The One Who Resists Is Not There
El que resiste no está ahí
A meditation exploring how the part of you that seems to resist your experience may not be as solid or real as it appears.
The One Who Resists Is Not There
The paradox of resistance and acceptance
I had always heard about resistance.
I had always heard about all of these practices of accepting and not resisting.
It's a very valid practice.
So in a sense it could seem a bit of a paradox:
the pointer of "don't resist,"
and the pointer of "look at resistance, where you're resisting, feel it."
All this apparent work on our person, our psychology, our experience with feelings, with the reality of now itself.
And so there is something that seems like it can practice this, can practice the accepting.
And there's another aspect, which was one of the biggest shocks for me:
to see that all of that, and that which seemed like it resisted, is actually not there.
Clarity and confusion
Sometimes it's actually good to obfuscate,
because otherwise it can become too much of a mental map, a mental understanding.
So it's good to walk the line of clarifying a bit but leaving it a little confusing,
because there's just so much room for misinterpretation,
and it's impossible to talk about this directly.
Anything that is said about it is going to be wrong, going to be inaccurate.
It's easier to talk about the process of accepting and working on non-resistance.
But when we start to talk about the fact that that which resists isn't real,
it's impossible to imagine.
The tooth fairy
One of the ways you can contemplate it as a metaphor:
those of us who were raised with the notion of the tooth fairy or Santa Claus when we were children,
we might remember that kind of reality where that was a real thing.
There was an actual being that was the tooth fairy, or an actual being that was Santa Claus.
The moment, or the process, of learning that it is a story.
Fully.
Fully a story.
And in that sense, that which resists is not real.
But still there is a problem,
because the belief in it, the belief in that entity,
you could say it creates problems.
It's still not real, but it creates problems.
Why you can't just say "it's not real"
If I were to say only "it's not real, it's not real, it's not real,"
it'll become something of an inner battle, an inner negating of your own self.
Because you wouldn't even know exactly what I'm pointing to that I'm saying is not real.
It's so subtle and deep and core that you can't identify it and say, "That's not real."
And so you're going to identify probably something else and say that's not real,
and that's not what I'm talking about.
Whereas Santa Claus: it's easier to know that is not real, the idea, the concept.
Versus something that is so deep, such a profound identification.
It's hard to point to it directly and say, "That's not real."
It's not real in a very specific way,
because we can get into all of the ins and outs of what is real and what's not real, what is illusion.
And it actually matters, because the confusion in the language, the misinterpretation, makes things worse.
Acceptance as intimacy
The practice of accepting is a kind of progressive way to get you closer,
to have more intimacy with that which apparently resists.
The closer you are to it, the more you can see what it really is and what it is not.
So in a sense it's two approaches, two angles, to the same thing.
But it's a very shocking thing to realize:
oh wow, that really is not there.
It's just really not there.
And that's the ultimate realization at this level,
because you can't go back to believing in Santa Claus once you know it's a story.
It's just not something you can convince yourself of.
There has to be a really high level of delusion for you to, once having seen that it's not real, believe it again.
Try to not experience what you're experiencing
One way I point to it is that there's no resistance possible.
The best way to point to it:
you're hearing the sound of my voice,
and you are looking at a screen.
That experience, as it's happening, the real direct raw experience of the sound and the sight;
try to not experience it while you're experiencing it.
What do you need to do to resist the sound that you're experiencing right now?
What do you need to do to resist the sight that you're experiencing right now, in order to not experience it?
How much energy does it take?
And how much delusion, in the sense of believing something that's not real?
That which resisted is just a belief that "I can resist."
And it's a false belief.
It's as false as saying you can not hear the sound that you're hearing right now.
That's still a bit of a metaphor,
because you could always say, "Well, I can cover my ears and scream."
There's that kind of way to deny the metaphor.
The I that does things
When we believe there is something I can do,
and it's not just the "I can do something,"
it's actually that "I" we're referring to (that is also a concept, also a deep imagination).
It doesn't mean there isn't something there.
It's just not what I am conceptualizing it as, imagining it as.
The snake on the trail
Ramana Maharshi used a very Indian metaphor: the snake on the trail.
If you're walking on a trail, you see a snake.
You get scared.
You jump, you have this visceral reaction.
You come closer to it, you look closer, and you realize it's not a snake.
It's a rope.
But before you realize it's a rope, you still see first that it's not a snake.
It's just not moving, it doesn't have the same texture.
And then you look a little closer and you see, "Oh, it's a rope."
There are moments of confusion.
You have to look even closer to see what it really is.
But first there is the seeing that what I thought was real is not what I thought.
There's an interpretation that's incorrect.
And then there is a process of confusion, of not knowing.
And you can then have a second realization of what the true nature of that really is.
Where the metaphor falls apart
The metaphor falls apart, because in the metaphor of the rope,
you see the snake, then you see it's a rope.
So it's a thing. It's just a different thing.
And what we're talking about, the realization, is: it's not a thing.
And we cannot conceptualize a non-thing.
That's where the mind (it's transcending the mind),
because only the mind can conceptualize things.
No resisting possible
The process of resisting arises from believing in something that is what we are.
We believe that we are something we're not.
We're believing in an interpretation.
And that which we interpret that we are can resist,
but only in our imagination.
So the process is: undo that resistance,
and ultimately you will realize that which you believed could resist is not there,
and there's no resisting possible.
That's actually, at first, very troubling.
But it's also liberating.