Being and Becoming Just Breathe....You Are Enough

Being and Becoming
 
It's wonderful to be back having taken some time away – at semester’s end - to take a deep breath. Today we explore being and becoming.
I had a wonderful conversation last week with a remarkable student in one of my classes. It was a long conversation over tea as we made our way to semester’s end. Among the questions she asked was: “what is the relationship between being and becoming?”  How do we become what we are?  How do we become what we are meant to be?
She was exploring the question because a very dear friend of hers had told her: “You have not yet planted the flag in the ground and declared, ‘this is who I am’”.   Do we ever plant the flag – like Neil Armstrong on the moon – and declare “this is who I am”?  Is the work of becoming ever complete?
My student, like so many of her colleagues, is getting ready to graduate.  She will move from one stage of her life to the next, from the known to the unknown, and into the next stage of her own journey of self-discovery. 
I have watched hundreds of students cross the stage at university graduation ceremonies.  They cross the stage, often at about the age of 22 or 25, and have all the rest of their lives stretching out before them.  The thing is:  so do I.  The power of that potential is always with us.  I have all the rest of my life waiting for me,  in front of me as well.  So do you.  So does everyone else.
To be alive is to engage the journey of self-discovery.
What is the relationship between being and becoming?  What we are is the result of our choices, as we take our next step or place the direction for the rudder of our boat. Through our choices we become who we are.
The great high renaissance sculptor Michelangelo:  they asked him, “How did you make your statue of David?”  He is reported to have said, “It's very simple; you just chip away the stone that doesn't look like David.”
How do we become ourselves? It is a work of artistry. We are the artists who carve our lives and make the choices that shape what we become.  As we chip away the parts that aren't ourselves, we increasingly become who we are.
Becoming:  from one perspective, it is quite simple. One who lies becomes a liar. One who steals becomes a thief. One who bullies becomes a bully. One who cheats becomes a cheater, just as surely as one who paints becomes a painter. It is a common sense observation which is part of old Indian karma theory.
The idea of karma is understood slightly differently in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions.  Each would agree that the effect of our choices shapes – in very physical ways – who we become.
Have you ever walked down the street and looked at someone and thought to yourself, “Oh that person is slimy. That person gives me the creeps.”? What we do creates a residues that stays with us and is hard to wash off. 
Have you felt someone walk into a room and said to yourself, “That is a good, decent and honest person.  That is someone I can trust. I feel good when I'm in the presence of that person.”  
What we do – how we behave - determines what we become. It is part of the basic principle of cause and effect, as inescapable as gravity. One who manipulates becomes a manipulator. It has a smell, a texture, a look, a stench:  it becomes part of the presence of that person.  It cannot be hidden. It cannot lie. As we behave, so we become. The weight of bad behaviour, that coats people with sticky residue,  covers up the beauty of what we could become.
Genuine becoming is a question of taking the unnecessary bits away.
So how do we engage our hammer and chisel to take away the unnecessary bits? Is it by planting a flag in the ground like Neil Armstrong on the moon, declaring, “This is me!”?
If I look back on the journey of becoming, there are a series of occasions, when in some sense, I would have planted the flag. So it's not a single incident, unveiling a finished