Just Being With..

I remember reading something in Hoofprint of the Ox by Master Sheng Yen, as part of a study group many years ago. It had to do with the idea that one should not wait until one becomes fully enlightened or have some realization, before one can help others or try to benefit other beings. He compared this to the idea of swimming. When learning to swim, one must dive right into the water and use their bodies to get to the shore, rather than waiting for an opportune moment. In other words, people learn by doing, and often they will have to stumble and make mistakes in order to do so. Of course, there is nothing so mistaken that one cannot learn something from it. So in that sense, there is courage in the ability to try to benefit others without any real idea as to how to do so, exactly.

There is a more subtle layer to this, and that is the question of whether or not helping or giving to others requires a ‘gift’ or a transaction to take place from one person to another. I tend to think yes, it does require imparting a skill that someone else does not have, or donating money and time to someone else for a worthwhile project. But sometimes there is nothing to give, no giver and no receiver/ It is at that point that the mind is communing with itself and pointing to itself. This is probably a hard relationship to achieve and describe. I think this might be the essence of Martin Buber’s “I” and “Thou”.

I think the most important thing that people can give to each other is awareness, and that it not something that takes place through a transaction. It is more akin to a mirror shining on a mirror. Two mirrors can reflect each other so perfectly that there is no location where one mirror is to be found. Both mirrors are reflections of the other. In this case, is something given? The only thing then, at that point, is a shining mind. That experience is not extraordinary but might be perhaps considered quite ordinary by all standards/

Because this notion is so abstract, I might go further and say that this giving might be considered taking the self away from the transaction itself. This again, is not so easy to achieve or understand. The experience of it might be something like communing without a sense of an expectation toward other that is related to the self. At that point, even the expectation to have something to give is erased. This is so because the presence of a giver is still a self that is considered separate from the transaction of giver and receiver.

I don’t think I have realized this fully, because there is still a minimum expectation of interpersonal care or attention that is needed for me to be, without the need for a specific role to give. It is hard for me to ‘just be’ with another without the sense of “I” giving time or other valuable resources to another. I need to feel that “I” am contributing something ‘valuable’ to another and am not wasting her or his time. But is ‘just being’ not also a kind of divine gift? Why do I need to give anything other than my full presence and attention to the situation of another person? Don’t all true gifts really flow from that principle?