[Gem]

Originally Posted by A human Being

It is quite a subtle point you're making, but it's an important one. The essence of meditation, as I see it, is to 'be here now', which sounds simple enough in theory, but we tend to be so geared to seeking that in practice it can feel like quite a tricky business to actually stop and be still, and find out what is actually here, right in this moment (I suspect that's because on some level we know that we're going to find discomfort, agitation, pain, and various other sensations that we'd rather not be feeling, and our seeking is often an unconscious attempt to avoid feeling them). I think it actually goes against our instincts to do that, particularly in over-stimulated western consumer societies.

Illuminating thread.

In this sense, being here now is not something one does, but something one sees to be the case, like, it's simply true that this is where I exist. It is very easy to check - am I here? Yes of course - so immediately obvious and so plainly mundane, that surely there's something more to it... but there isn't. I know in the instant I look that it's the case...

Yes, people are geared to the notion that there is more to it, because it's so plain, such a no brainer, and they will go find a method to help them 'be in the moment' even though they just checked and immediately found out that they are. Perhaps the mind is asking, Why? How? What makes it thus? Well, that I have no answer for. As I said in OP, there is no knowledge here here a reader can acquire. I don't know if I'm in the moment unless I check for myself, and as soon as I do, I know that I am.

As Yoda said, 'There is no try'.

Indeed the issues of aversion to sensations/feelings are high distractions. All that reactivity disrupts the balance of the mind. In the meditation one will recognise arising in themselves, avoidance, resistance, fear, desire for special spiritual experiences... and for most people these can be overlooked, as the desire for 'something spiritual' simply compels the person to try, enlivening the volition to get rid of this feeling and go after that feeling... but 'meditation' as I use the word is to cease precisely that , and it did cease in the moment a person checked to see if they exist right now. It demonstrates what you referred to as, "stop and be still, and find out what is actually here"