My ex-wife sent me a link to a talk by Eckhard Tolle on presence. It occurred to me that the panic attack state is also the person being focused on their present state. When in the attack state I am entirely consumed by the present, it doesn't "pass through me" to use Tolle's wording. The brain is not necessarily off, but overwhelmed by the autonomic actions of the body. In other words, while having an attack I am living entirely in the present, with my brain "turned off". "Brain turned off" is the same state we are encouraged to be in as meditators, focused on my body to the exclusion of the outside world.
So presence seems to be a dual-state. It can relax, or it can panic. What flips it from one to the other?
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