Structure and Flow Are Not Two Things
Estructura y flujo no son dos cosas
A question about navigating the tension between maintaining stable relationships and honoring the natural flow of experience, and whether deconstructing personal narratives might dissolve the structures that hold life together.
Structure and Flow Are Not Two Things
A question about navigating the tension between maintaining stable relationships and honoring the natural flow of experience, and whether deconstructing personal narratives might dissolve the structures that hold life together.
I'm really interested in this dance with phenomena. I recognize that if you're caught in some aversion or story regarding a lamp or any other phenomenon, you're not going to have a great dance, because you're not in touch with what is.
The way to have a nice dance is to know where your partner is, to know where their axis is, to be in tune with what actually is.
At the same time, even though it's a constant moving flow of phenomena, nothing static, your body, your thoughts, your relationships, everything in a constant state of flow, there is some temporary degree of structure. We're born and we have these bodies. Yes, they're regenerating, but they hold their form. I can hold my hands up like this because I have bones and blood. There's an organization there.
I think the same is true of interpersonal relationships. You have a primary partnership, a job, multiple jobs. We're actively maintaining these relationships.
I've been really interested in this. Yesterday I had dinner with a friend who's been excited about her new boyfriend, a very magical connection for several months now. She did a DMT experience with him present, and she saw how part of their connection, part of the magic of it, was related to a story she had about him. She experienced some degree of ego death and a revelation: "Oh, that's part of his story." It changed her attraction to him, changed her narrative about who he is and what was going on. Which frightened her, because the possibility of losing that connection was scary.
The lunatic and the mystic
I found myself wondering where it makes sense to hold our form on that spectrum: between story on one end, where the emotions can feel real even if they're fed by narrative, and total dissolution of any meaning or structure on the other. On some level, aren't most of our personal relationships held together through narrative? If you apply this method of deconstructing the narrative to every part of your life, your hand, your forearm, your whole body, your thoughts, your concepts, I'm reminded of the quote: "The lunatic drowns in the same waters that the mystic swims in." I think the difference is that the mystic knows how to use form, knows how to dance with phenomena, whereas the lunatic sees the illusion of everything but has lost the ability to maintain any form.
My question is: where are you drowning?
I think I just always find this in relationships. Relationships run their course.
Are you talking about romantic relationships now, or relationships in general?
Romantic relationships, but also professional stuff. Where to put my energy professionally. I'm just realizing there's a degree of agency involved in forging a career or staying committed to a partner. In the process of staying committed to a partner, you might realize that something in the relationship feels a little tighter, that you don't feel expansive, that one or both of you is holding on to some form that doesn't feel in concert with the natural flow of phenomena.
I'm worried that if I just paid attention to the natural flow of phenomena and used that as my guide, I would never have any stable relationships.
The map with two poles
I have a sense you're creating a map of how to navigate life. That's what the mind does, and it's needed. But there is a bit of conflict created by this map having two polar aspects. One is flowing with what is, and the other is structure. Those seem to pull and push in different directions. They appear somewhat incompatible, and you're trying to bridge them.
I would say there is no such thing as those two separate qualities of reality. The way you might be able to see that is to ask yourself what you want.
What do I want, and where is the wanting coming from?
The question "What do I want?" can be answered from different places. You can ask and answer it from a shallow place, which is going to be intellectual, based on time and narrative and personality, full of ideas and beliefs. Or it can become something deeper. The best way to put it is that it is the universe itself wanting that. And then you have the whole spectrum in between.
When the wanting comes from narrative, belief, and identity, it is going to reinforce narrative, belief, and identity. That wanting will seek to preserve those beliefs. Think of it as a spectrum; it's not binary. As we see through this and become less attached, something flows through us that is just natural.
But it requires a sense of risk and trust.
Faith as trust in the unknown
In the past, in religions, they spoke about faith. Then it became belief in a story that those who were asking for faith were selling. But originally, faith is a trust in life, in the universe, in the unknown, in the mystery of what we are. That trust becomes what flows through you. And then the tension between these two ways of living becomes irrelevant.
So to summarize: it's "What do you want?" and "Where is that wanting coming from?" If you ask yourself that deeply and consistently, it will free you, if you take the risk.
Beliefs sprinkled throughout
A lot of what you described, "there's this, and this is part of reality, and this is part of reality," was sprinkled with beliefs, with subtle assumptions. To others, it might sound very accurate and reasonable and true and in touch with reality. But it's sprinkled with assumptions, with things that, if questioned, you would see as assumptions.
What matters isn't "no narratives, no stories." What matters is to know what is what. To know: "Okay, this is an assumption; I'm operating on an assumption," versus "This is reality; this is true."
Reality is a mystery
And knowing what is reality and what is true: well, you can't really know what reality is. It's a way of speaking. What you can do is see when something is a narrative and an assumption. Reality is a mystery, unfathomable, infinite, unknowable. The only thing we know is that it is. That's the only thing we can know, that we will ever know, about reality. The rest is interpretation, assumption, approximation. We can, by process of elimination, figure out what it is not. Anything you say about reality, other than "it is," is not that.
Leaning in requires faith
To relate to what is more directly requires faith. The movement toward questioning beliefs and assumptions requires faith. Because it is basically: "I am this," which is sustained by a belief. And faith is, when I question that belief, I feel I will end and disappear. Faith is: "Let's try and see what happens. What if I don't?" In a sense, it's moving toward fear, with intelligence, because it's not recklessness.
Everything I'm saying may sound like one process, and then I offer another process, "What do I want?" But it's actually the same. You can talk about faith and use a practice where the tool is faith. Or you can use the practice of inquiry into what you truly want. It's the same process, because what you truly want will require a risk.
There is no such polarity
What we ultimately want is the end of our identity, liberation. Which actually is not something that can end or can happen. We can just see it was never really true, never really there.
It is always a dance. There aren't two things: form and structure on one side, flow on the other. Play with the notion that the structure you're talking about is the same as the flow. The flow is the same as the structure. There is no such polarity.