这篇文章颠覆了传统冥想的观点，认为临在不是一种需要习得的技能，而是我们自然的状态。阻碍临在的是我们对坏结果的无意识预测。文章通过作者的亲身经历，分享了如何通过识别和解除这些预测，从而实现更自然的临在。作者在情绪、同情心和身体疼痛等多个方面，通过询问自己“如果我完全感受到会发生什么坏事？”来找到并解除阻碍。冥想并非直接建立临在，而是帮助我们发现并处理这些阻碍。最终，临在的实现并非通过强迫练习，而是通过解除内心深处的恐惧和预测。

🧘‍♀️临在并非后天习得的技能，而是人与生俱来的自然状态。阻碍我们达到临在的是对负面结果的无意识预判，而非缺乏练习。

💔通过探索“如果我完全感受我的情绪会发生什么坏事？”这个问题，作者发现并解除了对情绪的恐惧，从而更容易地体验情绪。例如，作者意识到自己害怕情绪会带来压垮性的痛苦，或影响工作效率，或是激怒他人。

🤝作者在与他人共情时，也曾因害怕承担他人的痛苦而难以真正临在。通过解开“如果我真正感受到他人的痛苦，我是否必须去解决它？”的预测，作者的同理心得到了显著提升。

🤕作者通过质疑“如果我完全感受到疼痛会发生什么坏事？”来应对慢性颈部紧张。他发现，完全感受疼痛意味着承认自己可以离开不安全的社交环境，而这本身也让他感到危险。通过处理这些阻碍，大部分紧张感得以缓解。

Published on December 18, 2024 1:11 AM GMT

Some meditation advice has a vibe like... “To become more present, all you need to do is practice! It's just a skill, like learning to ride a bike ?”

This never worked for me. When I tried to force presence through practice, I made little progress.

Being present isn't a skill to build — it's the natural state! What blocks presence is unconscious predictions of bad outcomes. Remove these blocks to make presence automatic.

I struggled to be present with emotions in my body. Daily meditation didn't help. Finally I asked: “What bad thing happens if I feel my feelings?” My system responded: emotional pain would be overwhelming, feelings would make me less productive, expressing emotions would anger others. After untangling these predictions, emotional presence became much easier. (Details)With others' emotions, I felt I'd be obligated to fix their pain if I truly experienced it. After addressing these predictions, empathetic presence improved significantly. (Details)When investigating my chronic neck tension, instead of trying to "be more present" with the pain, I looked for what bad things I felt would happen if I fully felt it. My system revealed: feeling the sensation meant acknowledging I could leave social situations that felt unsafe, which itself felt dangerous. After untangling this and other blocks, most of my tension resolved. I'm still finding and untangling more blocks. (Details)

Now, you might wonder: if presence isn't a skill, why do some people seem to benefit from meditation practice? In my experience, meditation can help with noticing blocks and creating space to work with them. But the practice itself isn't building presence so much as creating opportunities to identify and release blocks that prevent presence. This is what I believe explains why some people can meditate for years without becoming much more present, and others grow quickly once they find and integrate their core blocks.

Most of what I’ve done to develop more presence is ask my system: “What bad thing happens if I'm fully present right now?”

One last thing: Once you become fully present, you may be tempted to think “Oh, I get it now! Being present is so simple! Just be present!” But that will overlook all the little blocks you untangled along the way. (Once blocks are untangled, they are forgotten!)

Natural presence is already there, waiting to be uncovered. Find the blocks.

See how I put this into practice.

Thanks to Stag Lynn and Shailen for help editing. Thanks to CFAR, Anna Salamon and my clients for support.
 

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