just be itJust 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.
Can we have people just sit in silence? Can we humble ourselves to not knowing? Can we explicitly say “I admit I don’t know everything“? Can we collectively breathe in and breathe out in gratitude for the opportunity to just be here, to just be present? Can we admit we don’t know when consciousness enters the brain or when it leaves the body? Can we allow compassion and love for one another to rule those decisions rather than the fixed beliefs of those who have done everything to gain power over us? Can we aim to not cause harm? Can we aim for the best for all with harm to none? Can we recognize this life that we’ve been given is precious moment by moment? No judgment. No complaint. Just breathing in “yes” to this moment, just breathing out “thank you” for this moment.
I recently discovered this interview with Patrice Papke, Michael Mullin and Heather Johnson. Patrice and Michael were Bikram Yoga instructors that greatly facilitated getting back into the body, out of the head, with a regular practice. Impermanence happens. Michael left his body a little over a year ago. The studio Patrice taught in has just closed. Change hurts, but I will carry their insights with me and hope their wisdom helps you through the difficult changes of this pandemic.
In the throws of “I don’t know land”, it’s imperative to move from the pains of “to have“ and “to do”, resting in the moment, and “just being”. It’s a place where we find refuge and grounding.
Nothing stays the same. Everything affects everything. Nothing disappears.
It can be extremely challenging if you’ve bought into equating your ‘mattering’ to what you have or what you’ve done. We can spend lifetimes chasing after the approval of others, forever seeking more stuff, more recognition, more attention and a bigger audience to what we do. No doubt, validation from others feeds our self esteem. It also feeds our sense of separateness. The more we have the more we put attention to not losing it. The more attention we get, the more we want it. Yet, our real sense of ‘mattering’ begins with putting loving attention to the matter that transports us through this thing we call life, the body.
Ground zero for mattering is the body. If you’re alive, you matter. If anything is alive, it matters. There’s a recognition of the sacred in all life. We may use arbitrary symbols to create words and thoughts that may seem to be matter. They’re not. They are much like the perspiration from the body, they come and go. I can attach to the concept of mattering due to my possessions and accomplishments. Yet, sooner or later this breaks down. It’s of human nature to age, to face disease, to say goodbye to the body, goodbye to all our stuff and all our relationships.
In the midst of this pandemic, the felt experience of worth or worthlessness has touched so many. If you’re struggling for food and/or shelter, in full survival mode, you may already have lots of experience in dealing with those feelings of low self esteem. If you’re someone new to the humbled experience, new to unemployment, new to spaciousness in your day, and new to losing attention from others, you are probably being worked pretty hard. Thoughts of ‘not enough’ may be running rampant in your head. Anxiety about uncertainty may be causing great stress.
I’ve found the most effective treatment for this ‘squeeze’ is to simply put my attention to the breath. I begin with the body, deepening awareness to the mystery of its functioning, extending gratitude for all that it does for me. The first step is to move into the present moment, accepting it fully as gift, gift for the opportunity to participate in this thing called life. It’s most helpful when I can eliminate personal possessive pronouns when thinking of the body. Instead of directing loving attention to ‘my hand’, I’ll extend warmth and appreciation to ‘the hand’, often prefacing my gratitude with, ‘dear hand’. I learned this from a serious knee injury I sustained at the age of twelve. It was not helpful to whine and complain about the injury. The more I did this the more the knee hurt. I learned early on that the more loving attention I gave the damaged knee, the better it responded in the healing process. That injury had me confined in a hospital for a month, in a wheel chair for three months, and on crutches for eight months. My surgeon understood the healing process and challenged me hard to stay in the moment, working through the pain of the exercises he gave me. I suffered to the degree I stepped into craving things the way they were before the injury and suffered to the extent I pushed him to definitive answers to my uncertain future. He did speculate that I’d need an artificial knee at twenty-two years of age. I’m now almost seventy and daily give gratitude to the beautiful functioning of that knee. That knee matters. That knee is matter. That knee deserves my resolve to care for it, to exercise and strengthen it, to give attention and compassion to it when pain sensations arise, and to steward it the best I can.
Our attention may be all that we own. Others are continually asking us for it. We may feel like we matter when we get it from others for what we have or what we’ve done. Yet, our real mattering comes from waking up to our matter, giving thanks for how it serves us and stewarding its functioning through awareness training and conscious consumption. At this time, for me, it’s critical to tend to the body strengthening the immune system to face another potential viral predator.
When cultivating this sense of ‘mattering’, it’s not a comparative to others. It’s full recognition that all life matters, nothing superior, nothing inferior. That’s the beauty of waking up to the illusion of our separateness. When we care for the body, no complaint/no complaint, we care for the universe. When we abuse the body or recklessly put it in harms’ way, we harm the universe. That’s why awareness training is never ending as we continually deepen in balanced, awake behavior that takes us just beyond our edge of performance. Moving deeper, we’re ever increasing our capacity to hold a balanced posture, to move deliberately, from a sense of support, gratitude and compassion…finding the true meaning in ‘take care’.
You matter. You have always mattered. You will always matter, nothing disappears. You are loved. You have always been loved. You will always be loved. You are supported. You have always been supported. You always will be supported. You are not alone. You have never been alone. You never will be alone. You matter. You have always mattered. You will always matter. Living in the divided mind, the us vs. them mind, is living in the profane. Living in the unified mind, the mind that wakes to the illusion of separateness, is living in the sacred. In the sacred there’s no birth, no death. Just this precious moment. Just Be It.
Now is the time to increase capacity to meet change (impermanence) with equanimity.
It’s a time to find the value of ‘less can be more’
Use less toilet paper and appreciate it more. Less water and appreciate it more. Less food and appreciate it more. Lesson your load and appreciate it more.
Discover the spiritual and scientific truth that joy is the necessary consequence of truth.
Leave a lighter footprint, not from fear but from a sense of stewardship for others and those who follow. Real happiness and well being comes from awareness, little self (ego) settling the big Self (inter Being), settles into the curious open mind beyond judgment and assumption. It humbles in fullness to the unknown, the Mystery (God, Divine, Allah, Jehovah, Ram, whatever name you use). Discover the Original Face, the one worn before the parents were born.
When we can come to that place where we’re on our knees in gratitude for everything, when we can release our ego’s claim to knowing, where we can humble ourselves to ever think we can define or fully describe God, where we can touch the felt presence of that which is beyond, we touch peace. Spiritual integration has deep respect for all as gift. There is a sense of wonder with each opportunity of breath. There is a discipline to pause in finding the gift of the given. At this point negativity evaporates, energy increases, and a sense of equanimity fills the body/mind. At this point one truly experiences the mystery in all, the ignorance from our separated thoughts diminishes and we come to wholeness, healed past our notions of being alone. As Rumi has written, at this point we step into a field beyond notion of right knowing and wrong knowing, ready to explore the mystery together. At this point we surrender the potential violence that comes from our beliefs and opinions. At this point, through spiritual integration, we find our humanity.
The pandemic has brought change to all of us in ways we can only imagine. Perhaps it will allow us to shift from an economy without moral conscience to one of stewardship where we honor those who can live well with less and stop honoring those who hoard and crave wealth/power.
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