Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Nowness
Drop fully into the present moment (‘nowness’) during an ordinary action, sensing the basic goodness and uplifted dignity already present in being exactly here, exactly now.
Nowness: In the middle of any ordinary act, drop the speed and the commentary. Sit or stand with upright dignity (good head and shoulders). Put your attention fully into the act itself — the cup, the floor, the air — as if meeting it for the first time. Notice that this plain moment is already okay — basic goodness. Carry it as dozens of small returns to this through the day. The warrior is simply the one willing to be fully here.
What it is
In the Shambhala teachings, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche offered a secular-friendly path of “warriorship” — bravery not against an enemy but against one’s own cowardice and numbness.
Its everyday practice is “nowness”: dropping completely into the present moment during ordinary activity — pouring tea, walking, opening a door — and discovering that this bare moment, met with full attention and an upright dignity, already carries what he called “basic goodness.” Where the touch-and-go shamatha is a formal sitting practice, nowness is its off-the-cushion counterpart: a way of meeting normal life so that even mundane acts become fresh, vivid, and worthy of respect.
The warrior, in Trungpa’s image, is simply someone willing to be fully present rather than escaping into hope, fear, or distraction.
The Method
A faithful, doable distillation of the Shambhala instruction:
- Stop the speed for a moment. In the middle of an ordinary action, pause the rush and the mental commentary. Trungpa: “Nowness is the sense that you are attuned to what is happening.”
- Take an uplifted posture. Sit or stand with head and shoulders upright — what he calls a sense of dignity and “good head and shoulders.” The body’s bearing is part of the practice, not decoration.
- Synchronise mind and body in the activity. Put your attention fully into the act itself — the weight of the cup, the feel of the floor, the temperature of the air — rather than into the next thing. Mind and body doing the same thing, here.
- Sense the freshness. Meet the moment as if for the first time — Trungpa speaks of the world being “vivid” and “brilliant” when met directly. Let the ordinary be genuinely interesting.
- Touch basic goodness. Notice that this plain, unmanufactured moment is already workable and fundamentally okay — not because anything special happened, but because presence itself reveals it. “Basic goodness is very good and very pure and fundamental.”
- Carry it lightly through the day. Nowness is not a long session; it is a repeated dropping-in, dozens of small returns to this — opening a door, washing a dish, greeting someone — until ordinary life becomes the practice. (Sourcing note: faithful paraphrase with short attributed phrasing from Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior; not a reproduction.)
Source & Lineage
Trungpa (1939–1987), a Kagyü and Nyingma master, developed the Shambhala teachings as a deliberately non-religious presentation of meditative dignity for modern life, gathered in Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior (1984).
“Nowness” and “basic goodness” are its central terms; they translate the Vajrayana confidence in the workability and sacredness of ordinary experience into accessible, secular form. → author node.
The Traditions' versions
The move — drop fully into this ordinary moment and find it sufficient — is one of the most universal in the contemplative world: - Touch and go shamatha (Trungpa) — the formal-sitting sibling of nowness; presence then release.
- Unconditional presence (John Welwood) — meeting the moment with open, non-grasping awareness.
- The pause (Pema Chödrön) — a deliberate gap that returns you to the immediate present.
- Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawrence) — turning the most menial chore into communion with the present.
- Eckhart Tolle’s “power of Now,” Zen samu (work practice), tea ceremony — the everyday act done with full, unhurried attention.
Common refinements
Turning it into another task. Nowness is dropping in, not a chore to perform well; striving reinstates the speed it cures.
- Waiting for a special feeling. Basic goodness is ordinary okayness, not a peak experience; chasing bliss misses it.
- Slumping or stiffening. The posture is dignified yet relaxed — neither collapsed nor rigid.
- Reserving it for nice moments. The practice is most useful in dull, irritating, or rushed moments — exactly where presence is hardest.
- Making it a belief test. You don’t have to believe in basic goodness; just be present and notice what’s actually here.