The Belief That There Are Two
La creencia de que hay dos
A student begins to notice a fundamental flaw in the assumption that there is a "me" who must realize a "true self," and the teacher explores how this belief creates an imaginary distance and a project that perpetuates suffering.
The Belief That There Are Two
A student begins to notice a fundamental flaw in the assumption that there is a "me" who must realize a "true self," and the teacher explores how this belief creates an imaginary distance and a project that perpetuates suffering.
This thing about the decision felt like you were taking us toward mystery. At one point it was fine, but I couldn't find where the decision came from. I kept wondering: would I have taken the decision to move the finger if it hadn't been proposed? Probably not. That sense of a lack of origin reminded me of the vase scene in The Matrix.
But maybe this is a different topic. Towards the end of the meditation, I started to see a belief, a faulty thinking. It was a belief that I'm here, and that someone here has to realize who he truly is. I started to see the fault in it, because that would mean there are two. Something started to shift. I don't know how to explain it well; I've only just started to see it, and that's why I'm struggling. It's something that short-circuits the mind.
I think I understand what you're talking about. When you say there's someone here who needs to realize who he is, you're putting into words the belief that there's a trajectory, a distance that needs to be covered, a journey that must be taken. That's where the false belief comes from.
The impossibility of leaving what you are
You're right that there's a faulty thinking here, and it connects to what I was saying at the beginning of the meditation: there is no way to leave what we are. There is no way to not be present, no way to not be what we are. But in believing that there is, what we are gets lost, forgotten, veiled. That believing is what gets described as suffering. It's really just the belief that "I am far from myself, and I need to get to myself," when in fact you can never not be what you are.
This is where words get tricky, so everything becomes somewhat metaphorical. But words are needed to address the problem when the problem is a conceptual, mental challenge.
What you're describing is: "I am a thing here that needs to realize it is the thing over there." Now there's a task, a strategy, a project. That is the mechanism through which the mind creates time: a problem to fix in time, a direction in which to go. All of which is about not being present, not being here. What is here now is not okay, not enough.
Yes, but I've heard these ways of saying it, and I even realized that saying "I'm already that, there's nothing to do, I just have to realize it" is something I somehow turned into a project in the future. It's still "over there," not here.
Intellectual belief versus lived experience
If somebody comes and tells me, "I'm already that, there's nothing to do," I'd say: how do you feel? If you're still suffering, then something can happen that hasn't happened yet, because it has become an intellectual exercise, an intellectual belief. "I'm already that, so nothing to do, I don't need to meditate, I don't need to practice." But that person can still be identified with this concept of "I'm already what I'm looking for." And it's not real. Only in being absolutely transparent with what your experience actually is can any progress be made. Transparent to yourself first, and then transparent to somebody who could potentially mirror or help point something out.
I understand that the pointer "you're already that" doesn't always help.
Seeing that there are two, and therefore neither
What I was trying to say is slightly different. When you notice this sense of a "me" that needs to realize something in order to get to the true self, the true I, there is something true in that noticing. What's true is what you yourself identified: there are two. And if there are two, you can't be either. Because you have, in a sense, an understanding of both. You hold an image of the "I" you think you are now, and an image of the "I" you think is the realized one.
What can happen is the realization that there is no one. The "I" that is seeing that process and that strategy is empty.
Yes, or that they're both part of the same thing. They're both concepts.
Exactly, they're both concepts. And then the question becomes: who or what is aware of the concepts?
Feeling into the strategy
To wrap this up, I would say: pay attention to the strategy. There is an aspect of what you're describing that functions as a strategy, and that strategy is a way to push away what's happening, what's true and real now, and to try to get somewhere else. The strategy is powered, energized, by a desire to get out of now.
When you notice the strategy, feel into it. Make room for touching the sensations that the strategy is helping you avoid. That will help you get out of the more intellectual process.
And it can be very subtle, so you may have to pay a similarly subtle kind of attention. Do you notice anything right now that feels like something is not okay, something is missing?