Dooo Be Dooo Be Do

Through non-action, no action is left undone.  --Lao Tzu

How frequent is the experience of standing in front of a client (friend or stranger) mired in the tension of what to say or do? Often. In a consulting circumstance, when I am being paid for my "expertise" to guide, direct or give advice, occasionally I notice a small part of me off to the side patiently suggesting, "Breathe.  Just Listen."

The tendency to Do.  The power of Be.

There is something incredibly impelling about the Doing. Maybe it is because there is a self-comfort in acting through kinesthetic sensibilities.  Or perhaps it is the indoctrination of the caretaking arts which make Doing a knee jerk reaction in most situations.  The longer I live, the more I know the incredible power and healing of doing nothing.

"Nothing" is not really nothing, of course.  Nothing being, finding or waiting for the stillness which stays long enough to create a breathing space, a release of the tension that has held me up to that point.  A space that isn't filled in with words and actions.

Before the Nothing, somehow quiet moves in.  How does this organism, restrained by whatever tension is in the moment, wake to the stillness? What intrigues me is that (sacred?) moment right before, which makes more of an availability to the stillness, the nothing, possible.

This dance that goes on, the Do Be Do Be Do, the back and forth, is earning the sense of the place of Being and the relationship to the Doing.  It's the price we pay for eventual understanding (hopefully).

                  "Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is
                   needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual
                   intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions."
                                                                                      ECKHART TOLLE, Stillness Speaks