5 · Loving Presence

“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.” — Rumi

Loving Presence is the foundational stance by which we improve the nature of every interaction — most of all the one with ourselves, who are the author of all our experience. Once an erotic, turned-on relationship with life is established, Loving Presence is simply that turned-on awareness made constant: a way of meeting whatever arrives — pleasant or unwelcome, in ourselves or in another — with open, present, loving attention. It is the warmth that keeps presence from going cold and clinical, and the steadiness that keeps love from going sentimental. Held together, presence and love become the single most reliable instrument we have for changing the quality of a moment.