It’s Just Like This
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I was once on a meditation retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and one of the teachers would say in the middle of the sitting sessions, out of the blue, “It’s Just Like This”. This went on for days and for me it was very significant. Almost every time one of his It’s Just Like This’s rang out it would catch me in the middle of some mind fuck about something. I had to chuckle because in every case I could identify the subtle, and often times not so subtle “It Shouldn’t Be Like This!” cry of my mind.
You may have already noticed this, that the mind is never ok with how things are right now. In fact, the conditioned mind EXISTS in problems, it is MADE OUT of problems. The mind or ego is terrified of the true condition of things, the fact that “Everything is As It Should BE”. The mind senses it’s own extinction at the very whiff of this.
The good news is that we are not our minds, we are not our thoughts. The bad news is that most of us THINK we are. This is probably the most tenacious false belief of the average mind, it can be useful to get some help in seeing through this. We also might find it helpful to talk to our minds like a small child. You might be amazed at how much better you can feel if you just ACCEPT things as they are right now. This is not being passive, this is being a martial artist with reality. We can bend and sway with the winds of HERE and NOW. For example, let’s say you’re feeling lonely. There is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling lonely. If we accept that we are feeling lonely there is no sense of PROBLEM. We might even enjoy being lonely. Maybe we can say to our mind “I know you would prefer to not be lonely right now but the fact is that you ARE lonely right now and there isn’t much you can do about it in this moment. It’s just like this little mind and that’s ok. It’s Just Like This”
That Spirit Rock teacher will never know the gift he gave me, those few words have helped me cross the chasm of NOT OK to OK many times. The journey to HERE lives on. I hope some of you might add this little tool to your toolbox, the “It’s Just Like This, and That’s OK”.
Wishing You Peace…
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