Intention, Hope, and the Illusion of Something Missing
Intención, esperanza y la ilusión de que algo falta
A conversation about the difference between trust rooted in the present moment and hope directed toward future outcomes, and how a deep sense that something is fundamentally missing drives much of our suffering.
Intention, Hope, and the Illusion of Something Missing
A conversation about the difference between trust rooted in the present moment and hope directed toward future outcomes, and how a deep sense that something is fundamentally missing drives much of our suffering.
The word that kept coming to mind during this whole meeting was "intention." The trip itself is out of my control, just as you can't control a birth. You stand aside, you watch, you see what's going on. For me, it's all about the intention. The results are what they are, but my intention: that's where I'm coming from.
Yes. And intention is what reveals our deepest motive. What are we listening to in ourselves that is, in consequence, driving us? If what we're listening to is the interest, the love, and therefore the intention to be together, then that's what we create. Even if the journey is out of our control, and things might not go as we expect or prefer, in a deeper sense, if what we truly want is to be together and we all come together with that as our true intention, then we will be together. We will get what we want.
Connecting with true intention
What I'm describing can spread to everything in our life, because if we connect more and more deeply with our true intentions, which I point to with the question, "What does the universe want through me?", that question points to our deepest desire. And if that is truly our deepest desire, what moves us will be the intention that comes from it.
The problem usually is that we don't operate from our deepest desire. We operate from fear, in the form of wanting something that's not really what we truly want. Operating from fear has many masks.
It's exactly that. When I focus on the intention as opposed to the results, that's where the trust comes in.
Exactly. Because the results are where fear starts to come in. That's what in Buddhism they call the attachment to the outcome of action. They say: let go of the attachment to the outcome. That allows action to come from a deeper place. And that requires trust, because we become attached to the outcome when we feel we will not be okay without it.
Where trust meets mystery
There is a point where it's very hard not to make this about something that touches on what religions speak of, because it has to do with the moment, with the universe, with mystery. You get very close to having to use the word God, even though it can be replaced with "mystery" or "consciousness." And so it's a trust in that. A trust in that mystery. A trust in ourselves, because we are that as well.
Can I ask you one thing about that? I notice my mind goes to a place that I don't think is what you're talking about. It takes it to: "Okay, I've got to trust life or existence. In the future, I'll still be okay if I follow this." It starts to sound a lot like hope.
Hope as poison
You're talking about hope. It's not that kind of trust.
Right. But in relationship to trusting my deepest longings, and what to do, and what direction to take, and that it will lead me somewhere good, it does start to sound like hope.
Consider hope poison.
So you're talking about a trust that you can't really define.
I'm pointing to it as precisely and clearly as I can. I can see how it's still hard to grasp, because I'm putting into language something that is really about now. Trust that now.
Right now, the sense that something is missing. That sense, in you for example, brings this process of hope, because you're saying, "Trust that if I do this, if I feel all that I'm feeling, go through the pain or suffering, then I will get to a place of being okay." Is that something like what you're describing?
I was thinking of it more in terms of going in different directions with my activities, but I think it's the same thing.
Questioning the belief that something is missing
It's exactly the attachment to the outcome of action. You're putting faith, and therefore hope, in the outcome of your action. What I'm pointing to is: inquire into the belief that you need an outcome in order to be okay.
So it's the opposite. That hope, what you're calling trust, is stemming from an assumption that something is missing fundamentally, and that it's not available, not present, unless something happens to take you there. What I'm proposing is: question that.
Trust enough. Let's say you're fully convinced, 100%, that something's missing. You hear what I'm saying, said in a million ways by me and others, and now you give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe there's a 1% chance that it's possible. I'm saying trust enough until it becomes more possible. And the more you look at it, that percentage will grow. But not because you turn it into a belief. Rather, because you look at the existing belief.
The existing belief, you won't experience as a belief. You'll experience it as reality. But if I point to it and say, "That's an assumption," I'm describing a mechanism. I'm saying it's a belief system, an assumption, because you don't really know it's true. If you believe it 100%, it will be what you take to be true. But if you trust that it's not, it will take you down a different path.
Trust in what is, not in what will be
What you're describing as trust is trust that you will be okay because you will get what you want if you do X, Y, Z. What I'm saying is that this comes from an experience that something is not okay now.
The question I'm talking about is subtle and fundamental. I'm not talking about "my hand hurts and I need to see a doctor." That's life, that's functioning, that's action. I'm talking about a really deep, subtle sense that something is fundamentally missing. The more you contemplate this, the more you will see it. Perhaps at first you need to trust me when I say this is fundamentally your constant experience. Trust that enough to look at your own experience and see: yes, pretty much all the time, something feels fundamentally not okay and missing. And I'm operating from there, trying to make it better. It's going to take the form of anxiety, loneliness, sadness, all kinds of sensations moving around. But fundamentally, something feels missing.
I think I get what you're saying. And usually it's unconscious, very subtle, in the background.
Yes, it can be unconscious and it can be subtle.
The first thing that comes to my mind is "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," written above the entrance to hell. The more I think about it, I feel like hope is the expression of a lack of trust. Because if you trust, why do you need hope?
That's exactly it.
That's all I wanted to say.
Trust in what?
We can get into semantics, and "hoping" and "trusting" can be used as if they're the same thing. I could say, "Trust that if you give me a lot of money, you will enter heaven." So it's not just trust; it's trust in what?
I'm saying: trust that your experience of something being fundamentally not okay isn't true. It comes from something that can stop happening, and nothing is needed for that, only seeing. Then a process that comes from seeing, but it's your own seeing of your experience.
And as you brought up the door that is the entry to hell in Dante's Inferno, that is the process. We put our trust in the outcome of action. We put our faith and our hope in the outcome of action. And that's what keeps us in suffering. But when we don't do that, we enter what we might call conscious suffering, which Dante describes in the Divine Comedy. T.S. Eliot also said: "Do not think, because you are not ready for thought. Do not hope, because it will be hope of the wrong thing." It's pointing to that openness, that mystery.
The loop of hope and fear
It also makes me think of the Buddhist teaching that hope is a source of fear, because you're hoping for an outcome and therefore fearing the opposite outcome.
Yes, it's a loop. Once you're hoping, you're in fear, because you are wanting to get what you think you need in the future. And where is the future? It's in your mind. It's a concept, an idea. Can you experience the future? No. So can you ever get what you're hoping to get in the future?
The thing is, even when I can say, "I put my hope in a glass of water," and the glass of water becomes my present-moment experience (I have what I hoped for), while I'm drinking the water, I'm already hoping for something else.
It's like when you're really hungry and you're having a meal, but you like the meal so much that you almost don't want to finish it. You want to keep the food in your mouth because it tastes so good, but then the taste starts to change. You have to swallow it. You can't just taste it forever.
Yes, and the satisfaction of eating when you're hungry goes away really quickly. The moment that satisfaction goes away, we are in dissatisfaction, instantly hoping for something else to bring that satisfaction. That's the mind.
A dissatisfaction only the present moment can satiate
There's a dissatisfaction and satisfaction at the level of the body and the mind: if I'm hungry, there's going to be discomfort; if I eat, there's going to be satisfaction of that hunger. But I'm talking about a different kind of dissatisfaction, one that can only be satiated by the present moment. Therefore, it can only be satiated always, without any conditions.
So it isn't really a dissatisfaction in the first place, because it's already satiated.
Let's call it the illusion of dissatisfaction. It's self-hypnosis. And it's a choice. That's why it's self-hypnosis. We're not hypnotized by the universe or God against our will.
We're hypnotized by the self.
We hypnotize ourselves because... I'll leave that open. Fill in the blanks. You can contemplate this. It goes very deep. It will go to the root of your sense of who you are.
It makes me think of reality as something like a thread. You can tie knots in it, creating little shapes, one knot here, one knot there. But if you pull the thread, all the knots come undone and it becomes just a thread again.
You undo the knots, and now it's simply a thread. Yes.