just be it Just Be It is a practice of presence that recognizes the limits of language. When aware of silence there is a state of inner still alertness. You are wholeheartedly present.

“How do you live in this complicated reality?  How do you face the moment when the earthquake suddenly happens?  How do you handle yourself in a moment that is beyond your control?  When a moment appears, there is only one thing that controls you: the capability that comes from your spiritual practice, your ability to face impermanence and deal calmly with the conditions of every moment.  So, before the earthquake happens, before your mind starts to work and you want to run away, accept every moment as an opportunity presented to you to practice facing reality as it really is.  When a moment arises, you don’t know the reason why it exists, but you have to accept it and face it, whatever happens.

You have to do your best to face every moment, because this moment will never come again.  The moment that you are living right now is a very important opportunity to make your life vividly alive.  If you want to live with spiritual security in the midst of constant change, you have to burn the flame of your life force in everything you do.

When you play sports, work at your job, write a poem, or whatever it is that you do, that is an opportunity to burn the flame of your life energy.

When you forget yourself and put your wholehearted effort into facing every moment, you can do something, and simultaneously you can rest in the continuous flow of life energy.  Then you really enjoy life.” from Each Moment is the Universe by Katagiri Roshi

Understanding the ‘present moment’ requires an examination of how we look at time, in particular, our grasping of impermanence and interconnection. Katagiri expresses it this way:

“…the way is produced by impermanence and interdependent co-origination.  What produces impermanence and interdependent origination?  That is time and occasion.  Time and occasion are nothing but the activity of time, which is called time arising.  What produces time and occasion?  According to Buddhist philosophy it is emptiness, but Dogen says it is just arising only.  That is a more positive way of understanding it.  Emptiness, arising only, means that real time is completely beyond time as an idea you can discuss.  Time is identical with action, motion, or energy.  There is nothing to hold on to, because everything in the universe exists as arising only.    p. 33

…you cannot understand it (way) objectively because to understand real life is to be one with it.  This is not only Buddhist teaching; this is life.  For example, if you want to be a cross-country skier, you can objectively understand what cross-country skiing is through research, but to understand skiing perfectly you have to go skiing.  At that time the root of the way is dynamically working and you can become one with skiing.

Oneness with skiing is possible because everything lies in the one source of existence and is unified there.  This is the place that is called Buddha or universal consciousness or whatever you say.  This is the place where you are.  The root of the way is present with you wherever you may go, constantly working freely in peace and harmony, so you can always use it.  All you have to do is just tune in and accept it.  That’s why we practice zazen and try to refine consciousness of our minds.  This way of practice is not based on trying to do something good and getting a reward.  The final purpose of this practice is to leave no trace of individual experience.  How do you do this?  It depends on the attitude you take from moment to moment.” p. 44 Each Moment is the Universe

This may be why Tolle says our most important relationship is the one we have with this present moment.

Brother David says we’re to fill with the ‘feeling’ of gratefulness, moment to moment, for the sheer opportunity to participate.  Understanding time as action, motion or energy, it’s a moving thing to be engaged in with full attention, in harmony and rhythm to the way, doing our best, but releasing any “trace of individual experience”.  Could this be where we find our humility and our courage, standing solid as the mountain in the face of impermanence and inter-Being (interdependent co-origination)?

This has been ‘working me’ a lot lately.  How can I stand solid, in joy, facing deteriorating conditions?  It seems we’re in a culture lacking the courage to face the present in concern for a well stewarded future.  We want to nourish the seeds of the positive, accept the existence of the negative, and compassionately move to giving our best in participation to healing that which we have harmed.  And we face the inevitable dissipation of energy (entropy; Second Law of Thermodynamics).  Can we accept what “is” in peace and yet, have the courage to dedicate in stewardship to the art of taking care of this moment, knowing it’s our best shot at taking care of the future for coming generations (beings we’re interconnected with outside our notions of time and space)?  Or do we go to sleep?  Or worse, do we actively work to feed the poison of denial, joining the ranks who deny science and our impact on the planet and one another?

This moment is so precious.  I hate to let it go, and yet, I can’t capture it.  I can only hope I’ve met it well, awake to the gift of what was there, if only glimpsed in its arising.

In everyday life you cannot always regulate and harmonize your body and mind.  The “ only thing you can regulate and harmonize is you attitude.  When you take the proper attitude toward your activity—zazen, skiing, or whatever it is—simultaneously, beyond your human effort, refined practice comes up and there is a total dynamic working between you and your object.”

Day after day, moment after moment, just take care of practice, leaving no trace of technique and no trace of practitioner.  This is a very fundamental attitude toward human life.  If you do, finally you will be great: a great skier, a great artist, a great musician, a great poet, a great philosopher, a great businessman, or a great religious person.

There is final verification. “Here I am!”  That’s all.  That is completely wonderful.  That is final proof of you life.  You feel alive!  There’s nothing to say, but you feel good.  It’s more than feeling good, it’s feeling that your life is worth living.”  p. 36

Poof…no longer addicted to approval, control, security and power.

Deepok Chopra’s The Ultimate Happiness Prescription describes it as follows:

“One side of the coin is that we crave approval because it bolsters our self-image.  The other side is that we fear disapproval because it diminishes our self-image.  All of this is known as object-referral, which means that you identify with objects outside yourself.  The opposite of object-referral is self-referral, which means you identify with your true being, entirely an inner experience.  True being has five qualities, none of which is created by external events, or other people:

1. Your true being is connected to all that exists.
2. It has no limitations.
3. It has infinite creativity.
4. It is fearless, and willing to step into the unknown.
5. Intention from the level of being is powerful, and can orchestrate synchronicity (a perfect meshing of outside circumstances to bring about your intention).”

‘Just Be it’ is a phrase aimed to true being, breaking the barrier of dualistic object referral.  There’s great peace, joy, confidence, and harmony in facing the unknown, meeting the surprise of the arising moment…even in what appears to be deteriorating conditions.

This is hard work.  It takes tremendous resolve.  Our mind says we’ve worked hard enough and it’s time for mindless, unaware activity.  Maybe have a beer or two, eat a chocolate or ten, watch TV, smoke a joint, daydream, text or phone or whatever we do to step away from the moment’s arising in momentary pleasure.  But it’s always there, the arising moment.  It never stops, as hard as we may try to believe it does, with our notions of retirement, victim, death, winning, etc.  Science now validates our inter-Being and the reality of continuous change.  The harmony and rhythm of the universe is better understood as technology advances.  Yet, we step from our awareness in denial to the song and dance arising in front of us, traveling at greater speeds of mindlessness.

“I am though you so I” ee cummings

“Our awareness itself is a fathomless mystery” Brother David

“I am the manifestation of the unmanifested” Jesus

“The greatest thing happening in our time is that we’re taking down this theistic God from the limitation of being somebody else…we’re totally embedded” Brother David

“When conditions are right they manifest, when they aren’t they don’t” Buddha

With regards to “Difficulty”, I wrote this in 2003 after studying with Brother David Steindl Rast:

Difficulty

It’s more difficult to be a meadow on a mountaintop than on the plains.

It’s more difficult to live as a wave in a pond than an ocean.

It’s more difficult to be a mountain on it’s own (volcano) than one within a full range.

It’s more difficult to live a live driven by common sense and true being when surrounded by extremists.

It’s more difficult to live a life of peace when surrounded by those finding joy in violence.

These insights came to me when flying at thirty-five thousand feet, returning to Minnesota from California.  Flying over the landscape I had a much deeper felt sense for the ‘fractal’, how cellular energy tended to manifest in like ways, where the texture duplicates under influence of the energy around it.  Moving from ‘Difficulty’ to the power of intention, I wrote the following:

If you want to be of integrity,

Be around people of integrity.

If you want to fill your body with toxic foods,

Surround yourself with toxic foods.

If you want to be physically fit,

Be around people that are physically fit.

If you want to smoke,

Be around people that smoke.

If you don’t want to smoke,

Don’t be around people that smoke.

If you want your children to be grateful,

Surround them with grateful people.

If you want your kids to be expressive,

Surround them with expressive people.

If you want close minded children steeped in a strong belief system,

Surround your children with closed minded people steeped in strong belief systems.

If you want children open to receive a deeper question,

Surround them with people curious to explore a deeper question.

If you want children of fear,

Surround them with fear driven people.

If you want courageous children,

Surround them with courageous people.

If you want to be angry,

Be around angry people, listen to angry music, and watch angry TV

If you want attention,

Be around people that want attention.

If you want to be square,

Be around square people.

If you want to feel abundance,

Be around people that feel abundance.

If you want to hold on to the feeling of victim,

Be around those who hold the feeling of victim.

And in the end, all we can do is ask, “Is it working for you?  Is this the quality of live you want?”  We all have to answer this for ourselves, outside notions of righteousness.  And yet, when I look at nature and see all the “unique communities”, I can see I want to be around a community where people celebrate life, live without fear, in a sense of stewardship to the earth, one another, the cosmos…in full joy and wonder for the mystery.  I want to be around “awake” people.  And so it goes:

If you want to be a scavenger or a parasite,

Be around those who are scavengers and parasites.

If you want to appreciate the value in seeing the big through the small,

Be around people who appreciate seeing the big through the small.

If you want to erode your character and talents,

Be around those who erode their character and talents.

If you want to be sick,

Be around those who whine about their injury or sickness.

If you want to be strong,

Be around those people able to be hope in the healing to their suffering.

If in your life journey you become lost, and if you meet with an obstacle, be on the look out for more of the same.

Look at the clouds and see how they assemble as a family

And as we come to experience our tribe

Can we hold the ‘‘feeling’ of a bigger belonging

Never separate from those we’ve failed to meet from fear

For their difference or apparent weakness?

When I look into your eyes

It’s when I see my heart

It let’s me see myself

I know we’re never apart

I know I can’t hold on

I’ve got to let you be free

And then I clear my heart

For all eternity

Love is

Paying attention

Answering the door.

Giving it my best, in wholehearted action

Joy and happiness

Deeply listening, here and now

Touching silence

For Our World

Mattie J.T. Stepanek

September 12, 2001

We need to stop

Just stop

Stop for a moment

Before anybody

Says or does anything

That may hurt anyone else

We need to be silent

Just silent

Silent for a moment

Before we forever lose

The blessing of songs

That grow in our hearts

We need to notice

Just Notice

Notice for a moment

Before the future slips away

Into ashes and dust of humility

Stop, be silent, and notice

In so many ways, we are the same.

Out differences are unique treasures

We have, we are, a mosaic of gifts

To nurture, to offer, to accept

We need to be

Just Be.

Be for a moment

Kind and gentle, innocent and trusting

Like children and lambs

Never judging or vengeful

Like the judging and vengeful

Differently, yet together,

Before there is no earth, no life,

No chance for peace

And now, let us pray

Differently, yet together,

Yesterday we celebrated Buddha’s enlightenment 2439 years ago.  The word, Buddha, comes from the root of “to wake up”.  During this season celebrations around the world abound across a multitude of cultures and religions, all touching our deeper desire to connect with one another as we break darkness with light,  stirring our sleep with greater awareness and awakening.  We celebrated with morning meditations starting at 4:30, followed by silent conscious outdoor walking as we moved to the Mississippi River in search of the morning star.  The many Christmas lights and the moon served as our light in this early morning hour.  We touched a bigger hope in appreciation to our total connection with everything.  We later celebrated this day with our practice group at Rush City state prison.  We honored the lineage of our teachers, the effectiveness of the teachings in pointing us to a way for lasting happiness.  We discussed the difficulties of the season in a prison setting and how this practice can relieve suffering through a deeper sense of interconnection that breaks the boundaries of the prison wall.  In meditation, the men were directed to simply be aware of breathing in, and then aware of breathing out.  They were led in using the breath as a tool to return to the present moment, unbinding them from the thoughts generating their suffering.  The men spoke to the peace found through this practice expressing their gratitude for freedoms they didn’t know were possible in their setting.

We all bind ourselves in thought.  This limitation causes suffering.  Jesus and the Buddha taught us to relieve this suffering through ‘letting go’, through conscious forgiveness and compassion.  They both changed the world by shedding light on our interconnection with all people and things.  The message was simple, “Love one another as you love yourself”, “Forgive others for your perceived harm as you’d have them forgive you”, and align your actions with your heart for conscious, humble, mindful living in stewardship to body/mind/spirit, family, community, nation and planet.  Jesus brought light through the parable, drawing upon his listeners’ heart felt inner authority as he challenged them to their own truth.  Neither commanded their followers from a position of superiority.  They simply spoke from the light of love, forgiveness and gratitude, forever asking why we don’t behave as we know we must.  They spoke to the poisons of greed, ignorance and fear, to the darkness that engulfs us when numbed in awareness to our true heart’s desire.  They spoke to a lasting joy found within the present moment’s awareness.  They spoke to a joy that couldn’t be taken away, one that would not be dependent upon externals, a lasting happiness found in gratitude for the very gift of the given.  Outside of desire and attachment to past events or anxiety about future events, there’s a place of deep peace.  This is prayer for never ending joy, a deeper meditation touching the felt sense of our connection with all, beyond any notions of birth or death, right or wrong, etc.

In this season so often filled with anxiety for events that may not turn as expected, may we follow their advice and light the candle of love, forgiveness, and gratitude, diminishing the poisons of greed, ignorance and fear?  May we lay down our ego’s desire to be ‘right’, to judge, to persuade another to change to ‘our way’ as we find courage to just sit in joy for the very gift of being?  In this space, we’re solid.  In this space we grow courage and curiosity.  In this space we unbind ourselves from limiting barriers. In this space we speak less and listen more. In this space we’re not afraid to touch or be touched in loving compassion for one another.  In this space, in honor to Buddha and Jesus, we shine our light.

As we explore deeper awareness to our feelings, thoughts, emotions and actions, we can determine whether they’re joining or separating.  Do they lead us deeper in love to our felt sense of interconnection, or away from love with felt sense of separation and restlessness.  Linguistic structure generally favor’s ego’s desire for us to separate.  Certainly, there is a language of the soul that facilitates a joining response.  Semantically, we can play it through poetry, prose and musical lyric.  Syntactically, we can attempt to pull the rug from the separated response by tense and emphasis.  Rather than exploring the separating question of “Who am I?”, how about digging into “Who is ‘I’?”  Or how about moving from, “Who are you?” to “Who is you?”  Can you feel the difference? One has me drifting on the surface of life, tossed around in anxiety by people and events.  The other carries me to a more solid, connecting place.

My mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer November, 1979.  After a month of struggling with her body deterioration I filled with selfish anger at the prospect of not having the physical presence of a mother through my life journey.  I had attached to all the wonderful support a mother gives her son, and no doubt, my challenge to achieve had been most fed by her.  I’ll always remember her syntactic/semantic play in a question that’s changed my life and fed my spiritual exploration.  She said, “Randy, WHAT are YOU holding on to?”  It struck as lightening as I came to peace with her transformation from form to formless.  Here was a fifty-four year old farm wife/teacher/funeral singer, steeped in conservative Norwegian Lutheran belief, providing Buddha’s deepest Noble Truths in a phrase that pulled the rug from me.

The YOU was no longer attached to all I identified with.  The question was bigger than any question previously asked of me.  The YOU wasn’t what I had achieved; it wasn’t what I had accumulated; it wasn’t what I identified with.  The WHAT was empty and full.  There was a deep relief in feeling we could never be separated.  It was like she asked me to find my original face, before she had been born.  Can you imagine that?  My mother was asking me who I was before she bore me…as she was peacefully transforming from her body to the unknown.

I’ve since come to learn that our physical dying is often a lengthy process.  While she still had a month to go before her last breath, there was a bluish/yellow/green halo that I perceived around her as she spoke that day.  Many have called these experiences moments of enlightening.  Tomorrow we celebrate the Buddha’s enlightenment and a few days later we celebrate the light baby Jesus brought to us.  These are all joining experiences, enlightening moments of joining, smashing ego’s temptation to separate us from our linguistically based thoughts.  While the ‘big belonging’ unified experience is usually dissipated from language, for me a deeper study of language and how we use it semantically and syntactically can do a lot for facilitating the unified experience.

This photo was taken December 5, 2009.  Ice forms to about one hundred feet from shore.  The sun reflects on the water and when the light hits a different form (ice) the light expands.  Notice the cross.  Light expands as essence crosses change of form, water to ice.  Just as wave form continually changes, crashing on the shore to realize it’s always been water, it seems it’s during our moments of transformation, changing from one form to another, that light expands, transcending our previous notions of ‘knowing’.  Poof!! No birth…no death.

There’s joy in pleasing oneself, but it’s fleeting.  There’s longer lasting joy in pleasing another.  Yet, both eventually leave a vacuum created by desire and consequent suffering.  As youth, we fantasize the day we’ll have the resources of adults so we can have the material freedom we were ‘deprived’ of.  For me, it was unlimited chocolate candy bars.  I’ll never forget the day of awareness, recognizing that time had come and gone without my recognition of it.  I’ve since had days where I’ve eaten harmful quantities of candy, only to feel guilty and sick at the conclusion.  When it comes to giving to others, it feels better.  The joy is longer lasting, and yet, I’ve not arrived to that place of unconditional giving, that place where I’m immune to being kicked in the teeth after giving.  I know the key is to trust the heart’s intention with the courage and strength to not take another’s response personally.

Yet, there is a better way, a way to maintain joy in a constantly changing universe, even in the midst of suffering.

“When we look at the ocean, we see that each wave has a beginning and an end.  A wave can be compared with other waves, and we can call it more or less beautiful, higher or lower, longer lasting or less long lasting.  But if we look more deeply, we see that a wave is made of water.  While living the life of a wave, it also lives the life of water.  It would be sad if the wave did not know that it is water.  It would think, “Some day, I will have to die.  This period of time is my life span, and when I arrive at the shore, I will return to nonbeing.”  These notions will cause the wave fear and anguish.  We have to help it remove the notions of self, person, living being and life span if we want the wave to be free and happy.  A wave can be recognized by signs–high or low, beginning or ending, beautiful or ugly.  But in the world of water, there are no signs.  In the world of relative truth, the wave feels happy as she swells, and she feels sad when she falls.  She my think, “I am high,” or “I am low,” and develop a superiority or inferiority complex.  But when the wave touches her true nature—which is water—all her complexes will cease, and she will transcend birth and death.”

“We need the relative world of the wave, but we also need to touch the water, the ground of our being, to have real peace and joy.  We shouldn’t allow relative truth to imprison us and keep us from touching the absolute truth.  Looking deeply into relative truth, we penetrate the absolute.  Relative and absolute truths inter-embrace.”

The Heart of Buddha’s Teachings by Thich Nhat Hanh

There’s lasting joy in deepening awareness to our non-separateness.  There’s no longer the illusion of trusting another since we are each other.  Expectation of others diminishes as we move to unconditional love, free from the binding of judgment.  For sure, I’m now in this body, as wave, dealing with the challenges of living and the suffering from desire and attachment.  Yet, my solidity and lasting joy comes from the ‘felt’ sense of always being water.  Isn’t it strange that our lasting joy in an ever changing, impermanent world, comes from touching the permanence of our interconnection?  Wave…just Be it.  Water…just Be it.  Change…just Be it.  Non-change…just Be aware of it. Joy…just Be it.

Sweatshirt Front

The real test of our ‘being’ can be a deeper looking at what we do and what we say.  Can we review our actions and words of the day and assess what was joining and what was separating?  Can we see where our level of ‘joining’ stopped?  Perhaps you felt very ‘joined’ with your church congregation during a Sunday service, but separated from those of a different religious belief system?  Perhaps you felt very ‘joined’ with members in your local community, but very separated from those in communities far away?  It seems as though we’re continually being worked to experience a larger sense of belonging as we face global climate issues, rapid economic change, global culture immigration and integration, and massive technological/communication advances.  We have a choice to move to ‘joining’ or ‘separating’, to accept others as ‘us’ in all of our apparent difference or to resist others as ‘us’, holding firm to our cultural belief systems and notions of ‘rightness’.

Ancient spiritual wisdom commands us to accept our enemy as ‘us’.  We’re told to move to the highest level of belonging, transcending our bias and judgment of others, embracing one another with a larger sense of joining.  The level of heart knowing lives here, in this more inclusive space that knows no boundaries.  This is very difficult work, particularly when we perceive threat and consequent feelings of fear.  Is the cancer cell in my body a ‘joined’ member of my community?  Is Osama bin Laden a ‘joined’ member of my community?  Do I carry a weapon to fight those who I perceive as threatening?  In essence, am I moving in love to a larger ‘joining’ or in fear to further separation?

I’m now almost sixty.

They say that’s when a life lived well brings one to elderhood.

Well, if anyone’s interested, here’s my ‘used to, but now’ reflection.

I used to think there were answers, now I find there’s just deeper questions

I used to think my job was to fix things, now I find it’s to be present and listen

I used to think I was right and my job was to change others to think like me

Now I find it’s better to meet in the field between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’

I used to hate being alone, now I find I’m never alone

I used to think I owned things, now I find I never did and never will

I used to think the good approval of friends and family made me better

Now I find it’s all up to me to make me (us) better

I used to hate it when I reached out to others and received no reply

Now I work to accept it

I used to be sloppy in my speech, now I learn it’s better to be quiet

I used to hold my speech in difficult situations, now I learn to listen deeply with my heart

To polish the meaning and purpose of what I say

I used to become angry with my enemies, now I learn they’re my gift for going deeper

I used to take things for granted, now I know nothing’s to be taken for granted

I used to think I was nobody, now I know I’m somebody

I used to think I was somebody, now I know I’m somebody else

I used to think God was ‘up there’, now I feel God everywhere

I used to think there was a goal, now I ‘feel’ there’s just the journey

I used to be filled with ambition, now I’m filled with duty to honor grace given

From where does my action or seeming inaction come from?  If I perceive threat from another desiring me to conform to their desire, what’s the shape of my resistance or allowance?  How can I cause the least harm to them as me or me as them?  In all instance, when my wisdom to act arises from the heart there’s a strong chance for positive result.  Contrarily, when I react from fear, or when my non-doing is fear based, the result is more likely to have an unpleasant result.

Are there any guarantees?  Absolutely not.  Yet, when we commit to the process of love and awakened ‘doing’ outside the realm of duality, we find that compassion and deeper listening are keys to diffusing potential threat.  This dedication to our interdependence upon one another sponsors our courage to show up, pay attention in awakened doing, responsibly do our best, and most importantly, to be easy on ourselves when things don’t turn out as we expected.

This is learning to live a life of love without grasping.  It’s knowing the elements support us…the ground, air, water, and fire.  It’s knowing there’s someone else inside of us that carries the wisdom of loving action, in harmony and rhythm to the flow of life.  The residence for this wisdom is in the heart, not the head or stomach.  Some have called this nonviolent mindfulness.  It’s a space of compassion,  where when I look in your eyes I experience me.  It’s a space of forgiveness, where I’m open to the completeness of the arising moment, no matter what comes up.  It’s a space of gratitude, where I’m forever aware that this form I carry is gift and all moments are surprise and gifts arising.

Trust no one, since it places expectation on another and leads to inevitable disappointment.  Love everyone.  Trust your heart’s knowing as you trust the universe.

Words can only point, abstractions we’ve arbitrarily agreed upon. They either facilitate or hinder our movement to the felt experience of our interconnection.  We often block our learning by insisting that meaning is in the word.  This is not the case, since we each bring our own unique experiences to language and we therefore conclude that meaning is in the person, not the word.  This is a foundational principle from the field of General Semantics.  Put another way, the map is not the territory.  This is emphasized in the Chinese story ‘Pointing at the Moon’.  A dedicated student asks a teacher to explain some difficult text.  The teacher claims he can’t read and the student questions the teacher’s credibility.  The teacher claims that the territory and words are unrelated, stating how the finger can be used to point out the moon, but you don’t need the finger to see the moon.  The teacher points out the absurdity in mistaking the words for the territory, in mistaking the finger for the moon.

The master athlete or musician can not find the words to accurately describe the felt unified experience when subject/object duality is transcended.  The linguistic barriers binding us to our sense of separateness have been released.  Our descriptions of ‘in the zone’, ‘flow’, ‘nirvana’, ‘bliss’, etc., can help us aim to this experience, yet that’s all they can do.  At some point the mind must surrender the abstractions of language, of time and space, and fully enter the present moment in the ‘feeling’ of the unified experience.  At this point it’s all Subject!  I am not my body, separate from other bodies.  I am not the wave rider, separate from the wave.  The felt experience of ‘being’ my body in other bodies, my body in the wave, my awareness in relation to everything, within ‘this precious moment’, is peace.  The felt experience of myself separate, bound in notions of language, time and space, is my restlessness.

I have not found lasting joy in attachments to notions of my separateness.  There’s a transitory pleasure that can come from comparing myself ‘better’ than another.  I have temporary moments of pleasure from ‘my’ achievements and accumulations, yet the Law of Impermanence eventually dissipates this joy and I once again face restlessness.  In the Subject relationship, I can’t ‘have’ anything since nothing can be owned, and I can’t ‘do’ anything without affecting everything.  The observation of energy dissipation (everything changes) and interdependence (everything is connected) leads to the core teaching of all spiritual traditions: Love one another as yourself because you are not separate from one another.  This teaching drives us to ‘not harm’ and hopefully to compassion, even for our perceived enemy.  When our actions move from the heart’s felt sense of connection (love), we steward the advance of life’s abundance.  When our actions move from the mind’s sense of fear and ignorance, we risk harm, claiming justification for collateral damage.  Just as breath practice is a conduit to move from the mind’s restlessness to the heart’s wisdom, so is the phrase ‘just be it’ a tool to move from our ‘doing’, ‘having’ duality to heart’s felt sense of presence and interconnection.

A study of the wave has often been used to distinguish our notions of separateness from a bigger sense of belonging.  Consider the small wave never knowing from where it came, suffering in relation to the much larger waves in its midst.  He considers himself so inferior to the other waves until another wave points out that he hasn’t seen his ‘original face’.  Asking who he is, the compassionate wave explains how the wave is just a temporary form, that all waves are just water.  Upon realizing that his fundamental essence was water, the small wave came to peace and he no longer suffered.  Many waves suffer all the way to crashing upon some distant shore, only to realize they’ve always been water and always will be water.  While great suffering comes from the subject vs. object relationship, our joy, peace and courage move from our ‘felt’ sense of interconnection and continuation.

The felt sense of ‘just be it’ is always there, available to us even in this moment.  Try it.  Breathing in, surrendering my notions of separateness, I affirm meeting this moment fully with the felt experience of gratitude for the opportunity to participate, “Yes”.  Breathing out I’m filled with joy in my expression of gratitude, “Thank you”.  We can cultivate our practice in deepening awareness (interconnection and impermanence) and gratitude in the “Yes” response or we can remain in our restlessness with “No” and failure to recognize the gift in the given experience or opportunity.  Put simply, can we meet ‘this moment’ in awareness to ‘the gift given’ in awareness to our ‘not separate’ experience, forever changing, arising moment to arising moment?  Easy words to say, but extremely difficult to apply with a disciplined practice.

So the direction is to diminish our subject vs. object orientation and consequent feelings of separation and restlessness and to enhance our all Subject orientation.  The linguistic based thoughts arising from ‘just do’ and ‘just have’ seem to foster the separated experience.  ‘Just be’ seems better suited to move us from the thought to the feeling for more considerate living in stewardship to the health of all as one.  Put another way, aware doing from the heart is great being.  Unaware doing from felt orientations of separation has great potential for harm (notions of fixing).  From this perspective, aware non-doing has great potential for moving us to considerate action with intention to harm none.  Just as the wave came to felt sense of connection as water, our actions change as we experience all things as us, interconnected, forever in change, yet never to disappear.  In peace and joy, this precious moment, please consider adding ‘just be it’ to your arsenal of tools that aim to break the subject vs. object barrier.