The quiet knowledge ‘I am’ shines steadily, whatever the circumstances. When stripped of the qualities it temporarily seems to acquire from thoughts, feelings and sensations, being reveals itself as open, undivided, ever-present and deeply peaceful. It is not something you possess; it is what you are.

Being shines in the midst of all experience. In fact, you could say that all experience is a colouring of being, just as the movie is a colouring of the screen. Countless colours, yet always the same colourless screen; countless experiences, yet always the same transparent, silent, peaceful being.

And just as you don’t need to look away from the movie to notice the screen, you don’t need to turn away from experience to remain in touch with being. It takes only the smallest shift in attention, but that subtle shift is the difference between sorrow and peace.

When you say, ‘I am lonely’ or ‘I am anxious’, the ‘I am’ is present. When you say, ‘I am depressed’ or ‘I am upset’, the ‘I am’ is present. When you say, ‘I am married’ or ‘I am single’, ‘I am’ is still there. When you say, ‘I am healthy’ or ‘I am sick’, the same ‘I am’ remains.

If you’re entirely absorbed in the drama of experience, you suffer or enjoy accordingly. But if you remain in touch with being throughout experience, you are always at peace.

And just as changing the movie has no effect on the nature of the screen, so the changing content of experience has no effect on your essential being. Being remains in its own peaceful, luminous, unchanging condition. You cannot even say it is ‘your’ being. Being does not belong to you as a person. You, as a person, belong to being.

The experience of simply being is what you refer to when you say ‘I am’. And everybody can say from experience, ‘I am’. The reason everyone can say ‘I am’ is because everyone has the experience of being.

Being is like that but even more intimate, more familiar, more ordinary, more transparent. It lies, so to speak, behind even your breathing. And like your breathing, being is so quiet, so subtle, that it is almost always eclipsed by the brighter, more attention-grabbing content of experience.

In meditation or prayer, you simply bring being into the foreground. Rather than focussing only on what’s happening – your thoughts, feelings, sensations or surroundings – and overlooking the quiet sense of being itself, you allow your attention to relax away from all that content and rest instead in the simple experience of being.