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 😊”
That’s how I wasted five months of my life. When I tried to force presence through practice, I made little progress.
So, what if being present isn’t a skill you learn? What if it’s the natural state?
As it turned out, my presence was blocked by incentives. A few of them:
Pain was overwhelming.
Feelings distracted me and made me less productive.
Expressing certain emotions angered people I was living with, so better not to feel them at all.
When I saw others’ pain, I felt obligated to fix it.
…
As I secured myself from the incentives, presence became effortless more and more often.
Once you have a moment of full presence, 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 incentives integrated along the way. This is especially tricky because once these blocks are unlearned, they are forgotten.
Natural presence is already with us, waiting to be unblocked.
I'm largely in agreement -- that cultivating presence is the natural outcome of removing the inner impediments to it (i.e., the emotional/psychological blocks that get in the way.)
However, I'd argue meditation (and similar activities) also develop meta-cognitive capacities and attentional regulation. Easiest example, phone/tech/social media use has a way of hijacking our attention independently of our emotional capacity. So meditation offers a deliberate means of training collectedness/concentration/awareness, which supports presence versus the external impediments.
(Of course, more emotional blocks/insecurities will lead to more escapist/avoidance behaviors as well, not to down play that.)
I love what you’ve written. Often my practice feels more like getting out of my own way than learning a new thing