WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN WE SAY, “I AM”?
Think about these two words: being still. Not “Be still,” which can sound more like a directive, like something you are supposed to do—“Be still!” But being still is different. It is not a command, and it implies there is something happening right now, something called “stillness,” that we can be. “Be still” can be interpreted as, Uh-oh, there is something I have got to do. I have got to be still, and I may or may not be good at that. But “being” is not telling you to do or not do something.
What does being still mean for you? Even speaking the words leads one to experience a stillness. We are not trying to be still, and we are not taking the words as an instruction or something we must do. The phrase is more imaginative; it is a little whisper that occasionally floats through the mind . . . being still. It is a way of drawing attention to stillness, rather than suggesting that we try to do stillness, and that’s a big difference. It may seem subtle at first, but I would suggest that it is not. Just like pristine Buddha mind that already exists, “being still” is something you can become aware of and something you notice. Notice being still.
It is funny that in the human world we can have trouble finding a place where we human beings are being still in any recognizable way. We are a noisy species, and I may be contributing to some of that noise right now with my words. When we get out in the natural environment or any environment where there are not a lot of people making noise, it is amazing how much of life is still and quiet, and it is amazing, within that stillness and that quiet, how much being there is.
A big part of spirituality is exploring the nature of being and exploring the nature of existing. What is it to exist? What is it to be? Who am I? These questions delve into the mystery of being. There is something about everyone we ever meet that falls into this category of what I am calling “being”—some aspect of them that is not defined by their occupation, by what religion they adhere to, by their family history, or by their hopes for the future. There is something more immediate than that when you meet somebody, and what you are meeting is their being. It is something that we habitually discount, because being is not conceptual. We can talk about our work, we can talk about interests, we can talk about what we like and what we do not like, but with being or existing, there is not much to talk about—at least on the surface. As we go deeper, we see that being is the essential mystery of our existence. What does it mean when we say, “I am”? “I am” is itself incredible mystery.
Spirituality is, at the end of the day, the exploration of being; it is the exploration of our experience, our perception of being, of existing, of our self, of our life, and not only of ours, but of the nature of existence itself. Being is tough to conceptualize, but every time we meet each other, we meet being; every time we interact with any part of life, which we are doing right now, we must be in order to do that. What is the nature of your being or your existing? What are you at the level of being? What are you at that profound and most fundamental level? You were being before you had language, as a newborn baby is being. Infants have their full complement of being, even though they are not thinking a single word and even though we have not taught them anything yet. As soon as we learn words and language, they envelop our being, and we become mesmerized by what we say.
I try my best not to be mesmerized by what I say. I am trying to communicate something that is not the word, that is not language, but that is immediate, instantaneous, and intuitive understanding. If we are caught too much in the conceptual mind, we will lose sight of our insight. Even though I am using concepts right now to explain this to you and you are using concepts to understand what I am writing, there is something more fundamental. Any conscious moment is a moment of being. We are having those moments when we feel the spontaneous and natural enjoyment or bliss of being and existing, in any form whatsoever, and to be—to exist—is itself blissful and beautiful. What happens within that existence is sometimes experienced as beautiful, and sometimes the experience is anything but beautiful, but we are not taught to pay much attention to the basic act of existing. We are taught to pay attention to our self-image and our idea of ourselves: Am I spiritual enough? Am I a materialist? Am I talented or not talented? How good do I look? What do I do for my occupation? What are my interests? When we are trying to describe ourselves to somebody, we are referring to all these things. The funny part is that the core of our existence is the fundamental experience of being and of existing, yet words cannot fully communicate what it is to be.
I am sure there are people who go their whole life without pondering this for a split second. I do not happen to be one of them; I am one of those people who has always felt the experience of being to be amazing in its mystery. I do not mean it always feels good, as sometimes being feels terrible, but the pure experience of being itself is freedom. Not being this or that, not being something that you can describe through what you have done or like or dislike or whatever, but the sheer act of existence is an astounding miracle.
When I say “miracle,” I am not whitewashing all the difficulties that happen in life. However, throughout it all is the experience of being. I am not making being into a thing; I am not saying, “There is this thing inside you called ‘being,’” as if you have a secret essence. Being is a simple thing; it is the sheer act of existing. In that sense, being and consciousness are the same thing. To be is to be conscious in some way and to experience the miracle of being. That there is anything instead of nothing itself takes consciousness, takes an awareness, so “being” is synonymous with “awareness” or “consciousness.” We desire being. We desire the bliss of being, the freedom of it, and the joy of letting go into being—not being this, or being that, or being someone, or being nothing, or however you would define it, but being.
Meditation is the art of being. Unfortunately, we turn it into the art of doing. We ask, What am I doing? I am meditating. Well, what is that? Well, I am trying to be. Sometimes we introduce too much unnecessary struggle or a strife that does not need to be part of it. Meditation is the art of being still, to be, and you do not have to do anything to be—you are, and I am. Nothing is required for you to be. “I am” requires nothing more, and there is no need to define beyond that. I am good, I am bad, I am right, I am wrong—those thoughts are part of life as well, but none of that defines being. The sheer act of existence, the sheer act of being and of consciousness, is its own miracle.
Being, consciousness, truth, bliss, the Sanskrit word satchitananda . . . when we get down to experience, it is being in a conscious way instead of an unconscious way and to knowingly be instead of falling asleep at the wheel, driven by impulse and conditioning. We are still being then, but we are being in an unconscious way. That is why in spirituality we use the word “awakening”: awakening means we are no longer asleep at the wheel. Yes, if we are asleep we are still being, but we are being in an unconscious manner, with the sheer brute force of conditioning playing itself out through our entire life. We can be in that way, but it happens to be unsatisfactory.
A lot of sorrow arises if conditioned being is as far as we ever take being, yet sadly, that is about as far as most people go in their exploration. However, to be is to be conscious, to be without trying to be this or that, and to experience the ground of your being, which gives rise to bliss. These aspects of true nature are not always clear, especially when we are lost in the conceptual mind or the emotional body. Those are two reference points where people hang out, as some people are conceptually oriented and others are emotionally oriented. Both have their strengths and their weaknesses, but I am not looking at being from a conceptual or an emotional position. Being is something more primary and more fundamental.
Being is the real foundational nature of what we are. It sounds paradoxical—we are everything and nothing—but in all of that, we are the pristine Buddha mind, the pure unconditioned consciousness, and we are also the total environment. This means we are one with everything, which is not one with everything, because we are everything. So we are everything, and we are nothing, and whatever word we want to give to that, we are also being—we are being nothing, we are being everything. The sheer act of being itself, of existing, is the most fundamental understanding of “I am.” No definition, no I am this, I am that, I am good, I am bad, I am right, I am wrong, I am spiritual, I am unspiritual, I am enlightened, I am unenlightened. All of that is the world of description, but prior to the world of description is “I am,” and even before that, there is being. In being there is no tension, and there is no anxiety or fear or evaluation; there is pure presence, pure existence, and pure being still.
It is important not to overdescribe the indescribable, but instead to bridge the gap between descriptions, as strong or weak as they may be, to reach your deepest and most direct experience of being—the bliss, the clarity, and the profound sense of “all is well.” When we are connected to this, we have a new foundation from which to live life and meet challenges.