Title: Process of Being

Gender: Female

Age: Ageless

Sun Sign: Aquarius

Location: Berkeley, CA

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I used to be very consumed by the need to save the world, never feeling that anything I did was quite enough to know I had done my part. Then my lama told me to stop trying to be good. Long story short, skipping way ahead ….

Now goodness seems to just flow as a result of my actions without my conscious intent to be a good person. Oh sometimes I'm struck by inspiration with a cool idea that I think will help lots of people (e.g. http://www.phone-buddies.com/ and http://www.phonesisters.com), and then I have to use all my skills and resources working day and night to bring the idea into reality. I can be really driven in those periods, having once gone as long as 2 years without taking a single day off from 15 hour work days.

But in between these flashes of inspiration, I live.  Here I am. I'm a being.  I be peace.  I be beauty. I be bliss. I be kindness. I be in all kinds of ways, including selfish, impatient, and snarly sometimes. Yet through it all, I keep reminding myself that I am only a process of being, not some solid, absolute thing that can be learned, announced, or in any way known.  Through these eyes, I witness the unfolding of that which wishes to come forth through this identity continuum when I announce my intention to offer myself for the birth of the maha dakini's vision. So really I guess I may be a doing after all. Go figure.

In terms of productive work-like activity, I've done a lot. Most recently I've published a book (http://www.beingblissbook.com/) and hosted a national talk radio show with some amazing guests and about 5000 10,000 listeners at its height.  That was a hoot, though I'm taking a break for a few months to focus on activities that actually support me financially.

In previous phases of my life I've been a trance dancer, an ecstatic dance instructor, a child therapist, a social worker, a non-profit administrator, a spiritual healer, a vocational trainer, a channeling and spiritual healing teacher, the “composer” of a building project for 22 new homes self-built by native Hawaiians (they just moved in a couple months ago), and an advisor/director for a number of non-profit boards. And yet, here I am, still in my 30's. Like I said, busy.

Though I prefer really to think of it as active, since busy can have a negative connotation I don't intend. I am realizing I am in a phase where I need to learn to smell the roses a bit more, and am moving myself into that, but for the most part none of it has been too much. After many years of effort, I finally developed the skills I needed to really benefit others to a point where I could also create opportunities for myself to deliver those skills. So years of frustration suddenly burst forth as tremendous productivity. Like the saying goes, it took decades for me to become an overnight success.

If you're still in your “skill and opportunity building” phase, as evidenced by an apparent inability to get anything to fucking work, well all I can say is, keep at it. Don't lose hope. No one said that helping others was supposed to be easier than ripping them off.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.

The universe doesn't lay a red carpet for those who seek to give the most, though in my elitist idealism I think it should. The fact is, the world is mired in confusion and despair and it tends to honor what it is already pursuing – the very values that are causing its confusion and despair. So if you want to make a positive difference you may have to work long and hard and be really creative. You may have to actually create the demand for your service before you can even sell it!

I'm being a little exaggerated here, for the sake of brevity. (Yes, I am being brief, despite the outrageous length of this personal exposition.) The point I want to get across is, it's been a long hard road to get to where I can finally create tools that actually deliver real benefit into the lives of many people and I am all the more grateful for that success given how hard it has been to achieve. And I want to reassure anyone still dealing with the frustrating parts of the bodhisattva's journey that it does in fact get better given time.

I also want to focus you on the experience of yourself that is beyond all your doings. I point out the above reminders to support you while you are in a life phase of wishing to “make a difference in the world,” but I don't do so to suggest that I think that changing the world is the ultimate goal of living. If you're lucky, the desire to do so is a passing phase. Fulfill it to whatever degree you feel compelled to, then move into a deeper experience of your life that is beyond all striving. For more on this concept, see my blog. Namaste.

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