Presence is a Portal to Happiness

Transcript

I gotta tell you actually I’m a little bit drunk. If you come here to Asunción, Paraguay you got to watch out because you see something on the menu that’s a Fernet and Coke for like 15000 guaraníes, that’s like 2 dollars. And you think well that can’t be that strong.

And they bring out a half liter cup or something. And they say let me know if you want it a bit stronger.

And it’s bitter, like grass bitter like the mate that they love to drink here. That means it’s strong. Anyway, just having a good time out here.

I wanted to tell you something about the power of moving into the present moment and of course a lot of you are probably familiar with the work of Echart Tolle. Very important if you haven’t read “The Power of Now” and especially “Practicing The Power of Now”.

I highly recommend it, get the audio book version of “Practicing The Power of Now” and it’s just kind of boiled down to some of the most powerful stuff, the most powerful mindfulness meditation techniques.

Just walking down to the restaurant right now I started to focus on where my feet are falling on the pavement. Of course being here in Latin America I do have to be aware of where my feet fall on the pavement I have to be in my body to be present because sometimes there’s gonna be bricks missing or holes in the ground whatever it is.

So focusing on my feet, one after another lands on the concrete. I focus on the lifting of the leg and the careful placing. Now when you start to do this it doesn’t take a lot. This is a sort of portal to happiness.

You can find a bridge to happiness that way just by looking at things that are going on in the present moment.

When I lived in my hometown there was this fellow, a father of one of my friends. And he was this old stoner. I don’t know if a lot of you take the Devil’s Lettuce. I don’t advocate it but I don’t deny the effects that it has either.

He used to say to us “Alright boys, listen. You wanna get real high? This is what you’re gonna do. Smoke a joint and make some pancakes.”

And we’re like “Oh okay, thank you Mr. Pow, thank you sir.”

It’s true. If you get high and make pancakes you will get extra high, something will happen to your consciousness. It’s interesting.

And I think one of my theories about what’s going on there is the fact that to make pancakes you have to concentrate. Of course being a little bit high your autopilot isn’t where it normally is.

So you have to concentrate a little bit extra, bring in that divine light of consciousness into the things that you’re doing, exercising a little planning. Energy in there too.
And when the milk is pouring out of the jug and you are beating the eggs together you focus, you start noticing the intricacies in the swirling of the milk and the twirling of the eggs. Something cool is going on there and it’s like you’re a kid again experiencing everything for the first time.

Noticing things that you wouldn’t normally notice because you just assume they’re normal parts of your experience, mundane cotidian things that you just let slide.

But they’re there. They’re right there and they’re happening now if you look around you and focus on your breath. Focus on the shapes around you and notice there’s no clear point where one shape moves into the next shape and you might be there when you’re walking down the street, when you’re washing your hands, when you’re washing dishes you can focus on every little moment and you’ll feel the wonder.

Presence is a portal to happiness.

Thank you for listening, thank you for thinking beautifully. Thank you for tuning in to this frequency of high pitched dialed happiness felicidad, joy in jubilation and I will speak to you next time.