When I stop for a moment and look
closely,
I can't miss noticing and being astonished by how much
work
we do, how much effort we expend, how many hoops we jump through, how
much time we invest, in order to simply be. For many of us, the
focus is on learning to experience just being. By the same
token, if I again stop for just a moment and look
closely,
I can't miss also noticing and being astonished by how much
work
we do, how much effort we expend, how many hoops we jump through, how
much time we invest, in order to not be ie in order to
avoid experiencing being. For many more of us, the focus
is on whatever it takes to avoid being.
Now I'm not about to propose we do anything about this strange
state
of affairs. And neither am I about to propose we don't do
anything about it - not yet anyway. I prefer instead (for now, at
least) to simply look at it for the oddity it is ie for the
enigma it is. And it's not merely a passing enigma either,
and nor is it just a local enigma. No, it's widespread. It's rampant.
We're
human be-ings.
Yet we have, for the most part, a
relationship
with being in which being either seems inaccessible for
us, and so we
work,
expend effort, jump through hoops, and invest time in order to learn to
experience just being ... OR ... we have a
relationship
with being in which being seems abhorrent for us, and so
we
work,
expend effort, jump through hoops, and invest time doing whatever it
takes for us to avoid experiencing just being.
As for the time and effort we invest in order to learn to experience
just being, that's enigmatic because we already are. The idea of
doing something, anything, in order to be, is fraught with absurdity:
what could possibly be required of us in order to be that which we
already are? And as for the time and effort we'll invest in avoiding
experiencing just being ("like
dogs trying not to be
dogs"),
it's just as enigmatic because we already are (in other
words,
it's the opposite slant but the same reason). And the idea that it's
possible to do something, anything, in order to avoid being, is absurd:
how could it be possible for us to avoid being that which we already
are?
It's obvious (if we tell
the truth
about it) what we do in order to avoid being. For example, we engage in
activities which numb us to the experience of just being. We over-eat.
We use alcohol and nicotine. We
self-medicate.
We stay on the surface with gossip and with
cheapened talk
(listen:
contrary to the
common
adage, talk isn'tcheap
- it's we who
cheapen talk).
Whatever there is to confront (emotions, unresolved conflicts, guilt,
regret etc) on the way to experiencing simply being, we choose not to,
and we recoil from it. But because it's there anyway, avoiding it
requires hard
work
requiring evasive action. Here's where it gets
interesting:
what's not quite so obvious is whatever it is we do in
order to learn to experience just being, will get in the
way of being, as effectively if not more so as what we do
to avoid being.
There's a long, long inventory of what we do in order to learn to
experience just being. Rather than attempt to enumerate this long,
varied list, I assert the list items would each have one principle in
common,
and that principle is: "This isn't what being looks like
(nor what it's s'posed to look like) ... so there must be
something to get,
something to find out, something to discover, in order to just be.".
It's the principle itself which is erroneously held as
self-evident
ie as blindingly assured like an
epistemology,
which gets in the way of just being. And as I said, it gets in the way
of us being, just as effectively if not more so as, anything we do to
avoid being.
If you're one of those people I call
"Friends
of Being", you're one of those for whom being is enough. You're one of
those who simply don't have the principle "This isn't what being looks
like" in the way, neither are you invested in ways of avoiding being.
Being is that which we already are.
Friends
of Being live in this obviousness ie in the obviousness that this (ie
all of this) is what being looks like. There's
nothing
to learn. There's
nothing to do
in order to simply be.
This is It!
This is enough.