Landmark: Explore Presence While Walking
 | |
| Landmark: Explore Presence While Walking | |
|---|---|
| Beacons | Attention |
| Realms | Engagement |
| Lenses | Presence |
| Guides | Walking |
The Landmark of Explore Presence While Walking shows some perceptions shifts that provide deeper understanding of how to Experience the Now, especially relating to how the present moment is the only moment that ever exists in consciousness. This Landmark is within the Realm of Engagement, and is part of the Beacon of Attention, more specifically the Lens of Presence.
Landmark Lookouts:
- Typical Perception of the Present: Can you observe how we typically experience The Now as a few minutes of time (rather than as an instant) - connected to what happened just before, and what will probably happen next?
- Explore Perception of the Present: Are you able to regularly experience the Present as independent from the past and future - as if it was the only snapshot of your life that exists?
While walking, whether in a park, on the way to the subway, around your house, or at work, you can experiment with your perception of The Now.
- Typical Walking - As you move around, notice how easy it is to think of this moment as a journey that connects us to where we've just been, and where we're going next. Things around us are in motion, and are changing the whole time, and we are navigating through our world.
- Conveyor belt - Shift your perception to the sense that you are standing still, and the world is moving. Perhaps the world is a treadmill, and you are merely "keeping up" with its motion. Or perhaps you are standing still and the world is morphing or warping in a way that brings things closer to you or farther from you.
- Timeless walking - Notice a fixed marker such as a light pole, and as you walk towards it, shift your perception to the sense that you are in fact not walking at all, because without any "time" beyond the now, you will simply always be as close to that marker as you are, and there is no change in that distance, because each moment exists independently, and each "new now" simply exists with its own facts about reality.
- Timeless Stairs - do the same exercise when on stairs, as it is even easier. Whenever you take a step, pause for just a split second with one foot on the new step and one foot on the previous step. Notice that you have arrived at this location, and this is the present moment. After each step note that you are in the present moment. There is no journey, just present moments. Once you've learned to see this, learn to see it without any mental or actual pauses in your steps.