016 - You Are Enough (So Is Everyone Else)

 You are enough.  You are worthy. You are sufficient. There is absence of absence, nothing to prove and no territory to defend. It is not possible to be other than utterly perfect…even on those days when we could use some improvement.  You are alive.  Life itself is enough:  so are you.  So is everyone else.

I'm Adela, and this is Just Breathe....You Are Enough™. Together we will deepen our connection with our ourselves, strengthen our relations with others, and re-think together how we connect with our world.

Thank you for joining us as we explore the possibility that you are enough…and so is everyone else.

Are the stars in the sky enough?  Are they sufficient?   Are they worthy?  The grains of sand on the beach: are they enough?  The blades of grass in the meadow:  are they sufficient?  Does one blade of grass look at another and say:  “That one is greener.  That one is bigger.  That one is better….so I must feel bad; I am not enough.  I must crush it down and make it less, so I will feel better…”.

Blades of grass don’t do that to themselves.  They don’t do that to each other. 

All blades of grass are enough.  All that grows in the meadow is sufficient because it grows in the meadow.  All grains of sand on the beach are enough:  each one the perfect size; each one shining perfectly in the sunlight.  The shine of one does not make less the shine of the other.  The beach shines in the sunlight because all grains of sand shine in the sunlight.

Life itself is enough. Life is worthy of honor, dignity and respect because it is life itself.

Life itself is sufficient:   absence of absence, utterly perfect, good beyond any understanding of good or bad because it is life .

You breathe.  I breathe.  The body is warm.  Perhaps we are more alive some days than others, but we are alive. 

That is enough.

From within the world  view from which the mindfulness practices arise, humans are accepted as part of the natural world, just like the stars, the grass, the sand, the trees.  We are utterly interconnected with all of life itself. 

Watch the sun rise:  the natural world is inherently magnificent.  There is nothing to add, nothing to improve. 

We bear witness to that majesty even when it may seem harsh.  In the natural world, destruction is for the purpose of re-creation.  Life itself is naturally creative.  It re-creates in a recurring, cyclical fashion.  Destruction – in the natural world  - is not destruction simply for the sake of destruction.  Life by its nature creates. It will change, and grow, and recreate in the way that dawn comes in the morning after the darkness of the night. We let go of what was in order to become what is now .  We tear down the muscles in the gym in order that they grow back stronger.

We are alive.  This itself is enough.  There is no territory to defend.  There is nothing to prove. That we breathe is enough to merit our next breath.

To honour life – one’s own and that of others – is to honour all of life. To seek to diminish life – one’s own or that of others – is to seek to diminish all of life, including our own.  We become stronger as life itself flourishes.  We become diminished if by our own behaviour we, in some way, diminish others.

Life is worthy of honor dignity and respect.

It is utterly inter-connected.

Dishonour and disrespect projected onto another can lead only to the dishonour and disrespect of life itself, including yours.

The Tibetan expression for this quality of inherent value – natural worthiness - is rendered in English by words that mean “primordial purity”  Since the time before time, life itself is good, beyond any understanding or experience that could imagine the binary opposition – of good or bad.

You are worthy.  You are good.  You are enough:  so is everyone else.

Sometimes it happens that the mind carves our perceptions of the world to tell us stories of  “us” and “them”.  Push away “him”.  Push away “her”. Push away “them”. “They” are for me or against me.

The mind creates this expression of the binary, opposing forces – the “enemy” - as a way of waking itself up.  It pushes away – and creates this tension – in order that it will be able to see and recognize that the tension is not really real.  The “other” that we project can only be a mirror of our own minds.

These stories the mind tells us of the “other” who is the “enemy” support our process of waking up – our organic process of spiritual growth – by taking us to the next level in our ability to grow beyond such walls and step into space.

A mind that engages conflict does this because it is asking for help to wake itself up into its next stage of growth.  The silence between the sounds is what makes music.  It is tension that helps the mind to be able to recognize and receive relaxation. 

Two opposing forces – when this is what the mind is seeing – is the means for us to learn to identify the space in-between.

What makes the room I am sitting in a room?

It is because it has walls. It has a ceiling and a floor. The walls are opposite one another. The ceiling and the floor are opposite one another.   Because these two opposites are in place, it permits the experience of the space that we call “room”.

In the same way, when we build walls between ourselves and others, it is as a way for us to learn to see the space in-between, the middle-ground and openness of relaxation beyond these walls, walls that appear but which are not permanent and not really real.

Push away against the other - push away against anything:  this is the work of a mind which is engaging tension because it is asking – crying out - to relax.   Push away is the work of the mind flexing a muscle, increasing the tension, as a mechanism by means to relax into its next stage of growth.

How do we help that mind to relax? We offer it space, patience, an atmosphere of kindness, an atmosphere of gentleness and that inherent wisdom and strength in the basic nature of the mind - the basic nature of life itself - will recognize the taste of the wisdom inside that kindness and gradually  it will learn to see the space that’s being defined by the walls.

If you, yourself are experiencing “push away” – perceiving someone or something as being an “enemy” – or if you are witnessing other people creating the perception of an “enemy” -  it can be good to remember that the voice which yells – internally or externally - is actually crying. It is asking for space. It is telling the binary story in order that you will hear the tension.  It is asking for kindness to relieve that tension. It is asking for help to remember the inherent wisdom of mind which knows the homing signal it needs to relax back into its own nature which is space itself.

Give it space.  It is not indulging aggression, one’s own or that of another:  it is not internalizing the aggression or acting it out.  It is not accepting disrespect of one’s self from one’s self or from another.  It is addressing the aggression – or addressing the disrespect  – from a place of safety and with the strength of the open heart.

Respond with openness.  The mind will remember how to recognise that it is the space in-between in which we all live.

I feel the refuge of being in my living room. I experience the space because of the contrast between the space and its opposing walls.

You are enough.

So is everyone else. So is every situation. So is every experience.

The act of actively working with one's own mind - the act of participating in being alive itself - is to harness the insight and strength to be able to cut through projections of this kind, to reach into one's self, reach into a situation, reach into some kind of engagement with other persons and touch the inherent basic decency of life inside the other person, inside the situation and inside of ourselves, this wholeness of life of which we are a part. 

We are enough.  We are alive.  We bear witness to that inherent dignity of life itself, inherent worthiness.  Be present enough, and we will remember – and help others to remember – the space that tastes of home.

The earth really does rise up to meet our feet in the journey. 

You are enough.

The quality of the relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself.  Come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com” and join the JBYAE community.

I'm Adela, and you've been listening to Just Breathe....You Are Enough™.  You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening.

Copyright © 2018, Adela Sandness