What does it mean to not mind what happens? We humans have so many stories about it.

Does it mean that we think pain and suffering are just fine, or that folks that hurt children aren’t doing something bad? Does it mean that we’re okay with poverty and war, with human trafficking, rapists and murderers? Maybe it means that we sit back and simply watch as politicians run amok, keeping our smug mouths shut in a state of calm disconnection.

It could mean any and all of those things, but it doesn’t to me and that’s what I’m focusing on right now. 

Stuff happens. This is a world of duality, and it is highly unlikely that in a black-white (and all shades in between) world that one side of the yin-yang symbol will fall into the ocean leaving just the good stuff behind.

That’s what most want: for all the bad stuff to disappear.

I don’t mind what happens doesn’t mean that I am bereft of action or empty of heart. For me it means I am willing to feel whatever is here …  yes … even when what is here is painful and heartbreaking. 

You see, I have learned that not wanting what is here is a study in utter futility, not being willing to experience what is here, a waste of effort in the extreme. You see I am always experiencing what is here, even when what is here is my resistance to what is here. There is no way to avoid experiencing what is here.

Seeing that clearly opens into not minding what is here — can’t avoid it, can’t not feel it, so why waste energy on denial and struggle? Besides, when I pay close attention to what’s happening, I can genuinely see that minding only makes the bad stuff worse and doesn’t do much for the good, other than ruining a perfectly good day with fear of the good stuff exiting stage left.

Not minding what happens isn’t something I do. It is the choiceless choice, the fruit of recognition, the natural outcome of observing life, of seeing how it works — not the way I’d like it to work, the way it should work — but the way it actually works.

It’s quite interesting to me that I had to settle into life as it is before life showed me what it really is, what I am. Now if that’s not a paradox, I don’t know what is.  You see, the struggle, the minding what is, is jet fuel for the separate self, for the sense of separation is nothing but the minding.

Seeing what this is makes minding ridiculous … although it does seem to pop up now and then anyway. Hey, it’s life, duality, you know, the dance of shadow and light, good and evil, the parade of all possibilities. 

When you don’t mind, life is simply easier, a smoother ride, less like putting up a big top in a windstorm. You still do what you do, what’s in your inner blueprint of life to do. That’s the deal here. We are the show.

The circus still comes to town and you might still buy a ticket and take your seat in the bleachers, but the show, it is the same, and … it’s not.