DW's Blog

Why -ING Matters in a High Way

by DW Green — December 3, 2025

“But the Truth remains, patient, waiting, always available, never forcing itself, just quietly being what it is: the ground of everything, the source of everything, the One expressing itself as all things.”

Why -ING Matters in a High Way For years, a prayer has lived in my awareness:

God be in my head and my understanding Be in my eyes and my seeing Be in my mouth and my speaking Be in my heart and my thinking

Four simple words: understanding, seeing, speaking, thinking. Four -ING words that keep showing up in my daily life, pointing to something I’m only beginning to fully recognize.

They’re not accidents of grammar. They’re portals into presence itself.

The present continuous tense -those -ING words we use without thinking -captures something profound about the nature of reality that our ordinary way of speaking obscures. When we live in past and future tense, we position ourselves outside of life, narrating it from a distance. But when we enter the continuous present -the eternal -ING -we become life itself.

Consider the difference:

“I saw beauty yesterday” positions you as a separate observer, standing in the present, looking back at an experience that’s now over. The beauty existed then, and you -the witness -remember it now. Two separate things: you and the experience, divided by time.

But “I am seeing beauty” dissolves that separation. There’s no observer standing apart. There’s just the ongoing act of seeing, happening now, with no one positioned outside it marking its passage. The seer and the seen merge into a single, continuous flow.

This isn’t just linguistic philosophy. It’s pointing to how we actually experience reality in our most alive moments.

Think about flow -those times when you’re so absorbed in an activity that time disappears. You’re not “playing golf” as if it’s a completed action you can step back from and observe. You’re playing -present continuous, ongoing, seamless. The separate self that normally narrates your life (“I should do this differently,” “I wonder how this will turn out”) goes quiet, and what remains is pure -ING. Just the swing happening, the road unfolding, the conversation flowing.

You don’t say “I flowed” while you’re in it. You can only use past tense after you’ve stepped back out, after the separate self has returned to narrate what happened. The past tense itself is evidence that you’re no longer in the experience -you’re remembering it from outside.

The separate self lives in past and future tense. It’s constantly narrating: “I did this,” “I should have done that,” “I will do this,” “I hope that happens.” It positions itself in a perpetual story, with a past to remember and regret, and a future to plan and worry about. This creates the sensation of being someone moving through time, watching life happen, managing the relationship between “me” and “the world.”

But presence -your true nature -only exists in the continuous now. Not the present tense as a point in time (which is just another way of dividing reality into before, now, and after), but the present continuous -the eternal -ING that has no beginning or end.

Understanding. Not “I understood” or “I will understand,” but the ongoing, living act of understanding arising now.

Seeing. Not looking back at what you saw or anticipating what you’ll see, but the direct recognition happening in this moment.

Speaking. Not words already spoken or words you plan to say, but the creative act of language emerging now.

Thinking. Not thoughts you had or thoughts you might have, but consciousness recognizing itself in real time.

When I pray “God be in my seeing,” I’m not asking for something external to arrive. I’m recognizing that the seeing itself -this continuous, ongoing awareness -is already sacred. Divine presence isn’t something separate that I petition. It’s what I already am in the very act of seeing, understanding, speaking, thinking.

The -ING isn’t describing what I’m doing. It’s revealing what I am.

This is why those four words from the prayer keep showing up in my daily life. They’ve become reminders, doorways back into presence. Every time I notice myself seeing -not thinking about what I saw or planning what I’ll look at next, but actually in the living moment of perception -I have the opportunity to recognize: this is it. This seeing, right now, is the sacred made visible.

The same recognition is available on a highway.

Think about a road trip through unfamiliar territory. You’re not “going to arrive” (future tense) and you’re not “remembering the journey” (past tense) -you’re traveling. Present continuous. The landscape flows past, the road unfolds, your awareness moves through space, and there’s no separation between the traveler and the traveling. You become the movement itself.

The highway doesn’t lead to a destination where you’ll finally arrive and stop being in motion. The highway IS the motion, the continuous flowing forward. You’re always traveling, always moving through, always in the -ING of the journey.

And isn’t that the perfect metaphor for consciousness itself? Not a thing you possess, not a state you achieve and maintain, but an ongoing movement, a continuous flowing, an eternal present tense that never stops long enough to become past.

The pathless path. No destination, just the walking itself. Not “I walked” or “I will walk,” but the ongoing -ING of being the path, being the journey, being life itself rather than someone having a life.

This is also why “high way” feels so apt -it points to both the elevated consciousness of presence and the literal highway of continuous movement. The high way is the way of staying in the ING, of recognizing that you’re not a separate self moving through experiences, but awareness itself, continuously flowing, never divided from what it perceives.

When you live in past and future tense, you experience friction. The constant mental narration evaluating, judging, comparing, planning -creates a subtle but persistent tension between “me” and life. You’re always slightly outside the experience, managing it, trying to control it, worried about how it will turn out or how it should have gone differently.

But in the present continuous -in the pure -ING of experience -that friction dissolves. There’s no one standing apart. The boundary between subject and object softens. You and the seeing are one. You and the understanding are one. You and the speaking, the thinking, the traveling, the living -all one continuous flow.

This is what your propaganda machine obscures. It lives entirely in past and future tense: “I learned this,” “I believe that,” “I must protect myself,” “I need to achieve this.” The internal narrator is constantly pulling you out of the present continuous, out of the living -ING, and back into the story of a separate self moving through time.

But beauty -beauty only exists in present continuous. You cannot see beauty in memory or anticipation. You can only be seeing it, now, in this moment, with full presence. The moment you step back to narrate “I saw something beautiful,” you’re already outside the experience. Beauty requires the -ING. It requires you to dissolve into the seeing itself.

The same is true for flow, for truth, for wholeness, for every direct experience of your true nature. They all exist only in the present continuous. Not as states you achieved in the past or goals you’ll reach in the future, but as the ongoing, eternal now that you already are.

The grammar of presence is simple: stay in the -ING.

Not as a technique or practice, but as a recognition. When you notice yourself narrating in past or future tense -“I should have,” “I need to,” “I hope,” “I regret” -you can gently return to the question: what’s actually happening right now? What’s the present continuous reality beneath the story?=

You’re breathing. Not “you breathed” or “you will breathe,” but the living act of breath moving through you now.

You’re aware. Not “you were aware” or “you’ll become aware,” but consciousness recognizing itself in this very moment.

You’re being. Not having been or going to be, but the continuous, ongoing is-ness that precedes all stories, all time, all separation.

This is why -ING matters in a high way. It’s not just grammar. It’s the language of truth itself, pointing to the continuous, flowing, undivided reality that you are. Every -ING word is an invitation to drop the story and enter the living now. To stop narrating life from outside and become the life that’s happening.

Understanding, seeing, speaking, thinking -and beneath them all, just being.

Not being something in particular. Not being someone with a past and future. Just the pure, continuous -ING of existence itself, flowing like a river toward the ocean, never arriving because it’s already there, already home, already whole.

You don’t have a life moving through time. You are life, eternally present, continuously flowing, always and only -ING.

The highway stretches ahead and behind, but you’re not traveling toward something or away from something. You’re simply traveling -the high way of consciousness recognizing itself in motion, in flow, in the eternal now that has no beginning and no end.

God be in my seeing.

Not someday. Not in memory.

Now. In the -ING. In the continuous present where life is actually lived.

This is the high way.

This is home.