Recognizing the ‘I Am’ That is Always Present

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Okay, here is a briefing document summarizing the key themes and ideas from the provided excerpt of Amoda Maa’s talk, “Recognizing the ‘I Am’ That is Always Present”:

   

Summary:

This excerpt from Amoda Maa’s talk explores the concept of presence and challenges common understandings of it. She argues that presence is not a state to be achieved or a feeling to be cultivated, but rather a fundamental aspect of being that is always present. The core of her teaching lies in shifting attention from the ever-changing content of experience (“I am anxious,” “I am happy,” etc.) to the unchanging “I am” itself. This shift, she contends, leads to a recognition of our inherent beingness, which is the ground of peace and invincibility, freeing us from the limitations of our fluctuating experiences and identifications.

   

Key Themes and Ideas:

Challenging Traditional Notions of Presence:

• Amoda Maa dismantles the common equation of presence with mindfulness, alertness, or static stillness achieved through practices like meditation. She states, “We have this idea often that presence is something that we need to harness, that we need to be more present… On a relative level, there’s a truth in that or a reality in that, but on a deeper level and a more true level that’s a veil of the mind.”
• She argues that these are limited, mind-constructed states, stating, “That’s a limited experience. It passes. Everything changes as part of the experience.”

   

Presence as an Unbounded, All-Inclusive Reality:

• True presence, according to Amoda Maa, is not confined to specific states. “Presence is not limited to that. It’s not reduced to that. It’s unbounded. It’s infinite. It’s all-inclusive.”
• She emphasizes that presence is always “imbued” in every experience: “Is it not true that presence imbues that experience. You cannot be anywhere other than where you are.”
• This presence is always available, regardless of what you are doing: “Is it not true whether you are thinking, whether you are feeling…we could go on. Is it not true that presence is not somewhere over there?”

   

The Power of Recognizing the “I Am”:

• Amoda Maa’s central point is to shift attention from “I am this” or “I am that” to the pure “I am”. She states, “We give attention habitually and unconsciously to, ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’… What if we just shifted very slightly our attention to the ‘I am’?”
• She explains, “Not ‘I am’ at the exclusion of experience or the denial of experience, but simply the ‘I am’ that is ever present in all experience.”
• This “I am” is not a concept but a direct visceral knowing: “But actually what I’m speaking of is a visceral sense of that… Give attention to that. That brings us more and more into a visceral sense of beingness.”

   

Beingness as the Ground of Peace and Invincibility:

• Recognizing the constant presence of “I am” brings an understanding of our inherent beingness: “Beingness is always here. It doesn’t have to be qualified by the nature of the experience.”
• This realization provides a “ground of peace” that is not dependent on specific experiences: “And that gives us, if you like the ground of peace that we think we’re looking for by ‘I am’ peaceful. It’s the peace that passes all understanding.”
• She contends, “In that sense, we become invincible in the sense that whatever’s happening is happening.”
• This invincibility stems from not identifying with the fluctuations of experience: “We’re less likely to get pulled into what we call reactivity, identification with that feeling, that wave.”

   

Transcending Identification and Tribalism:

• Identifying with experiences creates division: “It’s just that we’ve given our allegiance to the content of our experience and then we define ourselves by that content. I am sad. I am happy. I am whatever it might be.”
• This identification leads to internal and external tribalism: “When we stop identifying in this way with our experience, we’re not divided within… If you like, stop being tribal.”
• She describes this “tribal identity” as extending to our feelings and beliefs: “The end of tribal identity, whether the tribe is a sense of a kind of feeling nature, I like to feel happy, inspired, or yeah. That’s a kind of tribe.”
• The practice of recognizing “I am” is not merely spiritual, but also practical for personal and global harmony: “And so this that’s being spoken of is not just some nice spiritual idea, but it’s very practical as well. an impact on our lives and an impact on the world that we live in.”

    

Experience as Convenience, Not Truth:

• Amoda Maa distinguishes between how we communicate about experience and the truth of experience: “But we use that as a convenience, not as the truth of it. We don’t speak truth to each other. We speak convenience to each other. And that’s fine.”
• By recognizing the underlying “I am,” we relate to our experiences more lightly and less as something that defines us: “But it’s as if internally we’re taking our experience more lightly.”

   

Conclusion:

Amoda Maa’s teaching emphasizes that the ground of our being, the “I am,” is a constant, unwavering presence. By shifting our attention from the content of our experiences to this ever-present “I am,” we can find a deep sense of peace, invincibility, and freedom from identification and tribalism. This is not a state to be achieved but a truth to be recognized within our everyday lives. The practice, then, is a simple re-orientation of attention, rather than a rigorous or elaborate discipline.