Just Breathe

How simple can this be?

Whenever I feel lost and uncertain, when all my words feel fake, when I’ve once again been rushing around desperately looking for a cure, eventually I remember to sit down and simply breathe. Just feeling the breath going in and out, in and out. Almost immediately, I feel a sense of relief. Nothing is missing, nothing is needed. There is no problem needing a cure. There is no inside and outside anymore, just this undivided wholeness, breathing.

In simple presence, everything is bearable—the pain of sciatica, the sound of the leaf blower, all the suffering and cruelty in this world. It needs no explanation. It all simply is as it is. The simplicity is in feeling, sensing, being—not in thinking, reasoning, analyzing or story-telling. Those all have their place, but thought is dualistic. It separates and divides. Most fundamentally, it divides the imaginary “me” from the “it” that seems to be “out there.” Feeling, sensing, awaring and being, on the other hand, are non-dual, whole, undivided. There is no “me” and “it,” no division, no separation, and also no solidity. The flowing, impermanent, evanescent, non-substantial, wholeness and no-thing-ness of everything is experienced directly.

From this simple undivided presence, intelligent action (and intelligent thinking) can emerge. Sometimes the most intelligent action is doing nothing at all. As Nisargadatta put it, “To work in the world is hard; to refrain from all unnecessary work is even harder." Sometimes the needed effort is in making no effort, giving up control, letting go, letting be—just breathing.

The answer to our basic human sense of unease, restlessness, uncertainty, confusion and despair is not found by rushing around in search of answers and solutions. The peace of mind we long for is not somewhere else. It’s right here in the presence that we are. We simply need to stop running away and come home to the utter simplicity of being.

My sense has always been that the heart of religion and spirituality boils down to something very simple and immediate, that the true jewel is right here in this moment. We don’t need to go to India or Japan or quit our job and live in a monastery or an ashram. Nothing needs to be any different from exactly how it is. We don’t need a quieter location or a quieter bodymind than the one that is here right now.

It all quiets down naturally when we simply stop stirring it up, when we finally, in this moment, stop all our frantic efforts to understand and fix and solve everything and let it all be as it is. Simply being still, being open, being present, being what we most fundamentally are—this undivided aware presence, breathing.

How simple can this be? It’s a wonderful question to live with. And it’s such a relief to come back to the simplicity of what is, not once-and-for-all or forever-after (those are stories), but right now.

Love to all…