BigTentMind

Wanna be wiser? And happier? There’s an app for that. It’s called BigTentMind.

Sages right down to the present keep updating it. They often call it non-dual thinking. But not many people will download an app called Non-Dual-Thinking.

I didn’t come up with the name BigTentMind. God copywrited it a long time ago—about two and half millennia ago. Isaiah was doing God’s press releases back then.

“Make a large area for your tent.
      Spread out its curtains.
      Go ahead and make your tent wider.
   Make its ropes longer.
      Drive the stakes down deeper.
  You will spread out to the right and the left.”

This is how BigTentMind works. It spreads, widens, lengthens, and deepens till there’s room in our understanding for everything that needs to be understood—not that we’ll ever understand it all—just that we’ll keep making room for it.

Another Bible thing comes to mind—the story of Mary and Martha, when Jesus visits them. Mary stops work and sits down to hear what Jesus has to say. Martha keeps working in the kitchen—and gets mad at Mary for leaving her to cook by herself. She interrupts Jesus just long enough to say, “Would you please tell my sister to help me fix the *^%# meal!”

Jesus says, “Martha, my dear, you are worried and bothered about providing so many things. Only a few things are really needed, perhaps only one. Mary has chosen the best part and you don’t need to tear it away from her.”

In the 35 years I’ve been having conversations with people about this story, we always seem to pick sides…which is better--service or prayer, practical hospitality or contemplative presence, yang or yin?

“Only a few things are needed,” says Jesus, “perhaps only one.” The trick, seems to me, is knowing which one.

It’s not like Jesus didn’t have both a Service Practice and a Contemplative Practice. You know the time he fed all those people? You know what he was on his way to do when he ran into them? He and his disciples have been working too hard and are worn out--plus they've just learned that Jesus's mentor, John the Baptist, has been beheaded--he’s taking them to a quiet place to rest, to pray together, to heal and be restored.

Yet he doesn’t say NO to all those thousands who need him at this moment . He suspends his plans—he “settles down to teach them about many things.” And, as it got late and everybody got hungry, he feeds them. Sometimes he’s Mary, sometimes he’s Martha. It’s a BOTH/AND thing. One thing this time and another thing another time. It's perhaps more accurate to say, it's all ONE thing.

BigTentMind stretches its boundaries, puts tent pegs down deeper, holds more stuff—yet holds it much more comfortably.

Some things can only be done in solitude. Some things can only be done in a crowd. Some things drain us. Some things fill us up.

In one way, Life is asking us every waking moment, “Is this a time to DO?” or “Is this a time to BE?” A time to talk or to listen? A time to work or a time to rest? A time to try or a time to wait? A time for speed or a time for patience?

In the Big Tent, there’s plenty of room for Doing and plenty of room for Being. Enough time to pray and enough time to act. Continuing to explore the balance between 'this' and 'that',  within both the yin and the yang of our moments, we find our way. Our work and our rest.

Most times, it’s possible to yin before we yang. To ‘take a moment’ (just a moment) to settle down, to quiet our souls, to inquire, is it time to sit down and listen or time to get in the kitchen and cook? Yinning first, we’re able to Yang with so much more focus and natural pace. Over time we experience more peace in our doing AND more energy in our resting.

It’s a Both/And thing—held together in BigTentMind. It’s downloadable in every moment. And, as we face the 'right way,' we’ll always have coverage.