This morning I received a “hit me back” phone call from a friend whom I knew because of our mutual employer.  He was calling while he was at a toll booth where a car was holding up the line due to insufficient funds.  The Toll Authority employee appeared to be acting unskillfully. This employee was not getting the cooperation of the driver.  My friend was attempting to give a dollar to the employee to facilitate getting out of the hot mess. The employee refused the money.   

My comment was that this was not much different from the unskillful employees at the County.  They are allowed to thrive.  

At any rate this was a marker experience of how not to be.  We do not want to be seen acting this way on the stage of life.  This boorish behavior would be a beacon of ‘unskillful’ use of resources.

However, what we often do is cross the line at another edge and in reality become the person we just bemired.   Though, this happens in a slightly different way.  

We know the glaringly obvious.  It is to be eschewed. However, we still get caught.  The witnessed behavior is often memorable because it is often over-the-top.  The precise reason for making it a marker.  The trap is right there, waiting.  

Instead of using the majority of our energy in ‘seeing’, we characteristically, use it in judging, ‘pushing’ away from, and using villainous language to demean the individual.

No matter how deserved, we lose our perspective because we have crossed the line into ‘our’ ideas. That is, ‘our’ identified ideas of how things/people need to be.  We lose the ‘Isness” by pushing our thing on it.  There is no room for the ‘Isness” when we do that.  And we cannot see it. 

We cannot see it because we slipped into the trap of ego, mind, and judgment.  And we felt ‘so’ right, didn’t we?!  This is one edge we can be aware of by the practice of constant seeing.  

The analysis here (for the cognitive self) is to watch the quantities of energy dedicated to our various charities.  Once we stop seeing, even for a moment, we can get pulled into the drama and lose our selves. The Self IS the awareness.  How much is there at any moment?

Watch it and we begin to see.  There is no point in giving away our selves to reaction and investment in dead-end projects.  Projects with goals that have no merit, according to us, are allowed, only because we ‘felt’ justified. 

Are we any better than the Tollway Authority figure?

Our revulsions are our poisons we take willingly, happily, gleefully. Do we see why the world is not getting any better if that is our contribution?

Contribute to the most worthy of all charities, The Self.  Self-interest does not abide there. See the fullness that is there always.  Use the Moment to enhance the availability of the Presence. Witness and See the beauty of everything and everybody. It is natural and effortless.  See that.

This Iz Daddy’O