Presence Meditation
Presence meditation is the most challenging aspect of consciousness inner work. Presence means the practitioner is meditating during the real time situations of daily life—interactions with others: family, friends, people at work. Presence meditation is the process of consciously engaging the meditative state no matter what else is occurring.
Being deliberately present in real-time meditation has another context: the construct of presence meditation implies that the practitioner is consciously absorbed in the four qualities (humility, gratitude, compassion, and harmony) during every interaction throughout every waking moment. Otherwise, the practitioner is continually preoccupied with their inner dialogue.
In presence meditation, the interactions (observations) are live; the inner dialogue is constantly shifting in response to a continuum of spontaneous emotions triggered by the interactions. Imagine a practitioner (you, in this case) caught up in an impromptu conversation with a co-worker whose political or cultural views are diametrically opposed to your convictions. The co-worker starts ranting over some current event, directly addressing you. As a practitioner, this is your “WTF?” moment – one of many over the course of any given day. Is your inner dialogue aligned with the four qualities, or not so much?
In the absence of presence meditation (engagement of the four qualities), the practitioner will experience some level of emotions that reflect bias towards the ranting co-worker. Stronger emotions might be expressed over specific statements. The bias conditioning of the practitioner is now running their inner dialogue. The emotions expressed by the practitioner fit the same destructionist energy patterns of the co-worker. Both parties are conveying interference energies that disrupt natural coherence of human relationships, i.e., the unified environment of human connectivity. This illustrates the necessity of correctly perceiving what confronts us through every observation and interaction
Back to What's in Front: Energy Precedes Every Interaction
As explained in Part 4, consciousness meditation (both sitting and presence) requires the practitioner to focus on what’s in front of them. For the sitting meditation, what’s in front of the practitioner is the dark space from the eyes being closed—until that space is filled by other elements. The sitting meditation is the condition by which the four imperatives (insight, guidance, knowledge, and wisdom) are activated for the practitioner (Four Imperatives, Part 1).
What’s in front of the practitioner during presence meditation is an entirely different matter. The volume of interactions or observations (through the five senses or direct engagement) is beyond the sensory capacity of the bias-restricted brain barrier environment. Human beings are constantly being influenced by factors that are not perceivable through bias-conditioned filters (read my article, Mindfulness versus Humility and the Three Constructs).
The reality is that the observed interactions are not what’s in front of the practitioner during presence meditation, nor are the emotions driving the interactions. Human beings, at the most discrete (functional) level, are not influenced by detected interactions or observations. Rather, we are manipulated by the energies that precede and permeate those events.
If we re-examine the earlier interaction with the co-worker in this context, we find that the dominant energy driving the rant was already present and being expressed—before any thoughts or words were exchanged. The room and surrounding area were invaded by that energy. This is because the co-worker had an energetic response to one or more observations that triggered their bias-conditioned emotions. The emotions instigated thoughts that composed the subsequent inner dialogue, which incited the verbal rant.
It’s the energy—what’s in front of the practitioner during presence meditation is energy. Converge the four qualities on the energy coming at you.
We influence each other through the depth
of expanded consciousness or shallowness of
bias conditioning we bring to each
encounter—creating energy patterns that
either constrict or deepen our shared
experience.
Expanded consciousness does not solve
the conflicts between us—rather, it decimates
the ego-bias framework that creates the
conflicts.
Begin again. Now.
Reciprocity: How Presence and Sitting Meditation Strengthen Each Other
Presence meditation, because of the persistent challenges associated with real-time situations, is the optimal groundwork for deepening the impact of sitting or private meditation. In sitting meditation, the distractions are primarily through inner dialogue—which is easily dismissed (with practice). The mastery gained from counterbalancing conflicting interactions in real time, during presence meditation, prepares the practitioner for effective inner dialogue mitigation during sitting meditations.
The presence meditation practitioner learns to examine interactions through the filter of the four qualities. In the initial stages, considerable discipline is necessary to consciously express as humility, gratitude, compassion, and harmony. Therefore, it must be clear to the practitioner that the four qualities are the neutralizing element against destructive interference energies. The intent of the practitioner is not to perform or “do” the four qualities, but to express as the energy of each:
· I am the energy of humility
· I am the energy of gratitude
· I am the energy of compassion
· I am the energy of harmony
When we present or express as the four qualities, incoming caustic influences are rejected. Those intruding energies cannot withstand the defusing effects of humility, gratitude, compassion, and harmony.
And Then What? From Inner Dialogue to the Expanse
Reciprocally, sitting meditation (now strengthened by the emergence of the four qualities) stimulates deeper presence meditation capacity. As the inner dialogue hindrance fades out of sitting meditations, the practitioner begins to experience moments in the expanse—the unified consciousness horizon or quantum field.
Encounters with expanded consciousness progressively reveal the four imperatives to the practitioner: insight, guidance, knowledge, and wisdom—establishing a neoteric paradigm for observation and interaction. The further removed a practitioner is from their bias conditioned partiality, the greater their capacity to observe conditions “as is.”
Part 6 will further examine the operative interplay between the four qualities and the four imperatives, and why the observer role is irrevocably altered.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is presence meditation different from mindfulness?
Mainstream mindfulness focuses on sensory awareness, breath, or pausing before reacting. Presence meditation, as practiced in the Inner Works framework, centers on perceiving the energy that precedes and permeates interactions—not the interactions themselves—and expressing as the four qualities (humility, gratitude, compassion, harmony) to neutralize destructive interference energy.
Is presence meditation harder than sitting meditation?
Yes—the article identifies presence meditation as "the most challenging aspect of consciousness inner work". Sitting meditation involves primarily managing inner dialogue in a controlled environment. Presence meditation requires maintaining the four qualities amid spontaneous, emotionally charged real-time interactions throughout the entire day.
Feel free to ask questions privately: contact me
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Rob Taylor
Rob Taylor
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