Presence and Awareness: the Circle of Breath

What is presence, and how is it different from awareness?

We often confuse these words, though they sound close — like inhale and exhale. Presence is being fully in the moment. Awareness is seeing the details of that moment. And together they create a circle of breath in which wholeness is revealed.

Presence

Presence is a state. Very simple. When you just are. Here and now. Not in the past, not in the future, not lost in thoughts, but fully in the moment — with your body, your breath, and the space around you.

It does not require effort or analysis. Presence can be like looking into someone’s eyes. Like taking a breath of fresh air. Like the sensation of water on your skin.

Awareness

Awareness, on the other hand, is a function of consciousness. The ability to notice:

“I have this thought, this feeling, this tension.”

It’s the flashlight that can highlight the details.

In simple words

Presence is the light that simply exists.

Awareness is the flashlight that directs that light.

Or like this:

• Presence is the breath of space itself.

• Awareness is the breath of the mind, which sees and names.

Example with water

Imagine diving under water. Your whole body is immersed, your breath slows down. You don’t think “I am under water” — you are under water. That is presence.

But if you start to notice the details — the chill near the bottom, the warmth near the surface, the rhythm of your heartbeat, the movement of air in your lungs — that is awareness.

Presence is like the whole ocean.

Awareness is the attention to a wave or a single bubble of air.

Together they create depth: you are in the ocean, and at the same time able to see its details without getting lost in them.

The circle of breath

When words are placed side by side, a rhythm appears around them:

• Attention — the breath of the mind, sharp or soft.

• Contemplation — a gaze that does not grasp, but simply sees.

• Wakefulness — clarity, being awake in the moment.

• Silence — not absence, but a filled field.

• Wholeness — the sense of no rupture between inner and outer.

• Acceptance — the willingness to be with what is.

• Response — a living movement, true rather than mechanical.

• Trust — what keeps the breath free.

• Transparency — when you do not block the flow of life.

• Co-being — the experience that everything happens together, not separately.

And if we gather them into breath, it looks like this:

🔹 inhale — attention, awareness, awakening;

🔹 exhale — presence, silence, trust;

and between inhale and exhale — contemplation, wholeness, response.

Sensitivity practice

Try to notice today at least one moment of presence — without effort, just being.

And one moment of awareness — when you see a detail and name it.

Then feel how they meet in the circle of breath.

If you wish, in the next posts we can explore further:

— how silence becomes support,

— how trust gives birth to freedom,

— how response turns into creativity.

This is how it feels to live — in the circle of breath.