The Root Wound and the Love of the Story
La herida raíz y el amor por la historia
A student explores the collapse of inner and outer worlds, and the teacher guides them through the layers of reactivity, shadow, and the archetypal wound at the center of the sense of self.
The Root Wound and the Love of the Story
A student explores the collapse of inner and outer worlds, and the teacher guides them through the layers of reactivity, shadow, and the archetypal wound at the center of the sense of self.
I'd like to share something. When you said there is no inner world, I remember you also said that in a way it's the same as saying there is no outer world.
Exactly.
I'm at a loss for words.
It's like there's no border between what we think happens inside and outside of us. But also, a lot of activity that keeps the sense of a boundary stops. That is what is referred to as peace. The obsessive, addictive activity of engaging with thought to create a boundary in our experience, to constantly label something as inner or outer. Just as it creates dimensions in space, it creates dimensions in time.
Would you qualify thoughts as phenomenological?
Yes.
The layers beneath reactivity
So in the sense that you felt no expansion, that is appropriate. If you did, it would be something strange, because I was talking about what pulls you, what contracts you. I said: go into the narrative, go into the story, look at that. You're going to feel uncomfortable. You're going to remember all of the ways in which you've felt like that, and you're going to say, "This is from the beginning of time, and it's always been like this." That's exactly where I was leading. Then I wanted to not leave it on that note, so I mentioned that this is the cage we can be free from.
Right.
But you need to see the cage, understand how it works, feel into it very deeply, and more and more so. Back to what you were describing: "I've seen this many times, I get pulled in, then I see how I'm pulled in, but what's the point of keeping on looking at it?" The point is to find something that is still hidden.
And that's why I ask you what you experienced, because maybe you can help me find what's in it. I can't wait any longer. I want to know.
What you're getting from it
What's hidden is something that you are getting from it. If you feel like something is taking you and pulling you, and you're struggling, and you're a victim, powerless against this dynamic and this habit, that's a perfect narrative in order for you not to see what you're getting.
Right. "It's no use. It's so powerful." Blah, blah, blah.
Exactly. That's going to put the cherry on top of this dynamic so you don't even contemplate the possibility of seeing something deeper, because it's something that's happening to you. It's external and you can't do anything about it. It's the government, right? The cause of our struggle and suffering is external, so we are victims to it. "What am I going to do? I'm just going to hold on tight." But that's not really true.
The truth is, you will be troubled if you see your true motives, the real MO.
Mm-hmm.
You will be troubled in many ways. You might see, for example (and I'm not intuiting anything about what's going on for you; these are random examples), it could be a lust for revenge.
Mm-hmm.
Shadow work
To notice what this is: now we're talking about shadow work. There's always what's hidden. If we can't see that, then to greater or lesser degrees, being human, we have all the potential to be as evil as anybody has ever been. We might not have the power and intelligence of certain individuals, but the point is: what is the shadow side? What is the MO that keeps you engaged in this reactivity?
Once you see it, for example, you see, "Oh, I have this lust to hurt them back. I'm trying to figure out how to hurt them back or prove them wrong." Okay, why? For what purpose? Then you see: "Actually, I'm hiding something from myself." First, I feel like I'm a victim to their actions. That's one level. Peel that layer off and you'll see that, actually, underneath that, I'm not a victim to this dynamic. I'm engaging with it. I'm wanting something. I'm wanting revenge. I'm wanting to hurt. I'm wanting to prove them wrong. I'm wanting to make them feel small because they made me feel small. It's a little lust for revenge. It's a little bit of evil, a meanness. I'm talking about myself with my wife; it's no secret.
Peeling layers in meditation
From there, you ask: what is that in service to? Not hypothetically, but to really feel into it.
Yeah, in that moment.
Yes, in that moment. You can also reflect on it later, or in meditation, because you can think of that moment and it will bring up the same reactivity, the same dynamic. You can feel into it because this is all stuff we can activate. It's all this virtual reality. You can activate it in meditation, go back to it, and see how it feels.
You can use meditation for this. It's really good work, because you start working through psychological things, but you don't stay at the psychological level. You're starting to work with energies and with feelings and sensations that are the root of this contracted sense of self.
I'll keep describing how these layers can get peeled. It's through seeing, "Now I see I'm wanting to hurt," and asking what that is in service to. "Well, I feel hurt. I feel small." As I keep peeling these layers, it's going to become a lot more personal, a lot more about myself. It's no longer going to be, "Oh, I'm getting pulled, I'm a victim of these energies or this psychology." It's going to be: my pain, my sense of insecurity, my sense of being small.
The archetypal root
As you peel these layers and sit with those feelings and emotions, you're going to come to a root pain that is archetypal. It's all humans. It's at the center of all sense of self. It's going to be a kind of not being good enough. You could describe it in many different ways, but it's going to be a sense of insecurity: not good enough, not deserving, not worthy. Different minds will have different stories and ways to tell it and feel it, but it's always going to be this sense of not good enough.
If you keep looking at that, keep seeing where it's coming from, you'll find what I described in this meditation. But let me step back. What I'm describing with these peeling layers is all about truth. If you don't have a love, passion, and commitment to truth, you're going to stop somewhere along the way.
Something really hit a chord when you said that the sense of not being good enough is at the roots. I've always thought that was more accentuated in me, because I've run into it so many times. But I can also see the grandiosity there. I can see that there's a kind of addiction. For instance, many times it's like that is the wound, maybe the root wound, and I enjoy putting a finger in it, saying things like, "I suck," or "I'm a failure." I don't know, it really resonated when you said it's the root.
The difference between narrative and direct contact
I strongly hold the hypothesis that it's universal. What you're describing, that tendency to go poking at it and energizing it, is also a way to detach from the actual sensations, from the actual savoring of it. Because when you savor it, when you taste the flavor of that wound, it's a very different thing than the flavor of saying, "I'm a piece of shit," or "I suck."
"I'm a piece of shit" is a way to disconnect from the actual experience, the actual flavor. The narrative of "I suck" is a lot more manageable, so in a sense it's more comfortable. That's why I was saying: when you're really savoring it, there aren't narratives. The narrative "I'm amazing" is a way to pull away from it. "I suck" is also a way to pull away from it. But it's still a narrative.
You can completely distract yourself with negative self-talk that produces negative emotion and still not get in touch directly with the raw sensation of not feeling good enough. When you touch that, it's like the worst thing you've tasted in your life and you want to run away as fast as you can. A lot of people who have touched it will then do everything they can to never experience it again. It's that unbearable. But it's always there. To actually touch it is a form of awakening, to be in touch with something at a level of truth and depth that is unusual to know directly. Then the work is to be able to be with that more presently, more often. That's what's going to let you see through it.
Can I ask you something? Is that also a form of Mara, in the Buddhist sense? Mara as the temptation of thought that disguises itself as all of your worst fears or desires.
I would have to look into the description of Mara to speak directly to that. What you're describing sounds like it could be, but I'm not familiar enough with Mara to say. I would say it's more directly what has been described as an original wound. The most beautiful description I've heard of it is that it's the wound that is the loss of God.
The original wound
Loss of God, or loss of the idea or concept of God?
It's a loss of God, because when you separate from the totality, in that separation a wound is born. In a sense, what that creates is a false God.
I see. That's the separation from the divinity by enclosing ourselves in things we know.
To think that you know what you are: that is the falling from grace, the falling from the garden. But this has also been described as the first miracle. It's not a loss; it's a necessary step. And then the second miracle is to wake up from that.
I just want to say, listening to this, there are all these different threads and directions and pieces and angles, but it all adds up to such incredible simplicity. It just shows how this is. The mind is so creative, it's all over the place, there's no end to it, it's infinite. And we think that's God, and it's not. It's so simple: just be present with what is, and then you find out it was always right here. It's so obvious when you speak; it just makes so much sense. I can hear you and I get it, and then a minute later, a week later, it's gone. It's phenomenal. Maybe that fits in with the arrogance, too: "Oh, I can take you anywhere." And it's like, well, where are you taking me? What for? You can't even compare the two. One doesn't even exist. The paradox of it is amazing. I don't know if I'm making any sense, but it all makes sense to me.
There is nowhere to go
It is really very simple. There's nowhere to go. There is no thing other than this. It changes, it moves, but it's always this.
And I think the mind just loves the variety. "Oh, it looks like this. It feels like that. I thought I was this, but I'm really that." It's just constant. And yet, what I'm getting more and more as I listen to you, and the picture settles: what's behind it all is the opposite. It's like you need that background that doesn't move so you can see all the movement. But it's so deeply ingrained, and part of me wants to say, "Oh, in me it's so deeply ingrained, it's so hard." But that's just another narrative.
Yes, that's a very "me" narrative.
You are the driver
The mind in general just does what you ask for. It's not the mind that loves all these narratives. It's you.
Or the idea of me.
No, in this case it's you. The true you loves the narrative of the personal story.
Bingo. Let's get real. I'm the driver. Who else is driving? There's nobody.
And it's really great to see that, to see how we just love the story, the drama, the storms. I emphasize this a lot because there's a lot of language and pointing in spiritual teachings that can be turned into us being victims of something. "My mind does this," "this happens to me," this sense of powerlessness. I think that feeds a really false belief. The truth is: I love the drama.
It's true. It's absolutely happening. If I didn't love it, it wouldn't be there.
What we actually love
The experience of being possessed by rage, feelings of not being good enough, the basic wound: is it accurate to say we love to feel that?
Or that we love the sense that there's an "I" who is feeling it?
Yes. We don't love to feel insecure. We don't love that. That's the cost. What we love is to have a sense of a separate self, a sense of "I." "I have my own personal will, and I choose, and the origin of my will lies only in myself." That is a very compelling, addictive thing.
That makes sense.
The magic is that it doesn't go away completely. What goes away is the belief that it's true. Then it can still be experienced.