Busy

Tibetan Dzogchen master Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche describes the shock he experienced when he first came to the United States. Again and again, he heard a strange mantra: “I’m busy.” He came to realize that to say “I’m not busy” would be construed to mean there was something wrong. Something abnormal.

This rings true with my experience. When I resigned the Medical Director position of the Integrative Medicine program I developed in Corvallis, OR, I went through a prolonged period of distinct discomfort. Not because I had relinquished my role or responsibilities, but because there was no longer a succinct answer to the perpetual question of “what do you do?” Linking our identities to our functions is such a pervasive thing that the accompanying busyness associated has become a requisite to being defined as having value at all.

To “do nothing” is to BE nothing. A bum. A free-loader. A --- nothing.

Or so we think.

What if we unhinge that particular sequence, just for the folly of exploration? What if – just what if – we can BE, first? Just be. Try it now. See what happens. Notice your breathing, sensations, thoughts, feelings – all arising and then passing away. Notice the spaciousness within which all this happens. How peaceful, immense and grand it is.

What I‘ve noticed is that doing also arises from this spaciousness. Like every breath in inevitably leads to a breath out. Or vice versa. But the doing that arises from sequencing the dynamic in this way is ever so much more comfortable. Truer to self. Congruent with my inner state of happiness.

Lest you get the squeamies from the idea that you’ll never be functional again, I assure you that exactly the opposite is true. It’s even possible to accept a long-term job commitment under these conditions. But we won’t be confused, thinking that the ensuing busy-ness of our work is what defines our value. And, because the principles of a place chosen from inner awareness are more likely to be aligned with our values, it will not feel like a death sentence to our soul. It is possible to be settled with activities that are a cheerful alternative to mind-numbing, soul scorching work, if we choose from the inner state of peace and “yes” in the first place.

It’s taken me a few years to be comfortable with this. But I can honestly say that by focusing on my inner state as the central issue most needing attention, I’ve found such creative ideas of what to “do” with my time. I lOVE the experience of sharing from the heart. Whether that is to share my goods with a person who needs them, or my time for a cause. Whether to accept a position aligned with my values in a principled place, or to spend a weekend in silent meditation. The variability to the actions of my days still leaves me in a quandary as to how to answer the question: “What do you do?”, but I find myself more in tune with a river of peace by following this path in life.

We tend to choose our commitments more wisely when we rest first in the abiding peace of Being.
As we’ve so often heard: “Seek ye first the kingdom within”. Indeed, all things ARE aligned with that state when we do. Being in peace ensures that we peacefully respond to each situation that is best geared for the need of that moment, because we are not locked into a preformed idea of “who we are” as an external function. If we are busy, it is of this moment, and there may well be equally comfortable moments when we can say, with clear conscience: “I’m enjoying not being busy right now. And you?”

Sometimes Spaciousness Calls

If you’ve been feeling out of sorts lately – wanting “time-out” from frenzy and busyness – you’re not alone. In the increasingly frenetic pace of modern times, we who stroll to a slower drummer find ourselves longing for a simpler time. It may be fantasia. It may be our lives never were all that simple.

But we long for it just the same.

We long for lingering conversations that take the time to circle ‘round to a depth of feeling in which we know our souls have touched. We wonder, some days, what we’ve “accomplished”, though we’re sure we feel exhausted by the labor if it.

We yearn for the caress of a soft breeze on our cheek and a smiling sun that we pause to feel in our heart.

And we know there is something missing when we’re just plain busy.

How can this be? That when our time slots are the most crammed we can feel the most empty? We recognize that our nurturance and sustenance come from something other than “things”, including “things on our calendar to do”.

There’s a different math involved here. That which seems empty is full. The deep quiet is brimming with life. In us abides a secret longing to awaken to that quiet space – the Source of all the “things of form”. When we notice the lack of fulfillment in the clutter of busyness, we often gain the necessary motivation to commit to the arduous task of this awakening.

It is not that there is an absence of life in the things of this world. Rather, we can hardly notice the burgeoning life of “here” when we scurry along with the primary focus of trying to get to the next thing “on time”. Sinking into the depth needed to notice the fullness of the moment needs a pause. Enough time for the breath to get in before we shove it out and on to the next item on the list.

Some may have perfected the art of “being in the moment” so adroitly that they can fully fathom every pin’s head of experience. But, for most of us, we need enough time to gather all of ourself into the experience of the moment in order to plumb its potential juice.

Sometimes we want to stand still long enough to savor. This moment. This dialogue. This taste. This experience.

Because – sometimes Spaciousness is calling us Home.