Being Presence

"As long as you are unaware of Being, you will seek meaning only within the dimension of doing and of future, that is to say, the dimension of time. And whatever meaning or fulfillment you find will dissolve or turn out to have been a deception. Invariably, it will be destroyed by time. Any meaning we find on that level is true only relatively and temporarily." pg. 263

"In other words, not your aims or your actions are primary, but the state of consciousness out of which they come." pg. 265

 A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, by Eckhart Tolle

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Fresh from a memorial service for a friend, my heart was wide open and awareness felt expanded. The gathering was more of a celebration than a lamentation. She was dying, so she helped to plan the service. She chose the caterer, the menu, the musicians and dancers, and the program of songs to be shared. As we who are still embodied danced, sang, ate, and shared testimonials, I reflected on her life and the community she influenced. She was an icon, to me, of wholesome living. She expressed her creativity fully though writing, singing and dancing, leading the way for many other people to join in. She dared to explore a wide variety of occupations, some very physically demanding and intimate with the natural world such as fishing, farming, and gardening. She grew an organic garden for her family and raised free-range poultry.  Every time I saw her, she glowed with a sincere smile. The caring lilt in her voice at times lifted me from discouragement into renewed hope and faith that things could get better in my own life when I was most uncertain of that. She was encouraging, and down to earth, a dreamer, but also very practical. She was intimately involved in life, not living on the edge but diving deeply into it.

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In some places in the world, just surviving is the challenge. No one goes to work out at a gym when they have to carry water for miles in heavy vessels balanced on their heads. When the basic needs of survival are met, however, and there are resources to spare, a huge emphasis may be placed on developing and improving the body and mind. The project of getting in good shape may become a personally chosen focus, rather than a byproduct of some necessary survival activity.

Where I live, many people work out regularly at the gym and outdoors, practice various forms of yoga and meditation, spend "quality time" in nature, and sing and dance until they glow, for recreation, health, and personal expression. Many people I know have the opportunity to explore trends in healthy eating on the micro and macro level, buying expensive nutritional supplements in health food stores and growing their own organic gardens full of dark leafy greens.

On the level of the mind, my community offers vast possibilities for intellectual and creative exploration. Whether in local college classes, free programs through the libraries, or online study, people with even a modest income and a modicum of free time may peruse a vast web of information. Even those of us who fill unglamorous service roles in a seasonal tourist industry (such as cleaning at inns) may also be writers, artists, philosophers, and former world travelers, with resumes that may seem to represent more than one lifeline!

I am grateful to have had all these rich life experiences and a mind-expanding education, but for me, the focus has changed dramatically over the past decade. I used to be deeply concerned about whether or not I was living up to my full potential. Was the work I was doing expressing my creativity and talents? Was it making enough of a difference in the world? How could the impact of one small person's actions make the world a better place when there were new problems of gargantuan scale cropping up daily?

Part of what fueled my efforts was fear. I feared that without my intensely urgent participation to make a difference, the world would slide even further into chaos and darkness. There was a battle to be fought. Sitting it out was a sin.  I feared that if I did not work to my full potential I would be guilty of not trying hard enough, and would suffer regret at wasting my "one precious life." I feared reaching the end of my life and looking back and seeing that I had not lived to the fullest–whatever that meant. There was an urgency to develop myself, to become something more complete, to build up experience and someday, somehow, earn a sense of having "arrived."

Self development and selfless service also got linked to health. I held the belief that if I lived my life to the fullest, expressed my creativity with a passion, worked diligently to process whatever inner emotional homework came up, focused on positive thinking, beamed a positive attitude, worked hard to eat well and stay fit and help other people and the world through doing meaningful work, the reward would be good health. My friend was a shining example of all of the efforts above. But, as we who are still embodied found out, even such people can die, in middle age, of cancer. She was a year and a day younger than me.

Several well known spiritual teachers, who were thought to be enlightened, have died of cancer. In this world, things happen to individuals. Our individual selves want there to be ways to control life, ways to maneuver through life with the least amount of pain and suffering. But sometimes even when you "do all the right things" your time in a particular body is shorter than that of someone who doesn't.

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What struck me most about the memorial service for my friend was that the room seemed infused by her presence. She seemed to be nowhere in particular–yet everywhere at once. Another close friend of mine, a teacher, died several years ago, also in middle age. Her presence also feels real when I tune into it. When I hear a sparrow chirping I remember her poetry about sparrows, but there's a more immediate timeless sense of her being able to hear this particular sparrow's song right now. When we are "in love" with someone, doesn't it sometimes seem that the essence of that person is everywhere, all around us? We seem to "see" them in the vast blue sky, the sunset whisps of cloud, the way light slants through pines. We can't put our finger on where, exactly, they are, they simply seem to be everywhere, like the paper that a watercolor painting is painted upon. No matter where you look in the painting, the backdrop holding it all together is there. Love opens us to the awareness of Being that both expresses through and transcends the physical. We become aware, we remember, that we are–that everyone IS–this presence. 

Having someone you know die can be a great gift. Becoming so ill you almost die can also be a great gift. Losing a career or a relationship or a home or a lot of money can be a gift. Anything that rocks your sense of proportion, that pushes you to see beyond what you thought was real, can be a gift. It can help you see what is still there, even when what seemed to hold your world together disappears. Anything that acts as a still point to the persistence of doing, planning, becoming, and trying to get somewhere else, anything that even momentarily stops some self-driven agenda in its tracks.

It has been a relief, for me, to discover and know for sure that I don't have to learn any more in order to become a "better" person. I no longer worry about whether or not I am living up to my full potential. I am as at-ease ironing sheets for three hours as painting or teaching a creatively inspired social studies class on global awareness. Day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, much richness of experience has been accumulated. I still hedge on the side of eating more kale and fewer cookies, but I enjoy both just as much, one is no longer consumed as compensation for the guilt of the other. I am aware, when I love someone, that our time in this physical form is limited. What a wonder it is, to meet you as this! The game of Being Presence while testing out inhabiting this particular form! Now that there is no longer a goading fear of not being enough, no urgency of need to work on perfecting the body and mind, there is even more delight in the ordinary moment. Typically a lot gets done in an average day, but the quality of living it no longer has the strain or weight or rush or seriousness that it used to. I'm already here, now, as Awareness, as Presence. Everything flows from that.