The Book of Awakening: January 1

The Book of Awakening:   Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have … by Mark Nepo

                                                   

January 1, 2010

“There is a Buddhist precept that asks us to be mindful of how rare it is to find ourselves in the human form on Earth … It asks us to understand that no other life form has the consciousness of being that we are privilege to.”

While I fully comprehend the point the author is trying to make, I was taken aback, as I always am, by the ego of the human species.   How do we know that we are the only life form that has “consciousness of being”?   How completely typical of the human species to think that we are then end all and be all of creation!

With that out of my system for a moment, I can and do fully appreciate my human form.  This form provides an excellent means for interacting with the environment in which we exist!  Being blessed with five fully functioning senses I can see the visual beauty of our planet, hear the songs of nature, physically feel the textures and temperatures of other forms, smell the aromas of the world and taste the delights of that is edible!

Being blessed with a mind that is capable of complex thought and awareness of both self and relationship of self to others I can spend wondrous hours contemplating upon any topic I so choose.  I can investigate myself and the world around me.  I can entertain fantastical theories on the universe and my place within it and set about seeking out proofs or contradictions to those theories.   Being human allows me to create these words I am currently typing; turning the formation of these ideas in my human brain into words on a computer screen that can be shared with others via the use of my two hands, each fully formed with four fingers and an opposable thumb!   Only because I am human can I read the book whose title appears above, and only because I am human can I process the words in that book and form ideas of my own based upon what I have read.

However, if I allow it to be, being human can be a great hindrance to my own personal growth, and it is that aspect of being human upon which I am compelled to reflect.

40 years of searching, seeking, studying, and growth have taught me that it is all too easy to drown in our own human being; to become so entirely domesticated* by the world around us that we fail to see ourselves, our options and often lose sight of who and what we really are.  For this reason I prefer to think of myself as “being human” rather than as “a human being”.

If I am “a human being” then I am a noun: a person, place or thing; an object or group of objects. Nouns simply exist; there is no motion, no action, no relationship in a noun.  Nouns are acted upon, nouns allow themselves to be moved by external forces of motion and action and only experience those force of motion and action via outside stimuli.

If I am “being human” then I am a verb.  Verbs are action, motion, relation, creation, stimulation, etc.  Verbs create, take the initiative and are responsible for their “verbness”.   Things do not happen to verbs, verbs are themselves the very act of happening.  Verbs experience the world around them through the verbness they create are therefore responsible for their own state of being; their own state of verbness.    My state of verbness can only be affected by own verbs, because I choose those verbs, and I am responsible for my own state of verbness.  In every situation in life, I have a responsibility to myself to choose the verb that best serves my personal growth. 

Because I have practiced cultivating my personal state of verbness for many years, when I recently lost my job I was able to immediately choose a state of verbness that would aid in a healthy and positive growth.   I am sure that those who fired me thought I was insane or dim-witted as I smiled and spoke light-heartedly to them during the firing process; but I was neither.  I was being human and utilizing the state of verbness that best suited my own personal harmony and growth.  Choosing to anger, to anathematize, to mourn or to weep the simple closing of a door would not have furthered my personal growth in any way.  It would have only led to needless negativity in a life that is truly a blessing. 

I am only human, and I have not fully mastered the art of skillfully choosing my state of verbness, so at the time I was fired it was not a natural reaction to smile, to love, to forgive, and to look forward joyfully at new possibilities.  The very first verbs that tried to invade my state of verbness - my being human- were to anger, to weep, to depress, but my years of cultivating more useful verbs kicked in rather quickly and I chose to love, to learn,  to forgive, and to be joyful.

I am being human the best way I know how, and in that being human I am always very aware of how blessed I am to be human.

In being human, with all of the senses, capacities, choices, and responsibilities that make humans seem so far apart from the other forms found on this planet,  I always find it peaceful and helpful to my personal growth to remind myself that I am not as removed from these others forms as it may appear.

I take every opportunity to commune with the natural world around me; I am a tree hugger, and a stone hugger, a star hugger and a grass hugger.  As this book suggested at the end of this reading I often commune with the world around me.  Anytime I feel too human, too disconnected from the universe, all I have to do is step outside and focus on nature, just sit quietly and observe nature with all five senses. 

See the beauty and dignity of the trees, so strong and tall despite all the turmoil that humans create around them.  Trees are verbs; they seem to always find a way to survive:  breaking through concrete to reach the sun;  enfolding cables and wires into their flesh; wearing the carved graffiti of humans with pride; growing in curving formations to avoid objects too large to enfold and grow over.  Trees can be a great source of inspiration when trying to choose the best state of verbness. 

Hear the sound of the wind and the water, a beautiful symphony of strength and determination.  Wind and water both flow through some objects without ever displacing those objects; other obstacles wind and water obliterate as they pass; yet others they flow around leaving them unharmed and standing.  Wind and water are also great sources of inspiration when trying to choose the best state of verbness.

Feel the grass under your feet; something so small and tender should surely perish under the weight of hundreds of trampling feet; yet grass thrives. The weight of our bodies press the grass flat to the ground, yet once we lift our foot the grass immediately begins to straighten up and stand tall once again.  Delicate, yet possessing an almost perfect inner strength, grass is tread upon and survives.  What a wonderful source of inspiration to humans trying to choose the best state of verbness!

In my being human I do appreciate how blessed I am to have been born into the human form, but I also appreciate that having the form of a tree, a stone, a bird, or a mountain comes with its own set of blessings that as a human I cannot fully comprehend.  As such I try to remind myself as often as possible how much I have in common with the other forms found in nature; I try to keep myself aware of how connected I really am to all forms of creation, and how all forms of creation of equally, albeit differently, blessed.

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* For more on the domestication of the human race read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz