Re: “something missing” related to awakening:
What's actually here.... if said jovially.
Shite and onions!!! Time to work. Ugh.
Yes. That works—and there is some very clear seeing here.
First, a small but important correction:
The gradual changes you have noticed
do count. The fact that they are recalled through thought does not make them false or insignificant.
There are two different questions:
• Conventionally:
Has anything changed over time?
• In direct experience:
What is appearing right now?
The first requires memory and comparison. That is perfectly legitimate when considering whether this inquiry is affecting ordinary life.
The second temporarily sets history aside to examine what is happening now.
So there is no need to dismiss the improvements merely because they are known through thought. They simply aren’t immediate sensory events at this moment.
When the thought “Something is missing” appears, what is actually here?
Yes. Exactly.
And your list answers it beautifully:
• the sentence
“Something is missing”;
• contraction in the throat, jaw and chest;
• tears and sniffling;
• images of a desired future;
• memories of how long the search has lasted;
• frustration and petulance;
• thoughts about gradual improvement;
• thoughts about what needs doing;
• wiping the nose.
All of those are actually occurring.
But nowhere in the list is an actual missing thing.
There is a thought
about something missing.
There is an image
of a better future.
There is a bodily response
to those thoughts and images.
The thought is actual as an event. Its claim that something is missing has not been established as actuality.
I would remove only one word from this:
Thoughts are seen as merely thoughts.
Not
merely thoughts. Thoughts are real biological events and can produce substantial bodily responses. They just aren’t necessarily accurate reports of what they refer to.
OK, so now what?
Nothing spiritual is required.
No special state needs to replace the tears, frustration or longing.
“This is it” doesn’t mean:
This is wonderful.
This is enough for me.
I should stop wanting something different.
It means:
Nothing in that list is preventing actuality from being actual.
Even the thought that something is missing is not itself missing from THIS.
There is one subtle trap here:
When seeking arises, just look at what’s actually here.
That is useful—as long as it does not become
another corrective procedure:
Seeking has appeared.
Seeking is futile.
I must stop seeking and return to actuality.
Then the little Zen master has simply been promoted to supervisor.
Seeking doesn’t have to stop. When it is noticed as sensations, thoughts and images, the looking has already happened. There is no additional seeker behind it who must be dismantled.
The fictional “I” is not literally reconstructed. What is reconstructed is the
story of someone located here, deprived of something located in the future.
And this provides a natural transition into what you call
work.
The same pattern may be operating there:
I am here.
The completed task is over there.
I must force myself across the distance between them.
That story makes the task heavy before anything has even happened.
But what is actually here?
Perhaps:
A screen.
A document.
A sentence waiting unfinished.
Tightness.
Reluctance.
A hand near the keyboard.
A thought saying, “Ugh.”
That needn’t be called work. It can become
play with discovery.
Not play in the sense that it must feel pleasant. Not a positive-thinking trick designed to make reluctance disappear.
Play means curiosity without demanding a particular outcome.
Instead of:
“I must get this work done,”
the invitation becomes:
“Let’s discover what happens when the document is opened.”
Then:
“Let’s discover whether one sentence appears.”
Then perhaps:
“Was there a separate decision-maker who created that sentence, or did words begin arriving?”
The task itself becomes part of the investigation:
• What does resistance consist of before it is called resistance?
• Does willingness have to appear before the first movement happens?
• Is a controller required for the hand to reach the keyboard?
• Can one sentence be written without carrying the imagined weight of the finished task?
• What happens when curiosity replaces the demand to arrive?
Now inquiry and ordinary activity are no longer competing for your time.
Opening the document is inquiry.
Feeling reluctance is inquiry.
Watching a sentence form is inquiry.
Discovering that action can occur without enthusiasm is inquiry.
And the jovial cursing fits perfectly. It punctures the solemn story that a burdened “me” must drag everything into completion.
Shite and onions! Let’s see what happens when the file opens.
Not:
Time to force myself to work.
But:
Time to play—and discover what life writes next.
Anyhow, I was glad I realized clearly and definitively, in the middle of composing my previous post, that a "what's actually here" list should include the content of thoughts, not just sense perceptions.
Yes. That is a significant clarification. You just jumped a grade. This is next-level stuff.
A “what’s actually here” list that excludes thought would present an incomplete picture of experiencing. Thoughts, memories, mental images, judgements and explanations are all actually appearing.
The crucial distinction is between
the content appearing and
the content being factual.
For example,
“Something is missing” is the content of an actual thought. But
something really is missing is the claim made by that thought. The claim is not confirmed merely because the thought appears.
Likewise, a thought about how long the search has lasted is actually here. The years themselves are not here; they are represented now through memory and thought.
So the list can include thought-content quite specifically:
• Thought:
“Something is missing.”
• Image of a future breakthrough.
• Memory of beginning the search.
• Judgement:
“I should be further along.”
• Tightening in the throat and chest.
• Tears arising.
That gives a much fuller view than listing sensations alone. It reveals not only the bodily response, but the story to which the body may be responding.
Thought is part of actuality. Its content is not automatically a description of actuality.
That is the distinction you caught—and it is an important one.
Maybe I just need to go ahead and cry it out when I feel like this.
if the body wants to cry (& circumstances permit) then during that expression it's very likely that something will be discovered.
I notice that the previous several paragraphs are full of thoughts that feel especially like they're about reality and like they're "mine." So I get suspicious that the thoughts want to be taken more seriously than is warranted. The "mine" part I understand to be bogus in some ultimate sense, but they do still feel like "my" thoughts about "me." The "reality" part is also convincing. Some thoughts do have a connection with reality. Therefore . . . ??? I dunno. I'm confused.
The confusion makes sense, because the simple distinction “sense perception is real; thought is unreal” has now broken down—and it needed to.
Thoughts are actual events, and some thought-content does correspond quite accurately with conventional reality. The thought
“My keys are on the table” may be verified by looking. The thought
“The meeting starts at ten” may be verified by checking the calendar. So we cannot dismiss something merely because it appears as thought.
The useful distinctions are:
• A thought is actual
as an event.
• Its content is a representation or claim.
• That claim may be accurate, inaccurate or impossible to verify.
• The feeling of certainty accompanying it does not determine which.
A thought can feel profoundly real and still be wrong. Another can feel vague and turn out to be accurate. The
reality-feeling is itself part of what is actually here—perhaps familiarity, emotional charge, bodily contraction or a sense of certainty—but it is not a truth detector.
The same applies to
mine. A thought may arrive carrying an unmistakable feeling of
“my thought about me.” That feeling is not bogus as an experience. Ownership-feeling is genuinely occurring. But does it establish an owner?
Look at a thought as it appears. Was it selected before it arrived? Was its wording known in advance? Can a thinker be found separately from the thought, producing it? Or do thought and the ownership-tag
“mine” both appear?
So there is no need to become suspicious of every thought or to take none of them seriously. That would merely replace unquestioning belief with unquestioning disbelief.
Instead ask:
• What is the actual thought?
• What does it claim?
• Can that claim be checked?
• Is it reporting an observable event, making an inference, predicting the future or evaluating “me”?
• Does the feeling that it is
mine reveal an owner—or only another feature of the experience?
For example:
“There is tightness in the throat” can be checked directly.
“The tightness means I am failing” is an interpretation.
“I have been doing this for years” is a conventional claim supported by memory and records.
“Therefore I should be further along” is a judgement based on an imagined timetable.
“Something is missing” may accurately report a feeling of lack, but it does not prove that an actual missing thing exists.
So the conclusion is neither “thoughts describe reality” nor “thoughts are only stories.” Thoughts are the brain’s representations of reality, possibilities, memories, predictions and fantasies. Sometimes they are useful and accurate; sometimes not.
The investigation is simply learning not to confuse:
the actuality of a thought appearing,
the apparent ownership of that thought,
and the truth of what the thought claims.
Those are three different things—even when they arrive bundled together as
“my very convincing thought about reality.”
I was noticing, yet again, my resistance to getting started on my work, and I was wondering how to get back to a sense that since experience is “merely” thoughts (which are fleeting and seem insubstantial) and sensations (which are ordinarily no worse than mildly uncomfortable), what could be the problem? And then it occurred to me that it might be helpful to dissect “resistance” — though I was also aware that spending time doing that, especially in writing, is also a form of procrastination.
So here I am at the library, poised to work, and actually I already responded to a student's email message, but now I need to return to the class discussion boards, and I feel resistant.
So, what is actually here?
The sentence “I feel resistant.”
Tightness in throat and perhaps in chest.
Vague thoughts of not wanting to start.
A bit of tension in jaw.
Choked-up feeling in throat and feeling of tears starting to pool.
Thoughts of WTF? Why is this such an issue for me?!
Thoughts of wishing I could just do whatever I feel like doing, which, these days, often — including right now — means stuff related to awakening.
Memory of some autistic folks talking about “demand resistance” as a thing. Trying to think of abbreviation for a diagnosis. Googled it: PDA, “pathological demand avoidance.” I don’t I fit the criteria for that, but I relate.
Um . . .
Thoughts: The work I need to do today isn’t even horrible or boring work. So again, WTF?
Still tightness in throat.
Hmm.
I suppose I hoped that dissecting “resistance” and disidentifying to some dgree from the thoughts would help it to seem less bothersome. And a Buddhist pedant in my head notes that one shouldn’t use awareness to try to make things go away.
This is a very useful dissection—but it has now probably given you everything it can give without becoming further procrastination.
First, I would again remove
“merely.” Thoughts and sensations may be fleeting, but that does not make them trivial. A brief thought can trigger a substantial biological response. Tightness, tears and the urge to escape are not evidence of an actual danger, but neither are they nothing. The nervous system is responding to the task as a demand, even though another part says the task is perfectly manageable.
And notice: the difficulty is not literally
starting work. You have already answered a student’s email. The resistance appeared around
transitioning to the discussion boards. That is more precise and less overwhelming than the global story
“Why is work such an issue for me?”
What you call resistance is not one thing. It currently includes:
• throat and chest contraction;
• tension in the jaw;
• tears beginning;
• thoughts saying
“I don’t want to”;
• a wish to be free from demands;
• attraction towards awakening-related activity;
• memory of explanations such as PDA;
• judgement that the task isn’t bad enough to justify the reaction;
• frustration about having the reaction;
• hope that examining it will make it easier.
That final item is important. The investigation began partly as an attempt to alter the experience. That is not a spiritual crime. Of course relief is wanted. But once this is recognised, there is no need for the Buddhist pedant to patrol the library shouting that noticing must be completely free of ulterior motives. He can be thanked and sent off for tea.
The PDA idea may or may not prove useful as a conventional explanation. But it is not needed to discover what happens next. Likewise, the resistance does not need to be understood, dissolved or disidentified from before action can occur.
This is where the investigation can move out of writing and become play through action.
The question is no longer:
“How can I get rid of enough resistance to work?”
It becomes:
“Can one small movement happen while resistance remains exactly as it is?”
So don’t take on
the class discussion boards as an enormous conceptual object. Let the next experiment be very small:
• Notice the tight throat.
• Let the thought
“I don’t want to” remain unanswered.
• Open one discussion board.
• Read one student’s post without promising to respond.
• Discover what happens next.
Perhaps a response begins forming. Perhaps resistance intensifies. Perhaps another tab is opened. Whatever happens gives fresh information.
This is not using noticing to make resistance disappear. It is discovering whether resistance actually possesses the power attributed to it. Does reluctance prevent anything from happehing—or can a happening and reluctance occur together?
And if a sentence gets written, look back: was willingness required first? Was there a separate controller who defeated resistance, or did bodily contraction, resistant thoughts, reading and typing all unfold together?
Resistance does not have to become permission before life moves.
Shite and onions. Tight throat, tears, one discussion post—and let’s discover what happens.
vince
