Sabbath

Today was a Sabbath day for me, a time to stop the clock, allow no-time to dominate, to live in a field of non-judgment where productivity is a non-issue. This, my friends, is a serious challenge. For me. What about you?

As the evening settles in and the sun gently falls to it's nightly rest, I look at the precious minutes left and wonder what I will do with them. What was my goal in this day of non-doing? Perhaps the goal was experiencing my self without demands. Experiencing myself without pushing the envelope, without any benchmarks of accomplishment. What an unfamiliar paradigm.

Even in non-doing, I realize I had set up expectations of accomplishment. I was going to: read some inspirational material, write some revelations, meditate, exercise, and solve all of my issues. Ha.

So now I look back on the day and realize that some was done and some was not. Where is the value in each?

Done: Prayer, meditation, writing, exercise.
What was not done: yes. exactly.

The exercise of not-doing is in non-judgment, in acceptance of self and circumstances and inertia. Sitting in inertia (the property of an object to remain at rest or to remain in motion) is rife with self-judgment fro me. The visual for me is of a marble that has come to a stop, and a million ideas swatting at the marble to get it moving in a direction.

That's an interesting turn of phrase: direction. So is that the source of discomfort? Lack of direction? Hmmm. . . .

Above all, I am learning from the experience through awareness. And this day of rest has revived me, leaving me restless and eager to DO. Tomorrow is another day.

Larry
PS I welcome any comments. . . .

Another Layer

This morning I was exploring in my head all the implications of being vs. doing. It seemed triggered by a recent comment from a friend; "You are the sum of your choices." But I started thinking about those choices and how they were the precursors to certain actions that can alter the course of our lives. And where we end up is a result of those choices.

But are we the result of those actions and choices? Is who we are based on what we do?

I would say that traditional thought would give "YES" as the absolute answer to that question. And traditional thought evaluated our character and our essence by what we do, what our actions created.

Yet, I am struck by the thought that our essence, our being, is not at all reliant on the actions that we undertake. From a being perspective, is any action even required?

Case in point; children. As young children, did we have any evaluation of self or others based on actions and choices? Considering that a young child forgives within minutes, I would say that the answer is no. There was no consideration of the results of our doing, the doing was the complete reward and goal. Our value was not in the least associated with what we did.

That is the purest example of our essence and our being. We only add judgement to our actions as we learn them from those we admire. And then that judgement shifts from being to doing.

Another way to look at it: What remains when all the doing is stripped away? What if all of the choices and results are erased from our chalkboard of life? What if we have absolutely nothing to show for all that we have done? What remains is the being that is timeless and unquestionably priceless.

The fact is, in my mind, that I am not the sum of all of my choices. Rather, my life is the sum of all of my choices; I am always complete and priceless, without lifting a finger.

Another case of mental vertigo, when the basis of life is shifted to an unfamiliar paradigm. But with that shift is an incredible gift of freedom from past judgments, and even freedom from time. Try it.

Please comment.
Peace
Larry

Criticism

After a generous evening of musical instruction from a kind, generous, and incredibly talented friend, I was discouraged. I realized that this friend had intended to help me, but my goal was to show that I was a good musician on my own. He gave me a wake up call that I was not a musician of his caliber, and that my desire to be included was a bit ambitious at this point in my learning curve.

The fact is, I had not aspired to that level of performance until I had begun to play with other musicians in public. This was quite the stretch for me, way out of my comfort zone. But I pushed myself, set aside my fears, and jumped in with both feet.

I was stroking my ego with the positive response, and feeding my joy with the simple pleasure of creating music with the synergy of other live musicians. What a blast!

I can feel the correction to my ego after last evening, and I know that this is a small bump in the road. I am determined to see where I can go with the musical talent that I have been given. I have decided to let my own light shine. Let the chips fall where they may. And I will focus on the joy that I derive from the experience.

Larry

Focus

“ ...what I focus on in life is what I get. And if I concentrate on how bad I am or how wrong I am or how inadequate I am, if I concentrate on what I can’t do and how there’s not enough time in which to do it, isn’t that what I get every time? And when I think about how powerful I am, and when I think about what I have left to contribute, and when I think about the difference I can make on this planet, then that’s what I get. You see, I recognize that it’s not what happens to you; it’s what you do about it.”

-- W. Mitchell

Focus is apparently one of my challenges in life, and one that I am practicing much more than ever. Right now, a large part of my focus intention is to remain on task when I am working, or even doing something for fun. It seems that I had a fear of not being involved in everything, so my old tendency was to try to do it all, while accomplishing nothing. But now I create a focus in the morning and I am much more successful with the positive outcomes.

The quote above empowers me to go further and include the focus of abundance and joy and service in my life. Sometimes I tell myself that I am stuck with this bad mood, and other times I can tell myself to STOP and replace the old thoughts (they are just thoughts) with new thoughts that are much more fun and easy.

It's ironic that I haven't mastered this practice, that reminders like the quote above are always useful and helpful for me to change my life.

Non-Judgement

Each morning, I set an intention for the day. Sometimes I remember it, I put it on my To-Do map, but just setting the intention can make a difference, even when it never shows up in my mind the rest of the day. Joy, success, peace; simple intentions that I was recently told is a Buddhist practice for "Keeping in Mind" or "Mindfulness".

This morning my intention came to me early: non-judgment. And I realized that, as an intention, it is a negative statement. Non-judgment means I am trying to stop something, I am creating resistance to something in my mind or my life. When I resist, I give it more power.

And where did the judgment come from, anyway? It was a habit that was developed in my youth as a constant motivator. There was judgment for my grades and scholastic achievement and non-achievement; there was judgment in athletic endeavors; everything was graded. As we learn in The Four Agreements, after a while, we take over the judgment ourselves, and we become the Great Judge of everything we do.

I can see now judgment was used as a motivator to push me along to accomplish greater things. Would that it had worked that way. And now? I continue to judge myself because I fear that there will be no motivation to accomplish anything if I stop judging. The fear of judging myself is seen by my old self as a motivator for doing my To-Do list.

What happens when Judgment is no longer my motivator? What is the worse case scenario? I can see that a lot of activites would be shunned because they did not fulfill my purpose to become the best-version-of-myself. Conversely, if activities were fulfilling my core values, I would feel a sense of joy. If an activity did not fulfill my core values, it would not feel rewarding.

And what happens without judgment? What happens when I fall short? I can choose again. That's all. Just choose again, and turn back to those things that are leading me to my higher good.

A challenging idea, because now I have to have faith in my ability to discern what is contributing to my highest good. To have faith in the ability to see and hear and know what is giving me passion in my life. To have faith that I can live my life well without the fear of judgment.

This is a journey into uncharted territory. We sail at dawn.