The Suffering We Choose and the Suffering Beneath It
El sufrimiento que elegimos y el sufrimiento que hay debajo
A question about the difference between habitual emotional patterns and a deeper, more fundamental layer of pain that those patterns exist to cover.
The Suffering We Choose and the Suffering Beneath It
A question about the difference between habitual emotional patterns and a deeper, more fundamental layer of pain that those patterns exist to cover.
There's a lot moving and shifting right now. My question has to do with the part that's suffering. I'm not sure how to ask it. During the meditation, when you said something about truth, all of a sudden I could see the identities, or the things with which I identify, like a very strong personality element. I saw the drive or impulse to exist through it, as if I can only exist through this, if that makes sense. I saw it as a distraction: the focus goes there, but there's this other part where that impulse is actually coming from. Now you're talking about a part that's suffering, and I'm confused. You talk about the gold, the form, and the ring, and I feel very lost right now. Everything is shifting in a way I can't quite make sense of.
When you say "to exist through it," what do you mean?
As if it gives an illusion of existing, of being.
So, just to be sure I understand: is the personality that which you believe you are, and you want to exist through it?
It's like a place I go to a lot, one that has a certain way of suffering, of seeing, of experiencing, of interpreting, of understanding, of knowing who I am and who others are.
The personality as a system of familiar suffering
That is exactly it. And what happens is that we also create a superficial form of suffering called emotion. These will be the emotions we know how to trigger, and they will cover the true, deeper suffering. It becomes a habit, an addiction. It becomes a pattern of struggle and emotion and suffering that is very much under our control.
There is going to be a very deep hold to keep that whole thing in place, no matter what. What I'm proposing will undermine that, because it means going out of the personality, the stories, what you believe you are, what you believe life is, what people are. And the emotional fuel that sustains all of that, because it's powered by emotions we become addicted to.
All of that is what I'm saying: it's either this way or that way. If you are able to look at it and really feel deeply into it, you will see very immediately that something is driving it, pushing it. And you'll start to feel that that driving force is not feeling okay. It is a kind of not-okayness that you want to get away from no matter what.
I guess my uncertainty comes from: how do I be with that? It's the knot.
Seeing the habit for what it is
From what you're describing, I would focus on noticing the more repetitive, habitual nature of your current knowing of what you are, what the problems are, and the emotions you're going through. If you look at it, you can see: this is a very deep habit. The more you see that, the more it's going to lose its attraction, and you'll be able to see what's driving it. Why are you going there? Why are you activating that? That will bring you closer to the deeper, fundamental pain or suffering.
It is like layers, going deeper and deeper, and the task is to be with it. But you can spend your whole life being with the emotions that are your addiction and not get anywhere. What Eckhart Tolle calls the "pain body" is not real. It's not true. It's not deep.
The unbearable dimension
If you manage to touch that deeper fundamental layer, and I'm sure you have, you could probably remember moments in your life when something had the taste of a pain or suffering that is completely unbearable. Something that feels like a whole other dimension compared to the normal pains. It suddenly opens up and it's vast, and it is unbearable. That's the kind of suffering I'm talking about.
I feel like I encounter a level of fear that I don't know I've truly gone through. I have an intuition that it might be prior to all of this. The attachment to these patterns is really strong, and the fear of not being there, of letting go, is huge.
That's exactly it. And the fear is there because of something. That is where I'm pointing.
Especially more recently, I encounter moments where this structure I'm talking about is not there at all. I feel so good, but it's almost unconscious in the sense that it happens and then it doesn't happen.
It's like a rabbit hole. If you keep going down, it can get very trippy and difficult, but over time it is a lot better than the struggle we are accustomed to. There's a certain warmth to our habitual pain, because we call it part of "I," part of the false I. And we love it.
We have the option to say goodbye to that. It is either that, or staying in an infinite process of trying to fix or resolve something that isn't that real. It cannot be fixed, because it's not really a thing that's broken.