My Essence and Me: The Universal Order of Things
I feel within myself an essence, a sense of being…
It is made up of awareness,
and compassion towards all living beings.
It is that part of me that begins to tear up
when I see someone giving to another who is in need.
This essence is experienced as a sense of Beingness, which impacts
my behaviour: when to speak, when to be silent,
how to relate with what is happening…
all of this within an atmosphere of caring for others.
This essence is experienced as a source of healing…
It lacks reactivity and craving…
In fact, I become aware of my reactiveness
when it emerges.
In Christianity, what I am describing is referred to as,
“The Christ within us,” and in Buddhism, it is referred to as our “Buddha nature.”
This essence defies egoic attempts to define it, it just is.
Such essence is a true expression of what our humanity
is, at its very core… we are able to live and share ourselves within our human
family, in a healing process that transcends our isolation
from ourselves and one another.
I have found that by being one with myself
in the present moment, by following my path with heart,
that which is due to find me connects with where I am, and
what it is that I need presents itself.
By being one with ourselves in the present moment,
we become one with the Universe’s natural order
of being, itself.
Reflections on My Mindfulness Practice
Being aware and present
focuses me in the now of life.
Bringing awareness into the present
also reinforces what matters…
It puts me in touch with the importance of
expressing compassion towards myself and others.
Sometimes the strength of this calling is emotionally
moving, as I relate to others’ suffering and sense
of helplessness, as well as to my own…
Who we are, as members of the human family,
is the awareness and compassion that defines our
very essence.
It is the part of us that treats others as we would
like to be treated.
Our Shadow Within
It is a repository of painful thoughts and feelings we experience as we travel through our younger years,
where we bring to situations and experiences
our limited understanding of words and feelings and life.
These shadows are filled with storylines that we create, that attempt
to make sense of ourselves, others and life itself.
Our storylines are often filled with the primary theme of “I’m not good enough,” that “there is something wrong with me.”
I have no options but to live with the lies that my mind creates,
that I believe to be true.
Part of the pain is about not knowing where to turn, in my moments of loneliness and suffering.
As I travel through life, the lens through which I perceive myself and others harkens back to moments I have known before.
The more that I avoid dealing with this part of me, the
more I feel an emptiness, a sense of hopelessness.
We need to learn that what we resist, persists—
what we turn away from stays with us, until we acknowledge our misunderstandings and beliefs about ourselves—
and that our shadows dissipate as the light of consciousness begins to shine on them.
It is also important to know that we do the best we can, with what we have to work with.
If we had more to work with, we would have behaved differently.
In the Absence of Awareness
Our unmet needs and the hurt that follows,
as we try to make sense out of what seems to be…
Our lashing out in anger,
explosions of frustrations that make no difference…
Things remain the same,
no changes, no lessening of confusion or pain…
Reactive ‘thoughts’ begin to form conclusions that
give birth to dogmatic views of what is:
I’m right, and the cause-agents of my unfair plight
are responsible.
With no fix in sight,
conclusions reached in a vacuum of information
and misunderstanding…
Beginning to believe the unbelievable,
making conclusions predicated on untruths:
assertions that the election was stolen, that the pandemic isn’t,
that the Earth isn’t being destroyed through greed and human behaviours,
that wearing a mask is up to me, and that it is my right to
risk my own death and the death of my loved ones…
Lost, some are in the darkness of betrayal,
whose birth began with unmet needs and the
ignorance that follows, arriving at empty conclusions
in a maze of untruths and reactive behaviors… living within an
atmosphere of denial and delusion, in the absence of awareness.
Namaste.
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