The present moment is the experience of no conceptualisation or narrativisation – of not objectifying and not reducing reality to mental images, stories or thoughts. It is a state of consciousness in which we experience existence in its unmodified, unaltered, pristine directness – that is, in its purest, unmediated form. This presence-awareness is the state of being fully in contact with experience without the layer of an ‘observing self’ – it is intimacy with life itself. It involves an openness to the mystery of life as it unfolds moment by moment, as opposed to an obsession over planned outcomes and projections from the past.

See also: awareness, perception, paying attention, life force, felt sense