Just being there, that's really all any one of us has to do in each and every unfolding moment. Just be there. Just be in it, with it, present to all it offers without judging it in anyway. Mindfully observing all that we experience in each unfolding moment. Be the one living the moment in all its richness as well as the one observing it. Do not focus on the past or the future. If you do you lose the power of now. Now is all you need. Now is all you have.

As an Elder said to Jonathan Livingston Seagull in the book so entitled, by Richard Bach, in response to Jonathan's concerns about learning to fly as fast as he could, "Jonathan perfect speed is just being there."

What a lesson that is. What a shining example of the reality of mindfulness and radical acceptance and how they can put us in touch with the power of now (Ekhart Tolle) in ways that can free us from suffering.

The quote attributed to M. Kathleen Casey, "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional" is evidenced in and through mindful radical acceptance of the unfolding moment in the evolving enlightenment to be found in living the gifts of being aware that "perfect speed is just being there".

We spend far too much time trying to avoid pain. It is this avoidance of pain that makes our suffering a natural consequence of our own unenlightened and often subconscious choice. In the avoidance of pain we will increase our pain. In the avoidance of our pain we are choosing to increase our suffering.

Choose to just be there. Choose to let the moment be all that it needs to be. Radically accept it. Experience it through the observation of its fullness in the rich paradox of the absence of ascribing any good or bad judgement to it. Choose to disengage the suffering by feeling, facing, and embracing any pain that the moment holds.

Only when we surrender to what is can we truly experience the stepping stones of just being that are the very foundation of the enlightenment that the moment has to offer to us. Open to the moment.

Welcome the power of now through the acceptance of paradox.

"Perfect speed is just being there."

© A.J. Mahari, November 2007