What keeps you from being present?

            The Self-Contraction. What keeps me from being present is my mental aversion to everything that I perceive as not being "a part of me, or of my self-image." We can be more fully present when we realize that this image is not fully all that we are. In this case our "ceaseless grasping" of our perceived self-concepts that don't allow us to fully be present and aware. We also believe that pain also causes us to suffer, but the Buddha made a clear distinction between pain and suffering. Suffering is the mental aversion in our minds to pain, while pain is in the body. We can feel pain and not have to suffer. Suffering is our "flinching" from pain. If we don't "flinch" in our minds, but just allow the pain in awareness, we don't have to contract and get caught up in our emotions and concepts. Pain arises a bit in awareness, and then fades and passes, like clouds in the sky. Not trying to hold on to anything, but just being, I watch it all in my thoughts. I become not my thoughts, but the Witness of those thoughts.          In this way i am always fully present.