The Belief That Something Is Wrong
La creencia de que algo está mal
A student shares that persistent restlessness and discomfort seem like evidence that something is fundamentally wrong, and the teacher reframes this as a freely made choice rather than an imposed condition.
The Belief That Something Is Wrong
A student shares that persistent restlessness and discomfort seem like evidence that something is fundamentally wrong, and the teacher reframes this as a freely made choice rather than an imposed condition.
In the meditation, I noticed something I can't let go of: the belief that something is wrong with me. The logic seems right. If I feel restless almost all the time, or uncomfortable, why wouldn't I believe that something's wrong? I know you speak about something being fundamentally wrong, and maybe that's the key distinction.
You mean that being restless is evidence that something's wrong?
Yes, logically it seems right.
The belief as the source of restlessness
Maybe the belief that something is wrong is what's making you restless.
Well, then that's what's wrong.
No, because it ends when you realize it's a choice, and that's freedom.
You have to think of this as hypothetical. Not as a belief in what I'm saying, but trusting what I'm saying enough to question your own understanding, your own belief, without turning what I'm saying into another narrative or another belief.
What you can look at is this: why would you be interested in the mechanism, the experience of something being fundamentally wrong with you? I challenge the position that an unpleasant experience is evidence that something is wrong. I'm proposing that that interpretation is a choice.
Turning the choice itself into a problem
Your mind is likely going to say, "Well, because I'm choosing that, then it's evidence that something is wrong. Why would I choose something that brings suffering and discomfort?" You can turn that into yet another version of "something is wrong with me, because I'm choosing suffering." But I'm telling you, that's where it stops, because it is a free choice.
This is what I mean: trust what I'm saying enough to question it. The path through would be to ask, "Why do I want this?" instead of holding the position that something is wrong and that you are, in a sense, a victim of this wrongness. By "victim," I mean it's happening to you. It was given to you that way. You were created in such a way that you have something essentially wrong. That is the position of being a victim.
Two options: victim or creator
The other option is that you are choosing it. There are two options. Either it is happening to you by a power greater than you, one against which you are powerless to do anything, or you are choosing it and you are the creator of it. Two options.
I'm not telling you to believe me that it's one or the other. I'm telling you to explore the possibility. You have to discover it on your own. One way to explore is to look in your experience very deeply, very intimately. Why would you be choosing this? Why would you choose it freely? What does the choosing gain, exactly, by believing that something is wrong?
Discomfort and the two ways of relating
The uncomfortable experience and the belief that something is wrong are really the same thing. Even if the experience is discomfort, frustration, physical pain, grief because of the death of a loved one, whatever the experience is, these two options remain. It has to do with how you relate. It could be an external experience, something happening in life, or it could be internal: sensations, emotions, thoughts. We can even have a thought and then have a problem with the fact that we had that thought. If I think of a pink elephant, something's wrong with me, and then all I do is think of a pink elephant. It depends on what you're choosing to have a problem with in the moment.
Creativity versus repetition
I'm not saying nothing is ever a problem. I'm saying that this is the difference between creativity and repetition. What is happening right now, I work with it completely and fully. I can't even say "accept it," because it simply is what is. And then I dance with reality. Or I choose to have a problem with it, a kind of problem where something is fundamentally, essentially not okay with what is. That is no longer a creative process. That is the process of repetition. You will have the same experience, or the same kinds of experiences, over and over. And that is because it is something being chosen. It is a form of relating that is being chosen.
So it comes down to this: powerlessness or responsibility.