“The hardest thing to do in the world is to show-up”

written by Simone on Friday, November 6th, 2009

I was watching Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness lecture to Google employees on Youtube and as he spoke these words or something like them I thought “that’s it, isn’t it?” It seems for most of us, or the people I hang-out with, once we start whittling down our wants and needs, once we get past the “once X is complete, over, or resolved,” or the work, money and relationship stuff; what we really want is to simply be present in our lives. And yet this is where so many of us struggle; the hardest thing for all of us, maybe even Jon Kabat Zinn, is showing up, being present, consistently in the moment, non-resistant to whatever is happening, good or bad.

I look back in my life, not with many regrets – although there is still time – and I think the thing I sort of regret most is not stuff I did or didn’t do but rather the way of  being at the time, I wish I was more present.  More completely and totally in it when I made the mistakes or wrong choices – I wish I just rolled around in the experience of decadence, thoroughly enjoying the row of cookies I polished off rather than planning my new healthy eating habits for Monday. Not to sound cliché, but there is something magic about being completely in the moment – there is more aliveness. Of course in painful situations being completely present or non-resistant, not denying or trying to make it better, okay or different than what it is, the experience is also felt more vividly but there isn’t that ongoing suffering that comes along with a resistant or a not-really-present way of being. And then there is the impact on our kids, families, friends, community and world when we show-up completely. 

You probably can guess where I am going with this…meditation is the key, meditation is the magic bullet. But no, meditation is the starting point or the foundation; it gives us the ability to be present by our own volition, it creates a clear focused mind.  However, the real work is taking the meditative way of being out into the world.  For those of you in our program you will notice for each week we give post meditations, examples include daily practices for focus, simplicity, and being in our bodies. The real motivation here is to start bringing the kind of awareness and mindfulness we create on the cushion into our daily lives – that is where the magic of showing-up happens. 

I think we crave being present – maybe that is why people jump out of planes or balance on a high wire (although that’s a very 1970’s example) there is nothing like fear to get us into the moment.  Showing-up, being present, aware, feeling the flow of life, is a state of being we can create for ourselves and take with us wherever we go, I don’t think there is any magic in getting there, it takes attention and diligence to consciously, consistently re-train our minds and our way of being in the world.   But it seems that’s it, that’s the key, like  Henry Miller  so poignantly explains, “the aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”