The
Dimension of Being
It is possible recognize that our basic existence as living
beings is far more than the contracted fixation of a
projected thought-story. By looking into our experience we
can discover that the story is spontaneously happening, and
we also discover that there is this whole greater dimension
of Being which is much more tangible than the story, and is
the ever present basis of that story. When this Being is
revealed to be our own identity, rooted in this simple
sense of existing - who we take ourselves to be is no
longer dictated by the content of that story, but becomes
based in this faceless Presence that is the basis for the
spontaneous arising of everything. With this natural shift
of perspective the story does not become suppressed or
denied either - radically, it is allowed to be exactly how
it is for the first time possibly ever. The pathological
manipulation of the narrative of the self-story, that sense
of trying to control, is seen to be a spontaneous mechanism
in story.
Paradoxically, nothing is done in order to stop any of
this. What happens is, that by relaxing into this simple
sense of Being as the directly recognized ground of our
personal consciousness, the story fixation begins to
unravel into that spaciousness. Nothing is done yet
everything is accomplished, as Lao Tzu would say. As the
self-story we hoped to solidify our identity - to become
something. When we recognize that we actually exist
completed as Being already, that ravenous hunger for
becoming is sated by nothingness. A fullness arises out of
empty seeing. As nothing we discover everything is perfect
the way it is, even the story. There is deep satisfaction
with the elegant chaos of reality just as it is.
As the chaos is appreciated we realize that it is this
dimension of Being which is giving life to our neighbor,
the dog, the dictators of the world or a crumpled up paper
cup. It is an indiscriminate livingness beyond the
boundaries of life and death, animate and inanimate or
convention as we understand it. Its freedom rests in its
ordinariness and its availability in everything - it is
beyond any notion of being spiritual or special, profane or
abject. Its simplicity and truth lays in the bare fact of
our naked experience right here. It is giving life to this
experience, real-ing it as it happens.
No qualification or skill is needed for us to exist, we
just do. And we know that we exist. Directly knowing our
existence becomes the gateway through which we continually
pass into the dimension of Being - a position we
paradoxically can never arrive at or leave.
Feeling this directly for ourselves is freedom from the
tyranny of the story exactly because of its ever present
availability. If it were an understanding, it could be
forgotten. If it were a state it could be lost. It is
always right here, right now as what is going on. It
requires no belief, and no story to be. Recognizing this
fact of our own Being allows us to make friends with the
story - our natural condition wells up and encompasses the
content of the story, with all of its contradiction. It
holds all paradox snugly in its unicity. It is not the
solution to all our problems, we find out, but the
inclusion of all our problems into that greater wholeness.