When Thoughts Are No Longer Terrible
Cuando los pensamientos ya no son terribles
A student describes a new experience of presence remaining even as thoughts arise, and the teacher reflects on what shifts when something is recognized as always being there.
When Thoughts Are No Longer Terrible
A student describes a new experience of presence remaining even as thoughts arise, and the teacher reflects on what shifts when something is recognized as always being there.
I feel that I'm in a process, and the process is changing. It's unbelievably fast. I'll share what is happening. I experienced the being, as in another session, but this time it came with a more lively color. Before it was dark; now it was like a rose color.
The surprise for me was that during the experience, a thought passed, and I could still feel presence. In other moments I had been separated: the being on one side, then thoughts and emotions on the other. But now thoughts arose and I could still be. It was very tender, very different. The whole scenario was seen from a center.
I felt more like the little girl who has presence, not unconsciously, but a presence where you can observe. And the feeling was that I had known this in my childhood. Then it went away, and life unfolded, and then there was this lovely sensation: the experience that, as you say, it was always here. It is here. It is present. You can see it. What surprised me was the thoughts and the being together. So it is there all the time. It's a matter of attention, of whether I jump into more contact with it. That makes everything different. This is my experience.
Can you say a little more about that last part, about jumping in?
Yes. I never had this experience of having the thought and the presence at the same time. I constantly felt the presence, and something in me said, "I have never had this experience." So it was there, but something in me had been denying it. I wasn't in contact with it. And that became the bridge to my childhood, and that is also the bridge through which thoughts become more tender. The experience is that what's going on is not so terrible. When the thoughts are very far away, it's different, because then it is all thought, all mind, all emotion, and it is very intense. But now, it's okay.
The lifting of a hypnosis
I don't want to say too much because it feels very fresh and still in movement. But if I were to say something: there is a lifting of a kind of hypnosis, which is very common when experiencing one thing or another. When thoughts are there, there is a sense that something is lost, and that is why the thoughts feel so terrible. If the thoughts happen to be good, then maybe it's okay, but normally they aren't. So there is always this sense of a battle to change what the mind is doing.
But once you realize that there is something that is always there, the dimension in which thoughts are happening becomes a lot smaller. It seems as though something is lost, but actually, what you are realizing is that it was always the case. Nothing was actually lost.
That was a great experience, because I never had it before. Or maybe I simply couldn't understand what was going on, because when you are not able to understand, you can't see how concrete it is.
A change that is not at the level of thinking
If you look at what you're describing, something changed, but not at the level of thinking or at the level of the mind.
Yes, it's not at that level. It's sat. It is sat.
Thank you. What has happened in this group, with this work, is that I can go through experiences that are so different. I have a background that is very difficult. But this is the place where the experience becomes something else entirely. This group is calling forth something new, a new sensation. And when you speak about it, you put words to it and help me understand what is going on.
That's great. It's really my pleasure.