The Frustration of Seeing Through Your Own Strategies
La frustración de ver a través de tus propias estrategias
A student describes a growing sense of futility and depression as their spiritual strategies seem to fail, and the teacher reflects on what it means when the mind begins to see through its own mechanisms of control.
The Frustration of Seeing Through Your Own Strategies
A student describes a growing sense of futility and depression as their spiritual strategies seem to fail, and the teacher reflects on what it means when the mind begins to see through its own mechanisms of control.
At the beginning of the meditation, I was feeling a sense of something depressive. "What's the point?" Every map I make of what's going on ends up failing. Everything I do ends up failing, even though consciously I don't think I'm doing everything I can for, I don't know, waking up or whatever. The sense was something like that, and then it became almost comical to me: the thought or pretense that I have control, that I can know anything about what I'm doing or what is happening.
I've made up so many stories. "Now I'm meditating because meditation does this." "Now we're in a group because it develops certain things." But no, I have no clue and I don't have any control.
Then towards the end, when you were talking about the sense of "me," maybe this other sense was also related. I think I was noticing an illusion of control, because nothing was ever enough. I keep doing these things and then I just fall back into habits of living more mechanically, from the story.
Towards the end, when you were talking about a sense of "me," I started feeling some sort of pain. I'm not sure what shame is, or if I ever understand what it is, but I think it was that: a sense that something is intrinsically or essentially wrong with whatever I am. So those are the words I can put on it for now.
Do you have a question, or do you want me to say something to that?
I'm interested in your response. I don't know if there's a question.
When strategies lose their power
Let me reflect on what you're sharing. The first part, from my sense, is this: when we start to see through all of our agendas, there is a drop in our mood, because all of the strategies we have to improve ourselves, to fix life, to make things right, are motivated by this agenda of how to change what is into something else.
One possibility is that we're living in total belief in those strategies. We're completely attached to the reality of "this is what life is about, and I'm doing what I have to do, and these are the things I've learned that I need to do." You can call those rites and rituals of how to do the right thing. When we start to see past that, they no longer have their energizing quality. So this sense of "depressive, what's the point" arises. But you're also describing the noticing of all these strategies, and the sense that you don't have control, and that they're not working. That is actually quite a big breakthrough in seeing the structure of your mind and how you function.
It's actually quite traditional. I've been reading a number of maps of stages of progress and awakening, and this is pretty well highlighted as a stage.
The paradox of spiritual practice
The important thing is: there is a thing that is waking up. It's pretty paradoxical, because we can not know there's such a thing and then go about our lives trying to do our best based on what education has told us is the right way to live. Then we can discover there is a spiritual process. It's called spiritual, but basically, if it's true and real, it's going to be about waking up. But then we can turn that into another strategy. The paradox is that it is a strategy, but it's a strategy to frustrate all strategies. If it works, it's a strategy to end all strategies. A lot of that process isn't fun, precisely because of that.
That's why there's something called the dark night of the soul: stages where what motivates us, which is usually escaping something, stops working.
What lies underneath
That's the second part of what you were sharing. You started to actually come closer to what's underneath it all. All strategies are in service of running away from the sense of "there's something really wrong with me."
What you're describing is quite a big insight. You're seeing the strategies. You're seeing the paradoxical nature of doing. You're experiencing a sense of not having control, and that is true in a way. We don't have control in the way we think we do. We think there's an entity that's independent, that is "me," that is isolated and separated, that chooses freely and independently, that has its own volition and its own will. That's a very false perspective. When it starts to be seen through, it's very disarming. It can be very scary. We can go into fear or into depression.
But if that process is successful, we will see what it is hiding. It is concealing this sense of "something's wrong with me." But this isn't something that can simply be said as a concept and then recognized. You have to discover it, which is what I think you're describing. It has to be your own insight. Once you peel the layers, you actually have the experience: "I do feel like essentially there's something wrong with me."
The direction is to keep looking, to keep having clarity, to keep seeing through everything you're describing. The nature of this sense of something wrong will become more clear, and you're going to be able to see it more directly.
"There's nothing I can do"
But you say "the direction," and I'm feeling like it's not something I can do or have control over. Even when I come into contact with that and notice it, it's not done. I understand what you're saying, but in a sense, there's nothing I can do.
Yes, because the one who "can't do anything," which is what you are now seeing, isn't what you are. In a sense, I'm not talking to that part. But I think what you're saying is correct: "I can't do anything about the direction."
Because I've tried. I've tried to be meticulous. I've also noticed that I take the things you say and turn them into strategies. And it's the same frustration. The same.
The middle path between control and nihilism
This is where you lean to one side, then lean to the other. It's also untrue that there's nothing you can do. There's a paradox here, and that's why it's really subtle. It's important that you're being meticulous, because the more we progress, the more subtlety becomes very important.
There is something that decides. There is something that chooses. But it's not what we think it is. There is something that learns.
So you're saying there is something that can choose to, like, come more into contact with that? Something you're talking to in me that can decide, or make space for it?
If I were to be more direct but still metaphorical, I wouldn't say I'm talking to a part of you. I would say the universe is talking to the universe and reflecting itself. But you, as a universe believing you are a limited entity, can recognize that that's not true. The problem is believing that your body-mind chooses. Even if we say "consciousness chooses," it's very easy to turn that into an entity, a thing that chooses. And it's not. There is no centralized, located thing in consciousness that chooses.
It's so strange: the fact that I can choose, but at the same time have no idea of what I am, or who you are.
That's where the middle path is. It's not this way, and it's not that way. It's not that you have autonomous choice, and it's not that you don't.
What you're realizing is important. I want to highlight that sense of frustration and powerlessness and the feeling that you can't control anything. That's true. But it's seeing half of the truth. It happens to be the half that you're most ingrained in, the half you're most stuck in. That's the nature of the human mind.
What I'm trying to do is make sure you don't turn that into the opposite belief: "There's nothing to do, I can't do anything, there's no control," and then fall into nihilistic abandoning. That's why I'm highlighting that there is a thing called awakening. There is learning. There is something that can wake up, and that could happen right now. What can happen is the recognition that you already are that. But in the meantime, we dance the dance.
Again, I want to highlight that what you've described is a very important and positive process.