5 · Loving Presence
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"You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens." Attributed to Rumi; source verification pending.
Loving Presence is the foundational stance by which we improve the nature of every interaction, most of all the one with ourselves. 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 most reliable instrument we have for changing the quality of a moment.
A person is not the sole author of everything they experience, and loving attention cannot repair every condition. Sometimes the practice is active help. Sometimes it is the refusal to explain another person's pain before hearing it. Love becomes credible through proportion, neither abandonment nor rescue staged for the rescuer.