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By Root 1063 0

an incredible example of creating something beautiful and letting it go. As part of a Tibetan Buddhist ritual a group of monks work diligently for many days to create a Kalachakra sand mandala of incredible detail and beauty. (To see a picture, search for Kalachakra mandala on the internet.) In the next scene, the Dalai Lama, surrounded by several other monks, gives a loving look at the mandala, then runs his fingers through it. The others join in. Handfuls of the sand are given to observers as a peace offering. Then the monks carefully pour the remaining sand into an urn and from a small boat they slowly tip the urn and watch the sand stream into the river. Hello, you’re beautiful, good bye. Impermanence.

58. Remember, You Are Not the “Doer”

Those who pursue learning daily increase results. Those who have heard the tao daily drop something. They decrease until they arrive at a point of non-doing. In doing nothing there is nothing left undone.

—TAO-TE CHING, VERSE 48

Letting go takes you from do-ing to a sense of non-doing. What you drop on a daily basis is your ego identification with your actions, beliefs, talents, and weaknesses. This frees you to follow the flow of life as it pulses through you. This doesn’t mean inaction; it means that motion comes through fascination, interest, and a flow that is part of something bigger. In the movie Chariots of Fire, about track athletes from the British Isles who ran in the 1924 Olympics, Eric Liddell, a central character, says, “God made me fast. When I run, I feel his pleasure.” It’s like running and not being the runner.

In Alice in Wonderland, there are various phrases such as “I found myself walking in a beautiful garden.” Have you ever felt ambivalent about going to a gathering or going on an excursion, then found yourself getting dressed and thinking, “I guess I’m going”?

Martin tells this story: “Mary and I had been living together for three years in the best relationship I’ve ever had. One day, while we were hanging out downtown we wandered in a jewelry store to look around. We stopped at the display of wedding rings and pointed out the ones we liked, then even tried a couple of them on. Then we glanced up and gave a knowing smile to each other because we knew it meant we’d get married. It’s as if I noticed what we were doing and saw what it told us rather than the other way around. It just happened.”

Instead of thinking of yourself as the doer, consider that you are the channel, the messenger, the vehicle of consciousness, part of the stream of All That Is. Imagine yourself like a single cell in a body. You are intrinsic to the whole, and your moment to moment experience results from a vast web of interconnections. If you get a little cut or burn, “it” heals. The body moves to action; you don’t “do” it. You can help the healing with ice or ointments, but you are just the helper.

When you walk through a shopping area, do you ever “find yourself” pulled in one direction or another? Let’s say you are attracted to a blue shirt you see in a window. You might say, “I’m drawn to it because I like blue.” But then, as Nisargadatta teaches, turn your attention around inside and ask, “Who is this ‘I’ who likes blue?” “Who is this ‘I’ who likes this type of shirt?” Then everything starts to dissolve.

Play with this statement in your mind: “I am upset with myself.” Who is this “I” and who is the “myself”? Often the “I” we perceive is the ego judging the actions of the “myself.” In contrast, when you do something for the pure joy, excitement, beauty, or love of doing it without an agenda for praise or accomplishment, then you are in the flow of consciousness. You are not the doer; you are part of a vortex of energy in motion.

Rabbi David Zeller has written a song called “I Am Alive!” with a melody that’s rhythmic, energetic, and fun to dance to:

Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai, I am alive

Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai, I am alive

And who is this aliveness I am?

And who is this aliveness I am?

And who is this aliveness I am?

Is