Being = Happiness?

You think you're confused?

I'm confused. So you believe that happiness depends on simply being. Is this right?

I BELIEVE WE SHOULD clarify what we mean by happiness first. Happiness to me isn't a state of excitement and hyper-arousal, which is how most people I know conceive of it. It's not the feeling of what I call "Dominion," the sense that you've conquered and dominated something like a person, an opponent, a partner, or life itself. 

When I talk about happiness, I'm talking about a state of complete surrender and acceptance of who you are right now, who other people are, and where your life is. Over time (few minutes, few hours, few years), you feel a sense of intimacy with things. You don't struggle to prove to yourself or others that you're someone special with talents and values. You're don't panic. You aren't in a rush to get something or hold onto something like food, sex, power, friends, dominion, even the intimacy itself. And with that, you're able to just be still and relax. No where to go, nothing to do, no one to be. Your heart is quietly ripped open.

You can definitely call that "being." A lot of people call it that and you can see why. My concern with using familiar language, however, is that it conjures up all these images and associations for people. They have a image of what it looks like to "just be" and then they try to imitate it during their meditation or daily life. That's dangerous because what they're really doing is trying to escape into a state of "just being." Adios! That's not just being -- it's just running.

If you can't just be, or don't know what it means to just be, just stick with that confusion for the time being. If you're bored or you think you're lacking some spiritual element in your life, stick what that feeling. There's no trick. There's no special way to experience it. You don't have to focus on it in a special way. Just wait. The act of waiting is usually disorienting. It can be uncomfortable, confusing, and create a lot of questions. Is this right? This can't be right. This doesn't feel good. This feels weird. Meditation is something else. This won't work. I should do xyz. 

Just shut up and wait. When you subtract the need master anything or figure anything out, being is the remainder.