What Is Missing Right Now
Qué Falta Ahora Mismo
A question about whether directly experiencing deep psychological pain and fear is the pathway to healing, and how to work with the layers of dissatisfaction that underlie our contracted way of being.
What Is Missing Right Now
A question about whether directly experiencing deep psychological pain and fear is the pathway to healing, and how to work with the layers of dissatisfaction that underlie our contracted way of being.
When you experience the body as it is in direct experience, it's more like an abstract painting than a realistic depiction. That's my experience of direct experience, not only of the body but of experiencing in general. It's not ordered. The mind orders it, like a camera watching a movie where everything is placed: he's there, and out the window I'm watching that. But in direct experience, it's just this undifferentiated something.
Everything that is ordered and makes sense and has things we can talk about: all of that is the reflection.
Maybe in that image, what becomes orderly is the distinction between here and there. The sound of the truck is "out there." The shape of the body creates a sense of "here" and a sense of "there." But when you start looking at what "there" actually is, everything is here.
The cost of living in reflection
I want to emphasize that when we are living in that contracted state, where our attention and reality is only what is reflected by the mind, our hearts are more closed. We are more out of touch with, and unaware of, our love and the love that is reality. That is why we suffer. And suffering is actually the most beautiful way to know where to go. If there were no suffering and pain, we would simply stay in a contracted form of being.
It was a very deep meditation, and I love the image of the mirror. I found myself in a moment looking at the mirror and having no idea where I was standing or what the reflection was coming from. It was very useful for me to listen to the earlier questions, which really resonated with me, and to begin to understand the distinction between different sources of pain and fear.
I can see where I am more open to experiencing in that direct way and where I am less open. What was said about the more psychological dimension of it, I understand now. For me, fear and the structures that override it, or keep it alive to the point where it's bearable, that fear around childhood wounding, is almost the biggest, hardest thing to face. I feel like I've been coming closer and closer to it.
My question is: is direct experience really the pathway to healing? Is it a way of going through it?
Spiritual bypass and the repression barrier
Question (second speaker): I think it can be, but a lot of people find a way to use it as spiritual bypass. The direct experience can work because of what was mentioned earlier about repression. There is a repression barrier that we keep in place with the mind, with our interpretations, and with all our psychological defenses. When you experience directly, that barrier is not in the way. Everything reveals itself to you, and that is the opportunity to heal.
Layers of pain
Yes, I agree with that. And I would add that you could see it as layers. First you come in contact with what Eckhart Tolle calls the pain body, which is a beautiful image. It points to the psychological pain and suffering that is familiar, that we know, that has become a habit and is actually an addiction.
You can be in contact with that forever and never heal, because it is not the real pain. It is not the real, repressed experience. It is actually where you go to avoid the direct, raw experience of our wounded self.
But there is another layer before that, where people are not even aware of the pain body. So you could see it as layers. Once you become more in contact with that neurotic suffering, the pain body, then you can start to see through it. You will become more aware and in touch with the real wounding. It is all about this deepening, this becoming more in touch with fear and pain. The direct experience of fear and pain is where healing happens.
Asking what is not okay
One way to get in touch with it is to ask yourself: what is not okay right now? What is missing? What is the problem? What is the underlying dissatisfaction right now?
Pretty much every waking second of your day, you will have a sense that something is missing, a kind of dissatisfaction. We are constantly operating to mitigate that, to push it away, to suppress, deny, or satisfy it in some way.
The question is: what is essentially missing? It is going to be constantly changing, but if you look at it often enough, you will notice patterns. It will be something in your work, or something in your relationship. Those are the habitual experiences of dissatisfaction: "If only this changed in my relationship, if only this changed in my work, then I would be okay."
But it has to be real. You have to be really, truly not okay with that thing. Not an intellectual "I noticed this thing in myself and I'm not okay with it." Not that one. The one where you're seriously not okay.
Bringing in trust
Yes. The more you do that, the more you look at it (this is a kind of inquiry), you are going to notice a really restless need. The dissatisfaction is going to grow. The more you avoid all the ways in which you suppress it or satisfy it temporarily, the more it is going to become this present feeling that something is really missing.
And there you can bring in, if you are more directly in touch with that, the side of trust and faith: what if what I really need and want is already here, and this does not need to be satisfied?
Now you are going to have a very intense experience. It can be subtle at first, but if you are truly in touch with it, there will be a very intense sense of dissatisfaction. Your whole mind and psychology is saying, "This is missing, this needs to change, I am not okay." And then you bring in a question, a question from trust, from faith, because it is basically introducing a doubt about a very deep structure. The deep structure says something is missing. And now you bring in the doubt: what if what I want and need is already here, and this does not need to change?
That is really going to activate it even more.
Yes. It is like feeding it, but from outside, almost. It is not the same hamster wheel. It is from the outside, but it is still feeding the process.
Exactly. Because what happens when we get more in touch with that underlying dissatisfaction is that we are so convinced we know what we need and want, and we go for it.
As soon as you said "you're going to be in touch with a huge sense of dissatisfaction," I thought, "Oh."
And especially if you really take that step of trust, trusting that this does not need to change and that what you need and want is right here, already present. If you really open up to trust that, even for a bit, it is going to activate everything. It is going to bring up fear. It is going to bring up pain.
When we are really contracted and identified in our mind, we are not aware of dissatisfaction. We are not aware of suffering. It is a very conditioned form of living. The more we break out of that, the more we become aware of fear and pain, but it is still psychological and superficial: the pain body. The more we go past that, we come to a very underlying terror.