Moments of Presence

Written By George Elvin

"To experience anything fully and see it clearly there must be a moment of presence where conceptual thinking is not interfering with your experience of that moment." - Eckhart Tolle

Do we really experience moments of presence where conceptual thinking is not interfering with our experience of that moment? I spent three months at a zen monastery and I'd say I had a few moments free of conceptual thinking. Since then I've had a few more, but in my life they've been extremely rare.

Even so, I'm looking forward to having more and experiencing the extreme environments I study fully and seeing them clearly. I've been to the world's hottest, wettest, snowiest, stormiest, and windiest places, but I now consider those just a warmup to more serious study. My goal is to revisit each of them, take a more meditative approach, and maybe even experience a few moments of presence free of conceptual thinking.

George Elvin

I'm a professor of architecture at North Carolina State University, where my teaching and research focus on learning from nature about how plants and animals adapt to extreme environments and then applying those lessons to resilient building design.

http://www.georgelvin.com
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