not the sole creators of our reality

·       We believe that happiness is a transitory state of being which must necessarily be interspersed with states of sadness, pain and suffering

·       We believe that we must make compromises in life

·       We believe that we are not really disserving of the most wonderful and abundant and joyous life possible

·       We dare not imagine what a wonderful, abundant and joyous life is possible for us

·       We constantly place conditions in our journey, in our relationships, in our desires

·       We frequently criticize ourselves and others

·       We are often unforgiving of ourselves and others

·       We remember the past and use it as our yardstick to map out the future when in our relationships, in our goal setting or in our work

I could go on but I think you get the picture. 

How many, if any, of these are freeing?  Do they inspire you to live the possible life that is so naturally and effortlessly yours?  Or do they keep you in a very small and tight circle of experiences where self-protection rather than self-expression is your constant preoccupation?  Where your experience of something, anything, no matter how new, is never completely new, is never completely fresh, is never completely available to your naturally creative abilities because you are not ‘present’?  Because you are conditioned to seeing, feeling, touching, smelling, tasting through words?  Because you haul into any current experience the oppressive and suppressive burden of your memory and insist on not only describing but having the experience with the rather inadequate tools of words, clichés and other well-worn expressions? 

Don’t get me wrong.  Words are wonderful things when used well, when used freshly, when used lovingly and evocatively as some of our greatest poets and leaders have done:

Benediction

Bless this little heart, this white soul that has won the kiss of
heaven for our earth.
He loves the light of the sun, he loves the sight of his
mother's face.
He has not learned to despise the dust, and to hanker after
gold.
Clasp him to your heart and bless him.
He has come into this land of an hundred cross-roads.
I know not how he chose you from the crowd, came to your door,
and grasped you hand to ask his way.
He will follow you, laughing and talking, and not a doubt in
his heart.
Keep his trust, lead him straight and bless him.
Lay your hand on his head, and pray that though the waves
underneath grow threatening, yet the breath from above may come and
fill his sails and waft him to the heaven of peace.
Forget him not in your hurry, let him come to your heart and
bless him.

Rabindranath Tagore

But they can also be potent memes that control us, if we let them, shaping our experiences in place of the experience of our naturally free and ever renewing state of being. 

So, how shall I sum up?  Perhaps in these few dot points:

·       Be present, be aware, be free, experience and express with all your senses (Note: ‘be’ does not refer to anything you have to ‘do’ but what you are)

·       Choose your words freely and lovingly, inspired by your heart

·       Rely less on clichés and other fast and favorite expressions

·       Find new ways of using old words and expression

·       Create new expressions and replace old ones with them eg ‘How are you?’  ‘How’s it going?’  Might be replaced by ‘It’s so lovely to see you’ or ‘I feel wonderful things happening for you’ (said, not prophetically like a fortune teller would but because you are ‘present’ to feel the wonder of your own and another person’s ‘be-ing’, the life force within both of you, the blessings of the universe on both of you regardless of what memory you or they are currently carrying on the surface)

Lovingly present, Lucy J