Exhaustion

[welcomegrace]

How are you getting on Andrew?

[tiredseeker]

Hi Andrew.
Good.
Stay with only the chest sensation. Let all interpretation, even the label “fear,” fall away. Don’t explain it. Don’t soothe it. Don’t try to release it.

Just go into the rawness. Let it be. The ache, the tightness - let it fully exist. Let it burn.

No commentary. No analysis. No “doing.” Just this.

Does that sensation need a story?

Can it be just this aliveness-this contraction—without needing to mean anything?

What happens when it is not resisted or turned into a problem? What happens when it is simply allowed as part of the unfolding?

And now without referencing a memory or a thought—right here, at that moment, is there an “I” that is doing anything?

Or is that just another arising—just like the tightness, just like the thought?

Stay here. Let me know.
L

Thanks, the sensation didn't last very long, so it's hard to stay with. I find there isn't as much fear anymore. More just frustration about all of this not seeming to work or make a real dent in mind-identification. That I'm not a doer or an agent doesn't make sense to me. I sure have the feeling of agency, I sure have a collection of memories and imprint that appear to add up to some kind of identity or agent that makes decisions based on those experiences and accumulated memories and knowledge. I appear to decide things. So there is confusion over the statement that things just arise and there is no person or agent there. It doesn't feel like any kind of flow or non-doer. It just feels like whenever I appear to make progress, the feeling of progress or shift is the real illusion. What's real is ego identification that appears to be impervious to nondual pointings and practices. Or maybe it isn't but I'm just not doing enough of the practices, and I need to be more one-pointed, but then I get distracted by work, relationship, activity, etc.

[welcomegrace]

Hi Andrew

Thank you for the honesty.
You’re at the gate. The mind is doing what it does – trying to understand liberation as an imagined someone would.

Let’s look.

You say “I appear to decide things”.
Right now, look directly, not to the story.

Can you find the ‘I’ that decides?

Not the thought about I.
Not the feeling.

Look directly.
Not to the story or memories – right now.
What’s there right now?

Can you find the ‘I’ that decides?

Isn’t it just thoughts?
Stories?
All appearing on their own?

When you say “it doesn’t feel like any kind of flow or no doer”.
Great. That’s not a problem.

You’re not mean to feel like there’s no doer.
You’re meant to see that the one who says “I don’t feel it” is also just another thought.

Who is the one not getting it? Can you find that one directly?
Tell me what you find.

Stop and look.
L

[tiredseeker]

Hi Andrew

Thank you for the honesty.
You’re at the gate. The mind is doing what it does – trying to understand liberation as an imagined someone would.

Let’s look.

You say “I appear to decide things”.
Right now, look directly, not to the story.

Can you find the ‘I’ that decides?

Not the thought about I.
Not the feeling.

Look directly.
Not to the story or memories – right now.
What’s there right now?

Can you find the ‘I’ that decides?

Isn’t it just thoughts?
Stories?
All appearing on their own?

When you say “it doesn’t feel like any kind of flow or no doer”.
Great. That’s not a problem.

You’re not mean to feel like there’s no doer.
You’re meant to see that the one who says “I don’t feel it” is also just another thought.

Who is the one not getting it? Can you find that one directly?
Tell me what you find.

Stop and look.
L

Hi L,

This seems to have opened up some space. There is an ability to recognize that I is just a thought and rest more in direct experience. Still, part of me ragefully thinks, this is surely just another nondual trick and the ego is still in full force identifying with everything. Inevitably the thought train continues and dominates, and these nondual pointings seem to appear as just blips on the enduring screen of ego, expert at hiding within and behind all seeming lapses and apparent, fakeout breakthroughs. Whatever mechanism or thought train thing is here seems incapable of letting go, surrendering, or being seen through in a way that actually shifts. Is this a spiritual practice hell realm, where I’m constantly on the edge of breakthrough but whatever non event that doesn’t happen isn’t happening? I know I’m being a bit dramatic, but these are the thoughts.

[welcomegrace]

Hi Andrew

Yes, the mind/ego structure is very good at creating stories about progress. But notice, all of these are still thoughts. Thoughts commenting on thoughts.

So pause here:
What is aware of all of that?

The rage, the futility, the despair, they too are all arising.
But are you those things, or do they just appear?

Stop.
Without referring to memory, to story, to thought, right now, is there a “you” apart from experience itself?

What’s left when even the thought “I can’t let go” is seen for what it is - just a thought?

Let it all burn. Let it feel like a trap. But keep coming back to this:

Can you find the one who is trapped?

Take notice of the types of thoughts you have - a feeling thought, an I thought, a progress thought, a frustration thought, a responsibility thought. All thoughts.

Stay here. You’re not in a hell realm.
You’re at the gate of seeing through a structure that's not there.

Let me know where you're at.
L

[tiredseeker]

I went on vacation and took a little break from practice, and I'm more aware of where I'm at in life. I've been through several major collapses in identity, leaving Christian fundamentalism and the ministry and starting all over, doing a graduate program in psychology and experiencing discrimination and having to start that all over, and studying Indian Religion at Oxford, and now starting all over in a new city again. I'm also experiencing a mid-life crisis, and I'm dissatisfied with every major area of life - career, romance, finances, spirituality. I feel a deep exhaustion and burnout at a fundamental level.

I feel that my nonduality practice has become too complicated with the all the different pointers, and I'm not sure what I should focus on. I'm getting back to meditating two times a day. I practice asking "Where am I?" and looking for the I, and trying to look for an I that's not a thought.

But I feel a deep despair about spirituality and nondual practice as well, and a I deep distrust of spiritual practice, which is substantially rooted in my 30 years of failed spiritual practice in Christian fundamentalism that never felt like it went anywhere. It's so easy for the despair and frustration to jump in with nonduality, "You've been doing this for over a year and nothing's changed," "You're just as miserable as you were before" "spirituality and nonduality hasn't helped you yet," "it could be another 10 years before a shift happens, you have to live your life in the meantime."

I feel caught in between trying hard to improve my life brick by brick: career, community, romance, etc... and going more into the nondual... and really untethered to anything.