Life is Found in Being, Not Becoming

The eye—it cannot choose but see;
we cannot bid the ear be still;
our bodies feel, where’er they be,
against or with our will. 

 — William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads

Often, as people begin to explore mindfulness, questions arise around the concept of “being.” What is it exactly? And how do we know when we’ve arrived?

Human Doing vs. Human Being

For many of us, when we are going through the motions of daily life, we are striving to get to some future goal or point in time. As a result, we are often living outside of the present moment, as our attention is directed toward getting somewhere else. What’s happening at the moment is taking a back seat to a future that has become the place “to be.”

“Being,” on the other hand, is a state of awareness that arises as a result of being mindful. It is not about getting anywhere in particular. Rather, it is about arriving right where we are in the fullness of the present moment. It is embodying our aliveness as it unfolds.

When people initially learn mindfulness-based practices, they often regard them as yet another task on a laundry list of things “to do.” But, in actuality, mindfulness practices are an invitation to explore moving out of the temporal space of “doing” and into the stillness of “non-doing.” It is the “non-doing” of these practices that serve as a gateway to the experience of “being.”

Take It All In

On the surface, “being” runs the gamut of human experience, because we are not pushing away anything that occurs in the present moment. We are aware of our thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations while cultivating an attitude of acceptance and openness. Much like the surface of the ocean, things shift and change with the tides of our internal experience. At times, the surface may be calm and at others tumultuous, or somewhere in-between.

Underneath these shifting tides, however, there is a tranquil spaciousness that exists in the moment-to-moment, permeating whatever may arise in our field of awareness. It is the peace inherent to this vastness that begins to gently unwind our attachments to agendas and judgments. We begin to see where we resist life and generate falsehoods about the nature of things.

The more we hang out in the space of “being,” the more profound the experience can become. We may start to sense the constant emergence of the present moment—to catch glimmers of the impermanence of everything. We may begin to deeply feel our connection to all of life.

Stepping into “being” is a lot like giving ourselves room to breathe. It arises as a result of inhabiting and savoring every moment of living, even the moments we would be compelled to avoid. Because the truth is, there is nowhere else “to be.” We have arrived complete, just as we are, right here in this moment.