The Drive to Land Somewhere Solid
El impulso de aterrizar en algún lugar sólido
A student describes the overwhelming discomfort of not being able to grasp what lies beneath familiar emotional patterns, and the teacher encourages her to stay with the raw sensations rather than retreating to the safety of known problems.
The Drive to Land Somewhere Solid
A student describes the overwhelming discomfort of not being able to grasp what lies beneath familiar emotional patterns, and the teacher encourages her to stay with the raw sensations rather than retreating to the safety of known problems.
I felt tremendous physical discomfort last time, and now I feel this tremendous inner discomfort. It's like I got it, and then I don't have it at all. I'm completely lost. I feel like I'm tumbling down a hill. I don't know what's happening. I feel overwhelmed trying to follow, and then I think, "I don't have to follow." And who is it anyway that's trying to follow? It's the same old pattern that tries to do this. So I'm watching that too.
But one very specific thing I want to ask: you're talking about the old way, the old comfortable dealing with familiar emotional patterns, versus something else. I don't even know what to call it exactly. Looking for what's beneath it, or whatever is deeper. How do I know that I'm not stuck in that same rut?
You can know by noticing whether what you're working on and trying to work through is very familiar to you. If it is, then in a sense it's not what I'm talking about. It is something, but it's not what is deeper. What is deeper feels very unfamiliar and almost always new, outside of time. It's like touching something red hot and wanting to throw it as fast as you can.
Right. This deep-seated fear that's below it all, that just wants to run away. Whatever it is, I don't even know what to call anything anymore. It just wants to go anywhere but there.
The pull toward familiar problems
Yes. And actually, you would prefer to go to the problems and issues and emotions that you know. In a sense, we do that because we feel we're doing the right thing, facing our issues.
It's like those problems have handles I can hold on to. There's a railing. But this other thing is like free fall.
Exactly. There is still a lot of work that can be and will be done with psychology, body, and mind. But eventually there's a point where that has a limit. The more we see that this is just a habit, that we're really just escaping from something deeper, the closer we are to being able to feel into it. And the more we see that it's just a habit, the more it will stop convincing us to put our attention there.
I don't know. I'm so full of "I don't know" right now. But it almost feels like the more I touch this ineffable place, and stay with it instead of running, the more I'm willing to hang out there. And the more I do, the more these old problems seem to dissipate, or seem to take care of themselves.
Yes, because most of them are in service. Most of them are made up or amplified. If they're not made up, they're amplified in service of not going there. So if you start going there, you don't need the amplification anymore. It's basically a defense mechanism.
The drive to land somewhere
As I listen to you, I can see myself looking for some comfort, some reassurance. I can feel this absolute drive to land somewhere solid. This whole session, it's been: where can I land? And there's this deep sense of agitation, and it's very, very painful.
That's what it brings up in me, because it's like, "Well, it's not that, not that, not that." Of course it's not that. And it reminds me of math class. There would be a new concept or a new problem, and at first glance I could see it: yes, that makes sense. But then I would try to grasp it and I couldn't. It was so obvious, and yet I couldn't hold it. And it would bring up so much fear. I can't even explain what it is. It's like, what do I do with this? It's the littleness of me. It feels excruciating. I don't know how to describe it.
Feeling into what you've always pushed away
You're touching it. As you're speaking, you're getting closer to it. What you can do, right now and whenever you're here with this, involves a bit of faith or trust. But it's a risk. The risk is this: you've always tried to fix this by pushing it away. What if you don't? What if you just feel what it is?
Whatever you're feeling and experiencing is inside of you, in a sense, and so it's smaller than you. The risk is to not know, to make space, to come closer with it, to be intimate. It can burn, but it can't damage. As you get close to that, it requires that you move into your truer nature, which is vast.
The part of you that's identified with something smaller and limited is threatened. That sense of being threatened, that desperate feeling of "I don't want to end," you can just feel into all of it: that unbearable sense of threat, that fear, that pain, that core of you in threat. Notice it to be just a part of you.
Make room for everything that's coming up, everything you're feeling, all the thoughts. The part of us that is afraid just doesn't want to let go. But we can handle it. We can be with all sensations, all emotions, all fears. And what we are is untouched by them: untouched in the sense of unharmed, but very intimate, closer than anything else. It's a burning process toward something deeper and truer.
Only sensations
And notice how the most difficult things that you've been touching and experiencing, even just now, are only sensations.
It's always the same. It doesn't matter what I'm experiencing; it's always the same. There's still something watching it.
Yes. Where you are is always present, undamaged, unchanged. It's just about getting used to very intense sensations by getting close to them and being intimate with them. In a sense, we sacrifice and burn our small identities, and that requires that we let go and expand into our truer nature. That's the struggle: the pull to stay small, the habit of staying small, meeting something bigger, which then requires us to let go of the small and embody our vastness.
So vulnerable, and very courageous.
I feel like I could have opened everything I could possibly open, and it went straight to my heart.
It's fear and pain, and they're just sensations. We can make them our friends. Then they no longer rule us.