The Heart of Presence is a term I have chosen to describe and point to the practice, approach and
experience of waking up from the captivating illusions of our individual and collective states of egocentric consciousness.
Practicing ‘Present Moment Awareness’ and living more fully from the ‘Heart of Presence’ is what this website and my writings, audio recordings, videos and course content is intended to achieve. We could say that when we are immersed in ‘the heart of presence’ we are living in the immediate, personally unique and intimate experience of ‘Open-Hearted Awareness.’ This is a term I first encountered in the work of Loch Kelly and later Francis Bennett.
One might descirbe that as living in the presence of God, consciosuly. Open-Hearted Awareness embraces what some call Witness Consciousness and brings the ‘heart’ and the human aspect of our existence into the transcendent or ‘no-self’ freedom that can be found and felt in ‘simply being’ and ‘watching’ the mind, thoughts, sensations, emotions and feelings.
The Practices I share in group and individual sessions as well as in my writings, audio recordings and videos are intended to provide an opportunity for you to look directly for yourself and to see what is revealing itself to you right here and now. We each have our own personal history and our unique, current personal circumstances that are relatively true for us, right now. And at the same time, we all share the common and unifying experience of ‘being aware’ in this moment. It is in the field of that awareness, where we can truly meet and encounter each other, ‘as if for the first time.’
Everything you need to live an awakened life is here now. The individual you are right now, is the light of awakening, shining as YOU!
The Heart of Presence
There is a dimension here now, all around us and within us, that is already free, already awake, has already accepted what we alone cannot and is already happy, well and at peace.
The Heart of Presence Practice is really just a simple shift in perspective that can allow the natural wisdom, creativity, kindness, compassion, power and resilience of life itself to flow into this moment now… and all moments. Whenever we stop to look, the aware, conscious fact of our own Presence can be seen, witnessed and felt. In our group meetings, we can experience that together.
After many years of mental and emotional distress in his 20’s and a diagnosis of cancer at the age of 29 he began exploring Spiritual teachings with a voracious zeal. In 2010, after encountering the works of Tony Parsons, Jeff Foster and many other contemporary teachings, Mike began to experience more profound changes in his perception of himself, others and began writing about this on a blog. That blog was called: Nothing Saying This, so titled in recognition of the experience of the state of consciousness sometimes referred to as ‘no self’ or ‘a transcendent state’, ‘the absolute’ and in some traditions referred to as ‘witness consciousness’.
Mike has given talks in Leicester, Yorkshire, Lancaster, London, and Brighton, recorded dozens of videos on YouTube, was interviewed by Rick Archer on the popular spiritual awakening video series Buddha at the Gas Pump, and has written many articles and some short eBooks.
For several years, Mike helped to manage and run silent retreats, weekend workshops, and online courses (along with Jane Metcalfe) for former Trappist monk and American spiritual teacher Francis ‘Fran’ Bennett, traveling around the UK and accompanying Fran to Barcelona, where she first spoke presenting as a trans woman. This period was a profoundly special and privileged time, spent in the company of a friend, spiritual mentor, teacher, and brave soul whose integrity was to prove too much for some in the world of living spiritual teachings and who ultimately met the harsh realities of human limitations. Fran died in January 2022, in America, after complications brought on by worsening type 1 diabetes.
It was the arrival of Fran in Mike’s life that began the process of what she would have termed ‘immanence’, or as she said many times ‘you gotta come down from the mountain and take your new perspective into the chaos of the marketplace or the village’, referencing the story of Jesus atop a mountain with his disciples (where being on top of the mountain represented transcendence). In talks with the American spiritual teacher Adyashanti, Fran spoke of the embrace of Jesus and The Buddha, illuminating the movement of ‘transcendence’ up and out of egocentric consciousness and perception and the ‘immanence’ of the Christ journey, down into a human body of flesh and blood.
