To change or not to change

After all our discussions this weekend about the challenges of being change agents, I read this in Dharma Art this morning: "Although you would like to see things changing -- not working out as they were, but reshuffling themselves -- at the same time, the world remains as it is."

This is the last line of a whole chapter on seeing things as they are instead of labeling them, or defining them as good or bad, or as "I want this" or "I hate that." And though Chogyam Trungpa is speaking of art, I find myself wondering if I might be too quick to assume that change is the answer when situations or images are either boring or uncomfortable.

The original version of this image, for example, is a dull beige. The lines of it are identical, and I loved the texture, but I really wanted more color, and more than just ONE color, and so... well, I changed it. And now, for me at least, it is more pleasing. But is that a good thing?

Ah. With just a moment's flash, I see that it is also true that this is who I am and what I do; I see an image with all that potential beauty, and I peel back that which is to reveal the potential richness that lies beneath, and that the very act of questioning that is a kind of change impulse.

Perhaps this task of trying to stay present, to see the moment as it is, and accept it, is also means staying present to who I am, to my impulses, and to accept them as well. Because, in all those discussions of the weekend, it was clear that one of the problems that kept us from accomplishing what we felt born or inspired to accomplish was a lack of belief in ourselves. And surely, if we could actually see and accept ourselves as we are without always wishing we -- or our lives -- were different, then we would pay more attention to the task at hand instead of wishing or worrying. And wouldn't that make us more effective?

It seems a little convoluted, this wanting to change the impulse to change. What is it in me that wants to change things? And what other part of me can't accept that, and wants to change that? And what OTHER part of me looks at both of those parts and just... smiles? I think that last piece is the Godness within, that inner divine that is so deliciously accepting. I think I'll just go sit at her feet for a while and rest...