Effort, Acceptance, and the Freedom to Choose
Esfuerzo, aceptación y la libertad de elegir
A student describes a shift that occurred when the teacher suggested that "noticing" is too strong a word, and asks about the relationship between effortless awareness and the mind's habitual identification with struggle.
Effort, Acceptance, and the Freedom to Choose
A student describes a shift that occurred when the teacher suggested that "noticing" is too strong a word, and asks about the relationship between effortless awareness and the mind's habitual identification with struggle.
You mentioned something about noticing what's going on, and then said that even the word "noticing" would be too strong, because what you're pointing to is actually effortless. When you said that, I felt a shift away from the mind. I don't know exactly what happened, but what I experienced was a deepening, as if the mind had to take a step back. That effort, that doing, is almost what mind is, as I experience it.
That was extremely helpful. The other thing I wanted to say is that so much of what you said resonated very deeply. It feels like you're describing seeing from the perspective of the seer, rather than from the perspective of what is seen. And yet, at the same time, there's a very precise, very intimate, authentic description of experience. Somehow that builds a bridge for me. It helps the seer come more fully into its own experience. That's what struck me during this meditation.
I can say a few words about that.
The experience of effort as identification
The first thing you mentioned is exactly what that meditation is pointing to. The experience of effort is an identification. We identify with something that is doing a kind of effort, and that something is the mind. The whole meditation is pointing to the fact that there is something beyond that, or as it is usually pointed to, something before that. Not before in time, but something that is hard to point to: an acceptance that is already happening, and that is actually the nature of what we are.
In that shift you described, there is a shift of identification. In a sense, it is getting closer to our true nature. That is exactly what I was pointing to when I said "noticing" is too big a word. It implies too much effort, as though you need to do something, the way you need effort to solve a mathematical problem.
Beyond the ping-pong of attention
Even when we do the practice of noticing the breath, we go into the mind and there is this ping-pong back and forth. There is a sense of struggle: "I am not able to pay attention to the breath because the mind keeps taking me away." That is a good exercise, but I am pointing to something more subtle and deeper. There is something that notices that ping-pong. There is something that notices that there is thought. Even the resistance we have to every moment can be seen to be effortless.
At every moment where there is a sense of struggle, you can notice that. And again, the word is "notice," but you were talking about seeing, what is seen, and the seer. There are different ways to point to something beyond the mind. One way is to notice that there is something that is seeing. This is a way to separate from what we identify with. If you are looking at the mind, or at the person, or at the body, if you are having any kind of experience, there is something that is aware of that experience. In that way, we are pointing to a kind of infinite subjectivity. That is a good practice too.
Acceptance is already here
But today I was pointing to something else. Even when we are immersed in identification, even in the deepest struggle, there is something that is fully accepting. It is fully accepting in the same way that, when you hear my voice, you cannot stop hearing it. There is something completely effortless in everything you are experiencing.
The pointer "try to accept reality" is very misleading. Many teachings point to the practice of acceptance, and it has become a common concept: accept yourself, accept reality. It might help a bit, but the truth is that the acceptance is already there. It is our nature. It is more useful to find a way to realize that.
That whole exploration was about different ways to point to this acceptance. It is easy to notice in things that are easy to accept: the sound of my voice, or whatever you are seeing right now, which is being experienced effortlessly. But to notice that this is exactly the same acceptance, the same effortlessness, when it comes to thinking, feeling, and struggles: that is the deeper recognition. There is something that is experiencing our suffering and accepting it at the same level of acceptance.
Two paths of creating
In a way, there are two roads. One is the road where we feed that identification with struggle, where we believe "I will be okay only if some aspect of present-moment reality changes." The other is to notice that reality is exactly what it is and that the deepest part of what I am accepts it exactly as it is.
From that place, I can create a future. The future doesn't really exist because it is always now, but I can move with this reality in the direction that I feel, from deeper and deeper inside, called to move. One path is a process of creating from an innate, deep sense of harmony: from the place of what I am, which fully accepts. The other is creating and interacting from a place of rejection.
The only part of us that rejects is a mental construct. If we listen to that part and create from there, we are going to create with disharmony. And actually, when we do that, we are intending to create disharmony, because we want to propagate that sense of rejection. That is what I pointed to as a deep arrogance: the sense of "I know better than life." If we identify with that and create from there, we create from a place that propagates rejection. And that is a choice.
The freedom of seeing clearly
The other option is to experiment with creating from, and resting in, that deepest part of ourselves that accepts. Usually what happens on that path is that more harmony begins to arise. It becomes a virtuous cycle. But the shift from one to the other has its challenges. It can get a little bumpy, because that deeply arrogant part of us is going to kick and scream.
It occurs to me from what you're saying that once we see this identification process, this constructed persona, once we see it for what it is, then we have the freedom to choose at each moment, because we're aware.
Exactly. And as we said, it might be bumpy, but it is absolutely binary. It is this one or that one. The choice is that clear, that simple. And it is something you can experiment with. Don't believe me. Just see: if you do more of the other one, how does life go?