Aware presence is easy to do, yet it's subtle until you catch on. Then it's very obvious and apparent, no vagueness about it at all. Please don't settle for less than a clear experience. Let's see if I can coach you into this state of awareness by simply describing it for you here now. See if you can place your awareness inside your body, and feel around in there for any tangible signs of stirring in there that you can feel.

You're looking for the subtle feelings of being alive in there. Feel around throughout the interior of your whole body and see if you can feel any sensations of being alive in there.

Wiggle your feet and feel that from the inside, then your legs. And proceed in the same way to feel the trunk of your body from the inside, your arms and hands from the inside, and your face from the inside--wiggling as warranted, to bring the sensations into high relief.

Feel the entire inside of your body as a whole. It's subtle, but you can feel it if you focus and concentrate.

Now, jump inside your body with what you are feeling, and feel that you are dwelling in there. Feel it, as clearly as you can, that you are residing in there in your whole body, looking out from the windows of your eyes at the things that are on the outside.

You can feel your presence in there. Your eyes are out front. And you can feel that you are in there in your body, looking outward at the world through those eyes.

Your skin is all around you. You are in there, feeling the world outside with that skin.

This posture of awareness--knowing "I am here now," being focused in feeling it inwardly like this--is aware presence.

Now there can be a "divided," or two-directional attention going on here. One part of the attention is in touch with this feeling of being inwardly present, while, at the same time, the other part of one's attention is focused on what is being perceived on the outside directly by the senses.

For instance, keeping the feeling of being "centered" in this way, look at something out there before you, and bring its suchness into light.

You can do both at the same time. You can be aware of being present, and have an awareness of something you look at. You are inside your body, and the thing you looked at is outside there, and both are in high relief.

You can do it with something inside your body, too. For instance, keeping in touch with the feeling of being in your body as a whole, notice what the taste inside your mouth tastes like.

Keeping in touch with the feeling of being in your body as a whole, locate any sensation that stands out in any part of your body, and maintain this divided attention for several seconds.

The basic idea here is to keep in touch with the feeling of being present in the whole body, while, at the same time, going on doing whatever one is doing. Just keep realizing you're in there as you go about doing whatever you do. This is aware presence. In this state, you can have awarenesses of whatever you'd like, by choice.

The instructions for having a life like this would go: Just be awake inside when you get up in the morning, be there inside when you bathe, and when you eat. Be awake inside when you do the chores, and while you're going to your job. Be there inside when you're working and relating with the people you meet. Be there inside when you go outdoors, and to the places you go to for fun. Be awake inside when you're in your home, doing things there and relating with those who are close. Be there inside as you're going to bed, and awake like this if you snuggle and hug.

All this is hypothetical to a beginner. In our ordinary lives, we are asleep during all these events. So, it is practice, here and there throughout the day of any of that, that is suggested in this training. Wake up and be inside there like this whenever you can have the presence of mind to remember to.

And while you are in touch with being present in there, focus your awarenesses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. This can be called "inward-outwardness," relating with the world around from a position of being inside there in your body. Try that out, please. Be aware of your inward presence, while you check out the outward world with each of your five senses, and have awarenesses with them as you have done before in this training.

These diagrams show the body as seen from above.

On the left, the attention goes only one way, towards the thing that is being perceived. That is sleep. The inner body is "in shadow."

On the right, attention goes both ways, bringing the thing that is being perceived into light, and inward bringing the feeling of the presence of the body "into light." This is aware presence: the awakened perception of anything from this inner point of balance.

This awareness of your presence can be like a "platform" for having other awarenesses from. Practice dwelling in this platform as much as you can from now on. Aware presence is just another awareness like all the others, an awareness of the sense of touch. Yet it is more valuable, because if you practice and learn to remember this awakened posture, it can serve as a core for you to work from.

This awareness of your presence can protect you from being so easily distracted or disturbed by the event that is taking place. Aware presence can be like a "vehicle" that you can ride around in wherever you go during the day. It can be like a calm piece of space that gives you room to reflect on things.

Aware presence is the awakened position that the awareness game is played from. This experience of being in touch with being alive on the inside, while at the same time experiencing the suchness of whatever you examine with your senses, is the secret of playing this game. As we study the nine moves of the game in Part Two, they each require making your observations, and your choices in what to say and do from an awakened position of aware presence.

To finish this set of exercises, please try being in awareness on your own during the next twenty minutes, while doing whatever you may be doing. See what it feels like. Get used to dwelling in it.

You have to start with a strong intention to do this for twenty minutes (or else you'll forget and won't remember again!) Each time you have the presence of mind to discover that you have forgotten to be aware, come back into it again.

Set aside the workbook and start doing something that takes a few minutes. Try to keep remembering to be in aware presence while you are doing it. If you forget, pick it up again as soon as you remember. And then go on with other things, being in awareness as much as you can until the time is up.

Practice aware presence for minutes at a time whenever you can remember it. Try to stay awake for as long as you are doing some selected action, or as long as some particular thing is going on. Every time you see that you have fallen asleep again, pick up on being awake in aware presence again, with no fuss about it. And try to be awake as much as you can while the selected event is still happening.

These exercises will take less than an hour. You can do them at home. Find a place where you can see the sky through a window. And it would be easiest if you can have your space to yourself.

There will be some long commentary between the exercises. For that reason, it is particularly important that you hang out with the experiences that are being coached for as long as you'd like, before getting back into your head with this reading. So give yourself a space after each of the exercises, to savor them.

I would like to engage in a little dialogue with you, in which you will be asked to actually speak what you have to say out loud into the space. I hope you will not feel awkward with that, since I will, obviously, not be there to hear you. It is humorous perhaps, but not silly to me because this exercise can be valuable.

And I promise to do the best I can to respond in sequiter to your remarks. Please bear with me in this. It would be easier to do these exercises with you in person than in a book, yet with your forebearance, we can do it anyway.

Now I would like for you to say out loud a response to a few remarks I'll be making.

Please tell me where you are located right now? "I am in . . ."

If you said, "I am in the livingroom," for instance, or, "in this room," that would be perfectly correct, of course. If you said, "I am in this house," or, "this building," it would also be the truth. If you said, "I am in the Solar System," that would be correct as well.

I am talking about three concentric "bubbles of space" here. The livingroom bubble, the smaller of the three, is inside the house bubble, and the house bubble is inside the larger Solar System bubble. This is a view along the direction of "inward-outwardness."

I can't know what you did say, of course. Possibly you picked a a concentric bubble of space that is somewhere in that range. Yet try to follow the line of what is being coached here.

If we are attempting to focus on where, precisely, you are right now in the universe, you are "here in this room," and "here in this building," and "here in the Solar System," all at the same time.

See if you can contemplate those three concentric bubbles, looking through the window at the sky, where the edges of the bubbles of the room and the house come together. See if you can pause and get a clear "unh!" of these three bubbles with your verisimilitude.

These bubbles are intellectual definitions of the space you dwell in. By definition, they move outward from your perspective--room, house, Solar System--and--Solar System, house, room--back inward again. "Here in this room," is closer around you than "here in this house" by definition, and closer still than "here in the Solar System." Yet, near or far, you can have an "unh!" of each of them, a feel of the verisimilitude of these bubbles' existence.

"In this room" is a pretty close focus on where you are right now. So, if you can agree on that, let us actually start this exercise now, "in this room."

See if you can expand the bubble again to "in this house" (or "building"), and have an experience of that.

The bubble is getting larger. You are also in the neighborhood where the building is located. Say out the name that the neighborhood is called, and seeing out the window experience a versimilitude of it.

Moving farther outward, you are in the town or city, or the valley or county you are in. Isn't this also true? Please name it aloud, and experience whatever you can experience of it. You can have a verisimilitude of it, lying out there around you to the north, south, east or west.

Still carrying the focus outward, you are also in the geological formation that you are in--such as desert, or coastal plain, or mountain range, or prairie. You are in the continent that you are in. Take your time, and experience these outward moving bubbles, please. Take what you can get of it with your senses, an "unh!" of it.

And you are on the surface of a planet that is spinning and wobbling slightly, and moving through space in orbit. You are living in the thin membrane of atmosphere that surrounds the planet Earth (much thinner, proportionally, than the peel on an apple).

Where you are is in all of these larger and larger concentric bubbles, one at a time, and all at the same time. And, moving the perspective farther outward, you are in the Solar System. You are in here with the Sun and the planets, and the moons orbitting the planets, and the comets that go gliding around.

And you are here now in our galaxy, the Milky Way--which we can see around us after dark like dusty milk, whenever the Gemini station or the Scorpio station in the eclyptic band is visible in the night sky overhead. It is always out there in the sky, of course, even if the sunlight hides it by day. And I would like you to experience what you can of it now, with your senses and verisimilitude.

And you are in the large bubble of the universe. Whatever you know of that's way out there in the universe--black holes, quasars, countless gallaxies of countless stars--see if you can get a feel of it all, being out there. Take what you get. (Did you know that the Pleides--that distinctive little batch of speckles--if you know where to find it by night and by day--is known to be a birthplace of stars?) You are in among the space dust and the universal space that goes on and on. Have an experience of the verisimilitude of what you know of that is out there towards the edges of the universe out there, and beyond. (Looking out the window, take whatever comes to you of it.)

You are in each of these larger and larger bubbles, and in all of them at the same time.

And bringing the focus back inward again (please follow along in your experiencing, getting hits of it), you are:

here now in the universe of all galaxies . . . . .

here now in our own Milky way galaxy . . . . .

here now in the Solar System . . . . .

here now in the atmosphere on the surface of the Earth . . . . .

here now in your continent . . . . .

here now in your desert, or mountain, or valley, or plain . . . . .

here now in your city or county . . . . .

here now in your neighborhood . . . . .

here now in your house, or building . . . . .

here now in this room, where you are reading this workbook before you . . . . .

You are in each of these bubbles separately, and in all of them at the same time. You are here and now in all of these concentric bubbles.

Here and now, you are in simultaneous everywhereness.

Moving outward, the bubbles get larger. Moving inward, they get smaller and smaller around you. You see the way the perspective of this exercise runs. It is in the direction of outwardness from you, and inwardnesss towards you. Now let's bring this outward-inward spectrum a little farther inward. You are in the room. Can you bring the focus in a little farther than that? Bring it in a little closer, please. Tell me where you are right now.

You are in the chair, or in the very spot where you are sitting there. Can you experience that, and bring the focus even farther inward? Ask yourself: "Where am I?"

Some students get stuck at this point, and it sometimes takes a little nudging in the classes.

You are also inside those clothes that you are wearing around your body there. Is that not true? Can you experience that? Can you feel those clothes around you?

Can you take it still farther inward? Where are you right now?

And you are also in there within. You are also inside that membrane of skin that surrounds the outside of your body. You can feel it in there. You are also in there behind those eyes.

Please take your time and feel for this on the inside. Eyes open. You are in there behind those eyes, in there within that skin. You can actually feel the aliveness of it inside there, stirring within.

Let your body move around a little bit, and feel yourself "dwelling" inside in there where your body is perceptibly being, and moving around.

This feeling of aware presence in the whole body in there can serve you as a platform of awareness. You can hang out being aware of this platform, and use your senses at will. That is, you can divide your conscious attention between the feeling of dwelling within, and the experiences of awarenesses with the senses at the same time.

Put aside this workbook for a minute, and see if you can remain in this experience of dwelling inside your body, feeling your body being alive in there, while at the same time exploring a bit with each of your five senses. Keep coming back inside!

It is like "keeping the light on inside, too." Yet, this awareness of awareness is precisely a simple awareness of your sense of touch. You can feel awareness, itself (just as you can put a finger on your nose and feel that.) You can feel that you are "here now" in this awakened posture. It is tangible. You can feel awareness this way. You actually "know you are alive," so to speak. And you are present for it, alive in it, centered in it, awakened in the here and now.

In this training, when you can be aware of this tangible inward feeling of being here, it is called "aware presence." Can you see, in the experience of it, how this can be called "aware presence?"

Can you see how, in remaining aware of this feeling of inward presence, this can be called "being awake?"

This posture is the posture from which the awareness game is played. This stance is a platform of awareness that you can practice, and learn to remember to call upon.

You could call this exercise the "Where am I?" exercise.

"I am in here behind these eyes."

Now, keeping your eyes open, please see if you can get in with another playful perspective of this. Your body is there. And you can feel it being there. Play like this body is like your spaceship there around you. And you are inside the spaceship of your body, looking out the windshield of the eyes at things that are around you there.

You are inside the cockpit of your skull, looking out the windshield of your eyes.

And while in there, you can make the things around you "jump out" in suchness.

And you can feel the inside of the rest of the spaceship cabin that is there inside your body.

Stand up, and "hover around the space" in your room there for a minute, while maintaining the perspective of feeling yourself inside your spaceship, and looking outward from the inside of the cockpit.

You can even fly your spaceship up to your window there, and contemplate the cosmos beyond and around.

Now, have a seat again, please, in aware presence.

And keeping in aware presence, move your eyes back and forth and notice that you can feel that.

Staying in touch with this inward feeling of living, do something with anything that is handy near you there, and be aware from the inside that you are doing it.

You can feel the whole body moving. You can feel the arms rotate and reach out and take hold of something with the fingers, and put it back down. You can bring all this "into light."

Aware presence is just an inward feeling. It can be felt with eyes open or closed. It can be felt whatever orientation the body is in --whether lying down, sitting, or standing, or even hanging upside down. Move your body into some interesting, or difficult positions, and, with the eyes closed, feel your aware presence within while in those positions. And feel the forms your body makes with your awareness of this. (This body is your spaceship in the cosmos.)

Imagine some sculpture that you have seen, and carefully put your body into that same pose, and see what that feels like within.

This awareness of aware presence can be like an anchor that reminds you to keep being awake, as long as you can remember it. This is "the mantra of the basic meditation" of the awareness game. You can be aware of this tangible mantra, and aware of other things that are happening at the same time.

This feeling of presence can be remembered, and "ridden around in," so to speak, "traveled around in" as a platform of awareness that can be developed by your practice of dwelling in it.

Through the rest of this training, this feeling of being in touch with your presence is a companion to all the rest of what is described. This aware presence is like "headquarters" for managing your life in awareness whenever you wish to, for guiding your body in the field of play, and for remembering and accessing the rest of the knowledge that you will be accumulating as you go along practicing and learning how to play.