Being Ok With Being

A talk about being ok with just Being. Life is always changing and we learn we can't hold on. We just have to experience the moment to the fullest. In meditation, we can learn to let go. There is an element of acceptance in this Being off with just being.

Transcript

Aloha,

I'm Reverend Cindy Palos and I want to talk today about holding on and detachment.

I was meditating this morning and I almost asked spirit,

What should I write about because I write every day after meditation.

And I also asked,

Well,

What should I talk about?

An image came to me when I was living in Sonoma County programming a station caviar in Sonoma County.

There was a promotion to do where I was supposed to go up in this hot air balloon and it would sail from Calistoga down into Napa.

And I've never been in a hot air balloon before,

Have you?

It's so beautiful to see,

Right?

So of course I agreed and once I got in there I realized I was afraid of heights and what was I doing?

It's like,

Hmm,

Okay,

Now I'm there and as the hot air balloon rises,

You hear this really loud sound when you're in there as they allow the smire,

I guess it's fire,

I don't know exactly,

They use the helium to go and fill it up and get it higher.

And all of a sudden I realized,

Wow,

Wow,

I'm afraid of heights.

And now what am I going to do at this point,

Right?

So I held on tight,

Really tight,

Like you do when you're afraid to the ropes that you hold onto that hold the balloon to the little basket you're in.

And I was holding on so tight,

My fingernails were really cutting into my hand and I had to just stop and breathe for a moment going,

This is ridiculous.

I'm holding onto ropes that go to a balloon and that's not going to do anything if the balloon were to go down.

My holding on tight isn't going to save me.

So I wrote this poem this morning.

Once I was in a hot air balloon,

I got so afraid,

I held so tight to the ropes,

But there was nothing really to save me.

So I decided just to enjoy the view.

How can we hold onto a breath or even a thought?

How can we hold to the spirit of light?

We can only experience this moment of now and be open to believing that life teaches us how we can behold all of life and incite ways to capture time.

But in time we'll find these snapshots of being are just watercolor dreams,

Hints of the glimpses of what life really means.

In between being in the midst of just seeing is this gift we're receiving,

This very moment of perceiving.

What you try to hold onto you can't really hold.

Just the ways of being,

The experience of life in your soul.

If you're in a hot air balloon,

Just enjoy the fight and wherever it takes you,

Just go with the flow of life.

We can try to hold on,

But try as we may.

We will find one day it will all fade away.

We can embrace this moment and celebrate how it can change and accept life and the snapshots and the many collages it creates of the dream.

I think that we may always know this,

Right?

There's different levels to our conscious awareness.

Our soul is always whispering to us,

But we don't always hear those whispers when we're distracted and there's lots and lots and lots of amazing ways to get distracted with life.

A lot of times we do some very creative things to avoid facing reality.

But sooner or later,

Some things are going to happen.

It could be the death of a relative,

A friend,

A pet.

It could be the birth of a child.

It could be sitting under a Bodhi tree and achieving enlightenment.

But sooner or later,

Some part of us gets it and the interesting thing is that in any given moment,

We have many levels of our beingness existing.

In some level of now,

That memory of me in a hot air balloon is experiencing that very experience in this same very moment of me being here now many,

Many,

Many years later.

Because time is part of an interesting perception and it's all relative,

Right?

It's all relative.

But if we try to hold on to all the changing things that are happening in our life,

We're going to find out sooner or later that you just can't.

Our bodies are going to age and get older.

We're going to see a lot of changes.

We have really in some ways been seeing that accelerate so that more changes are happening more rapidly or so it seems.

But it's amazing when we think of all of what we have,

How we if we try to hold on to it,

How we will,

We'll face grief and sorrow because sooner or later it's going to go.

Because it's all just a watercolor dream we're experiencing.

Now,

We can paint that watercolor dream in so many beautiful ways that it can make our time and our experience what we wish it to be,

Depending on our perceptions and what we need to learn.

But even if we make that watercolor dream really beautiful,

We can take that watercolor and frame it and put it on a wall.

But eventually that wall won't be there.

Eventually we won't be there.

But that energy that created that watercolor,

That energy that made us realize something,

That energy that is our spirit behind our life,

That is connected to our soul,

That still will be there.

Because the form was never meant to last forever.

Our lives we know aren't going to last forever.

And as hard as we try to hold on,

We are going to have to let go.

And I love this in Buddhism because in Buddhism it's really,

It's something that is really explored and accepted when you sit in meditation.

And the idea of just sitting brings this up very well.

If you just sit long enough,

You will experience acceptance on different levels.

You may just accept that yes,

The thoughts will come and go and flow,

That they're passing.

You'll accept that after a while you just want to get up and walk around because your legs are hurting or you're bored.

And if you sit through that,

You'll start to get to some deeper levels.

And you might realize some issues that you might have buried from a long,

Long time ago that need to be experienced and accepted to be able to be let go.

And as you go through that experience,

It's really good to be able to have that go-to place inside you where it's all okay.

I mean,

That's a wonderful place to know exists and to be able to visit.

I think it's a place that a lot of the brilliant writers and teachers of our time have found when Mahatma Gandhi was in jail or when he was doing his long fast or when any of the great teachers that got put in jail.

How did they write their books when they're sitting in this small cell of confinement for years and years and years?

Some part of them accepted that that was there,

But they could still be and they could still write and they could still create even in a small little jail cell.

When Bodhidharma sat in his cave for nine years,

What kept him sitting there for nine years?

I went and visited Bodhidharma's cave.

It was with a group of my Zen friends from the Sonoma Mountain Center,

Roshi,

Bill Kwong,

His family.

When you go and walk up the steep hill and then you get to the cave and it's small.

There's I think one or two steps if I remember correctly.

You have to kind of bend your head down if you're tall.

It's dark,

Of course it's a cave.

You go there and you think,

Nine years,

Nine years sitting in meditation.

What would that be like?

We said the Heart Sutra together.

It was interesting.

I'm hearing it echo.

There was a bit of an echo in this Bodhidharma cave.

It was pretty dark.

At the same time,

It felt very womb-like.

You kind of felt like you were going within.

Let's take some breaths and let's experience.

We don't have to experience for nine years but let's just experience letting go and being here now and accepting.

Accepting this life and all that it is in its watercolor dreams.

This amazing experience of now.

Just close out the outer world and get comfortable.

Let everything go.

Just be here now and breathe in and breathe out.

Go into that inner cave and just sit and just breathe.

Just being here with no distractions,

Allowing everything to be okay.

Nothing to hold on to,

Nothing to let go.

Just being.

Breathing in and breathing out.

Getting comfortable with just being.

Feel how good it feels to be in this moment,

Accept all of you.

Accept this body,

This form.

Accept the spirit,

The breath breathing in to this form and breathing out.

Accept any sounds like a rooster crowing,

A dove calling.

Accept this energy that feeds the light of each and every breath.

Breathing deeply in and breathing out.

Breathing still.

What does your soul feel?

Allow that soul that you are to feel all that you are and to accept all that you are.

Unless you accept all that you are,

Allow yourself to embrace how complete nothing is.

Breathing in and just breathing out.

How do you feel?

How do you breathe?

How do you just exist?

Feel the peace and completeness of this moment right here,

Right now.

And go a little deeper and just allow everything to just be okay.

Just being okay.

Breathing in and breathing out.

How do you feel now?

What is this experience and who is experiencing this experience of now?

Accepting that and allowing that to be where you are.

Doesn't it feel wonderful to just be clear,

Be accepting,

Be okay.

Now slowly coming back.

Breathing in and allowing yourself to feel your body,

To feel good with your whole beingness rejuvenated,

Restored.

Just breathe out.

And as you come back to your whole body experience and to your mind,

If there's anything that came to you that you wish to write down,

Take a moment.

Take a moment and write it down.

I thank you for allowing me to be here with you and to accept this wonderful now moment.

Keep love and blessings always.