The Rich Vegetarian

Simply Being | Simple Being

Archives (page 5 of 273)

Commitment

Committing to what we want in the moment is simple, not easy.

It is far easier (not simpler) to make plans in advance, hold ourselves accountable, use guilt as a means to “do the right thing,” frighten ourselves a little (“If I don’t do ___, then ___”), and so on. I think we feel that we are our own worst enemy, and that it’s supremely important to protect ourselves… from ourselves. What if we succumbed to the wish (ooh, desire) of the moment, and did something terribly unsafe or unhealthy or irresponsible or stupid?

Committing to the moment means being fully present and attentive to whatever it is that arises, including our own response. It requires us to keep aside the previous plan, maybe ditch it altogether, make a new one? It requires a certain devotion to the moment, coupled with trust in our individual ability to respond correctly. In the absence of either, it is far easier to refer back to previous plans, ideas and concepts, notions, etc.

And yet, the truth is that we are dynamic beings, fully capable of making excellent plans, dumping them for better ones, and accomplishing fun, creative, meaningful results.

Notes to Self

Don’t try to understand your thoughts or your experience. Be one with it.

Don’t act on your thoughts or experience. Fuse with it.

Experience is arising, and all is experience. Even emptiness is an experience, no different than any other.

Experience arises in you, as you. You are intimately attached to the shape, form, color, etc. of the experience. Indeed, it derives fully from you. Imagine a balloon emerging from you, inflating, deflating, disappearing. This balloon is the shape and form of your experience, and it includes the physical world, the mental and emotional stuff, all of that… Everything constitutes the balloon, and it goes away when you fall asleep.

Because each one of us experiences the world in an entirely unique way, it follows that the world is our unique creation. Just because it seems like many of us have similar experiences of the world, it doesn’t validate the existence of the world as a separate entity. It simply means that we have internalized similar ideas, hence conjuring up “similar worlds.”

Not to believe or disbelieve experience but to simply see it, hold it in the hollow of your palm. And that requires no believing or disbelieving.

SO, fear is an experience, too, as changing and changeable as any other. Now, if you swing to either side (belief, disbelief), it gets sticky. If you simply watch, it moves through.

Similar to the experience of energy (high, middling, low, stagnant) that does not stick. It is the same phenomenon, or the rhythm/flow pattern.

What of action? That also emerges, either from past ideas, or from fresh, new space… Simply watch?

Swim into the discomfort!

Eyes of Love

“You know, I still think you are one of the handsomest guys I have ever seen.”

“Hmm, hmm.”

It’s true, it really is! I have been seeing his face for decades now, and I still find it strikingly handsome.

I find my father has an unusually kind/sweet face, and as for Mummy, well… her countenance reflects such sweet kindness, plus she has the most radiant skin ever. Not to mention my sister who is cuteness personified, even as she enters her 40s. And then there are my friends who are all beautiful, noble women.

I wonder if it’s at all possible to recognize Beauty unless viewed through the eyes of Love. Maybe it’s Love (love?) that sheds light on what is, or perhaps it is the one that blinds us from what is. I don’t know, and do I really care?

Habits

It’s an interesting phenomenon when a habit dissolves, and there is not another one to take its place. For instance, dinner used to be a habit, and now it’s poof… gone! A wide expanse of time has opened up in the evenings. No dinner, no cleanup… all this time, what is a person to do?

I love this quote by novelist Susan Ertz. “Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”

“I can’t function without my morning chai,” “I cannot end a meal without yogurt and rice,” “I cannot wear leather,” and so on. All habits, I think? And as I realized during recent travels, yes, I can function without morning chai, and yes, I just bought a leather purse!

I wonder if we define ourselves by these habits, and when they dissolve, we think we are dissolving, too. And prolly that’s why we hasten to find new ones. (Or perhaps, we are frightened of empty space and time.)

(I, for one, have a hard time developing new habits. No sooner do I make a resolution than I am plotting to break free of it!)