Presence is not a prize to be won or a fortress to defend. It is not some static peak upon which the awakened are meant to perch forever, unmoved and untouchable. The pursuit of a “permanent state” of anything—even presence—quietly binds us again to the illusion we sought to transcend. It becomes another mask of the seeker, cloaked in stillness, trembling behind the veil of spiritual ambition.
States rise and dissolve. Rapture comes like a summer breeze and vanishes just as gently. Then irritation, confusion, boredom. Then clarity. Then fog. The parade continues, not because you are failing, but because you are alive.
To lose attention is not to lose awareness. What perceives the loss? What observes the drift and the return? That witnessing is untouched. It is not opposed to distraction, nor does it seek permanence. It simply is, always.
Clinging to peace is no different from clinging to pain. The grasping hand is the same. When rapture becomes an achievement, it quietly rots. But when it is allowed to dance freely—hidden beneath the dishes in the sink, behind the silent gaze on the subway, or in a burst of sudden awe at the sky—then it becomes alive again.
You can continue to practice, to breathe, to cultivate. But do so like a child builds a sandcastle: for the love of it, not to resist the tide. Joy, too, is a practice. But it must remain unhooked from outcome.
There’s a kind of rapture in the background hum of your own awareness—even when the foreground is chaos. That quiet clarity never left. You’re not missing the moment. You are the moment, passing through its own reflections. And if you laugh at the absurdity of forgetting and remembering over and over again, then perhaps that’s the most awakened thing of all.
Morgan O. Smith
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Morgan O. Smith 