While on my four-day retreat in the desert, I found fulfillment in spending ample time just-being. As many spiritual teachers are reminding us, we are each called to be a "human BEING," not a "human doing." However, life has become more economically challenging in America since 9/11, and even more so since the recession which began in 2007. Since people have less money to spend, many of us have to be more creative in finding ways to make a living from our gifts. This means that we are continually occupied with one project after the other. Even when we are taking a break from these projects, we still can feel the instability of the situation nagging at us from the periphery of our awareness. In light of this situation, it is important, I've discovered, to find time to just-be. As meditation teacher Sylvia Boorstein says, "Don't just do something, SIT there!"
In the desert, especially after the sun set each night, I found myself resting in the vastness of awareness, allowing myself to become a "silent night, holy night" in which all things could be born one by one out of the spaciousness of divine love. Here, all of the events of life emerge from the vastness, glow in the light of love, and then dissipate back into the night once more, only to arise again - usually in the very next instant - much to our delight. The desert, with its silent vastness, is the ideal place to practice this kind of awareness of just-being.
Photo: Buttes and mesas glow in alpenglow sunset light; Canyonlands National Park, UT; November 23, 2012
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