Every morning and some evenings I meditate seated and in silence, striving to experience the present with intensity. Both during the practice and throughout the rest of the day, I identify four highly distinct ways of living and experiencing the present, which often alternate spontaneously. They are different relationships between the self and the experience, which I call "states," although the boundaries between them are blurred and the transition from one to another is always gradual, never abrupt.

The Self Disconnected from the Experience

This is the state in which I spend a good part of the day, and in which I sometimes become immersed even during meditative practice. I do not strictly consider it a way of experiencing the present—because in this state the self is simply disconnected from the experience—but it is important to mention it, as it is the starting point.

Life happens, but I am not aware of it. The mind is completely occupied with a thousand and one thoughts: reliving the past, recreating the future, worrying, fantasizing, planning, judging... One thought leads to another, and then to a new one, and the chain does not stop. The mind is so busy that there is no pause to be aware of the present in which, nevertheless, my life unfolds. Curiously, in this state, I am not even aware of the very thoughts that keep me from experiencing the present.

This disconnection from the present often prevents me from describing in detail what I have done or felt, as if I were living a blurred life. Despite this, sometimes I can indeed describe what I am doing or feeling, without being able to focus too much attention on it. It is at this point that I establish a slight connection with the experience of the present and begin to transition toward the next state.

The Self Clinging to the Experience

In this state, thoughts lose their intensity, and a fraction of the mind begins to have space to experience the present. But not in a complete or continuous way: the present is experienced in a fragmented manner and in brief moments. I can be aware of my breathing for a few instants, or of a bird's song, or of the sensations of my posture, or of a landscape that suddenly comes into sharp focus, or of a subtle feeling of love that emanates without a destination. But I am incapable of maintaining it steadily, let alone integrating all these sensations into a single, coherent experience. They arrive one by one, in waves of varying intensity, as if the mind did not have enough capacity to process it all at once.

If I observe carefully, I can identify the cause: a bubbling of thoughts that continue to occupy a large part of the mind, now no longer entirely unconscious, but not visible enough to face them head-on either. I can observe the landscape and remain worried. I can listen to the birds and continue recalling the latest success with excitement. I can close my eyes, but the images keep appearing in the darkness. The experience of the present and the thoughts coexist, fighting for attention.

In this state, it is very easy to let myself get caught by a thought and lose all awareness of the present. A memory that appears, a worry that imposes itself, a fantasy that captivates, an imagined situation... and I have once again disconnected from the experience of the present without realizing it. That is why many teachers insist so much on the practice of returning: not to try to suppress thoughts, but to recognize that they have dragged you away and to return, without drama, to the sensations of the present.

Traditionally, the breath has been considered a very useful anchor: it is an ever-present sensation, and returning attention to it is relatively simple. Even so, sometimes I also use the sensation of posture, the heartbeat, the birdsong, or even the perception of the mind itself—with its thoughts and brief silences—as an anchor for attention.

From this stable anchor, with effort and willpower, I can observe how thoughts struggle to capture attention and try to lure me, in the same way the sirens' song tempted Ulysses, who had to tie himself to the mast of his ship to avoid giving in.

But with recurrent meditation practice, and the attitude of downplaying thoughts, there comes a point where thoughts, worries, and fantasies lose their intensity and power of attraction. The mind has more space to experience the present and does not need to cling so desperately to the anchor point in order not to get distracted. It is at this stage that I broaden my attention toward the experience of the present and begin to transition to the next state.

The Self Conscious of the Experience

In this state, thoughts, worries, and fantasies fade away, and the sensations of the present arrive with an intensity that was impossible in the previous states: sight, hearing, posture, pain, the wind on the skin, the feeling of love, the emptiness if I keep my eyes closed... Or, sometimes, just the breath, if I still remain anchored to this sensation. The mind, now empty of thoughts, becomes fully aware of the sensations of the present, experiencing everything here and now in a unique, undivided, and continuous way.

For a long time I considered this to be a thought-free state in which I genuinely experienced the present. But a few months ago, paying a little more attention to the mind that processes the experience, I realized that there is another type of mental process that maintains control in a subtle way: an inner voice that affirms that I am experiencing the present, that watches to ensure no thought slips in, that narrates what is happening, that memorizes the experience to be able to remember it later. A guardian. A self that observes and experiences.

I do not want to deceive you: this state is extremely pleasant and represents a radical shift in perspective regarding the experience of the present, especially because there is that inner voice in charge of telling me that I am living an extraordinary and unique experience, and it tries, without success, to maintain it at all times.

This voice sometimes seems to fall silent for a few instants, but even when it is quiet I observe a background tension, a state of alert to maintain this intense experience of the present, a rigid calm. As if the mental silence had to be actively sustained, as if relaxing my attention would put it in danger. Only when I fully trust that the experience of the present will be maintained without effort, and I let myself go, do I begin to transition toward the next state.

The Experience Without a Self

In this state, thoughts, worries, and fantasies have completely faded away, including the inner voice. There is no narrator. There is no guardian. There is no one to memorize, to watch, to affirm that I am experiencing the present. There are no words. Only sensations flowing freely, without an experiencer to process or analyze them.

It is almost impossible to describe this state with precision, because by definition there is no one trying to remember or describe it while it happens. And when one attempts to describe it a posteriori, it is impossible to evoke the same experience: in the description, there are already words, and a self trying to reproduce it.

What I can say is that in this state, tension ceases to exist. There is no will, no objective, no control, no direction. The experience simply flows. There is a sensation of a much deeper mental silence, similar to emptiness—or to a total emptiness if I keep my eyes closed. The mind is completely calm, not because someone has tried to calm it, but because there is no one to agitate it. In the previous states, the protagonist was me, in different degrees of attention and presence. Here, the protagonist is solely the experience.

This is a very fragile and elusive state, because any attempt to provoke it or maintain it destroys it immediately. If at any moment in this silence a thought appears saying, "now I am experiencing without a self," the inner voice returns and I fall back into an attentive state of experiencing. Even if an emotion arises—for example, joy at being in this state—the experience also vanishes, possibly because, linked to emotions, there are subtle thoughts that provoke them or derive from them. Therefore, even though I may experience profound feelings of peace or love, it is a state devoid of emotion that is neither grandiose nor euphoric.

If in the previous state the observer focused their awareness on the sensations and everything had great clarity—and the very description of the experience gave it even more definition—here awareness is no longer focused on anything. The sensations continue to happen, but without focus. And, when remembering them, they seem less intense to me, as if at that moment there was no need to experience anything in particular, nor to avoid it.

The absence of an objective causes the search to stop by itself. There is nothing to achieve. There does not seem to be anything beyond this moment, nor any need to get anywhere. Everything is fine just as it is. I do not know if there is any state beyond this one towards which I can transition, but it matters little: the feeling is that I have already arrived home.