Trust, Hope, and the Sense That Something Is Missing
Confianza, esperanza y la sensación de que algo falta
A conversation about the difference between genuine trust and hope disguised as trust, and how the subtle belief that something is fundamentally missing drives our attachment to outcomes.
Trust, Hope, and the Sense That Something Is Missing
A conversation about the difference between genuine trust and hope disguised as trust, and how the subtle belief that something is fundamentally missing drives our attachment to outcomes.
Where I live, the air pressure does all kinds of things to some people, especially people with sensitive nervous systems. I was feeling it today, the whole day since I woke up. It dissipated during the meditation. I just wanted to let you know: it works in mysterious ways. The truth works in mysterious ways. I so appreciated hearing people. There is so much to relate to. What I see going on all around, these earth-shattering situations all over the world, and then in me, without connection, just my old stuff, it sometimes feels earth-shattering too. Then to come to this group, it's not earth-shattering, and yet it's more powerful. Where can I find a group like this? It's such a rare, rare thing.
Thank you. There is something really beautiful and special that happens when people come together and share the intention of just being present and being together.
The power of intention
That's the word that kept coming to mind for me during this whole meeting: intention. The trip, I don't have control over, just as you don't have control over the birth. You stand aside, you watch it, 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.
And the intention is also what is our deepest motive. What are we listening to in ourselves that is, in consequence, driving us? If what we are listening to is the interest, the love, and therefore the intention to be together, then that is what we create. Even if, as you say, 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 true intention, then we will be together. We will get what we want.
What I am describing can really spread to everything in our life, because if we connect more and more deeply with our true intentions (the way I point to it is with a question: "What does the universe want through me?"), that points to our deepest desire. And if that is truly our deepest desire, what moves us will be the intention that comes from that deep desire. The problem usually is that we don't operate from our deepest desire. We operate from fear, in the form of wanting something that is not really what we truly want. And that 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, I think. It's really just the other side of what you're saying.
Exactly, because the results are where fear starts to come in. In Buddhism they say: attachment to the outcome of action. Let go of the attachment to the outcome of action, and that will allow action to come from a deeper place. 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 is 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" and "consciousness." It is a trust in that mystery. It is 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 goes to something like, "Okay, I have to trust life, or existence, and in the future I'll still be okay if I follow this." You know the mind trick I'm talking about. It starts to sound a lot like hope.
Hope as poison
You're talking about hope. It is not that kind of trust. Consider hope poison.
Just to be clear: so you're talking about a trust that you can't really define.
I am pointing to it as precisely, in the most clear rational language that I can. I can see how it's still hard because it is putting into language something that is really about now. Trust, right now.
Right now, the sense that something is missing: that is what, in you for example, brings this process of hope. You are saying, "Trust that if I do this (for example, feel all that I am feeling, go through the pain or suffering), then I will get to a place of being okay." Is that something like what you are describing?
I was thinking of it more in terms of going in different directions with my activities, but I think it is the same thing.
Attachment to the outcome of action
It is exactly the attachment to the outcome of action. You are now putting faith, and therefore hope, in the outcome of your action. What I am pointing to is: inquire into the belief that you need an outcome in order to be okay.
It is the opposite thing. That hope, what you are calling trust, is stemming from an assumption that something is missing fundamentally, and that it is not available, not present, unless something happens that takes you there. What I am proposing is: question that.
Trust enough. It can be that you are fully convinced, one hundred percent, that something is missing, and you hear what I am saying, said in a million ways by me and others, and now you give it the benefit of the doubt. It's like, "Okay, maybe there is a one percent chance that this is possible." I am saying: trust enough until it becomes maybe more possible. And the more you look at it, that percentage will grow, not because you turn it into a belief, but because you look at the existing belief.
The existing belief, you won't experience it as a belief. You will experience it as reality. But if I point to it and say, "That is an assumption; I am describing a mechanism; that is a belief system," I am saying it is an assumption because you don't really know it is true. It will be true if you believe it one hundred percent; it will be what you believe is true. But if you trust that it is not, it will take you down a different path.
The subtle sense that something is fundamentally not okay
What you are 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 am saying is that this is coming from an experience that something is not okay now. The question I am talking about is subtle, fundamental. Not, "My hand hurts and I twisted my wrist and I need to go see a doctor." Those are life, functioning, action. I am talking about a really deep, subtle sense that something is fundamentally missing. The more you contemplate this, the more you will see it. Maybe at first you need to trust that what I am saying is fundamentally your constant experience. Trust that enough to look at your experience and see: yes, pretty much all the time, something feels like it is fundamentally not okay and missing. And I am operating from there, trying to make it better. It is going to have a form of anxiety. It can be loneliness. It can be sadness. It can be all kinds of sensations moving around. But fundamentally, something feels missing.
I get what you're saying, I think. And usually it's in the unconscious, very subtle in the background.
Yes, it can be unconscious and it can be subtle.
Hope as the expression of a lack of trust
The first thing that comes to my mind is "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," what is written above the entrance of 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 is exactly it. We can get into semantics; hoping and trusting can be used as if they are the same thing. I could say, "Trust that if you give me a lot of money, you will enter heaven." So it is not just trust. It is: trust in what? And I am saying: trust that your experience that something is fundamentally not okay is not true. It comes from something that can stop happening, and nothing is needed for that, only seeing, and then a process that comes from seeing. But it is your own seeing of your experience.
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 is what keeps us in suffering. But when we don't do that, we enter a, let's say, 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 is pointing to that openness, pointing to that mystery.
The loop of hope and fear
It also makes me think of how in Buddhism they say that hope is also a source of fear, because you are hoping for an outcome, so you are fearing the opposite outcome.
Once you are hoping, you are in fear, because you are wanting to get what you think you need in the future. And where is the future? It is in your mind. It is a concept, an idea. Can you experience the future? No.