Shift from half-hearted to whole-hearted being with
I woke up in the middle of the night with a sense of panic around a particular issue. At first, there is a half-hearted being with it, and it is very uncomfortable. Then, a conscious shift into more fully being with it, and a sudden peace.
It was a clear reminder that being with an experience is incompatible with being caught up in the content of an experience. As long as there is an identification with beliefs (ideas, stories, identities), as long as we hold onto them as true, there is resistance, and it is impossible to fully be with an experience. This means that there is still struggle, drama and discomfort there.
To fully be with an experience, to allow it all, there has to be a surrender of identification with the content of the experience, a surrender of beliefs, of holding onto identities as absolutely true. There has to be a surrender of identifying with one realm of the content pitted against other realms, and - maybe most importantly - of wanting anything in the realm of content to be different.
A half-hearted being with resolves nothing, and there is as much discomfort there as before. Only a whole-hearted being with allows for a surrender and release of identifications with the content of experience, and for resting in and as peace - noticing, and finding ourselves as, the ground that already allows it all.
Labels: being with, surrender