Resistance and What It Protects
La resistencia y lo que protege
A student asks what can be done about persistent resistance, and the teacher outlines two complementary approaches: actively following what you truly want, and learning to see what resistance is actually protecting.
Resistance and What It Protects
A student asks what can be done about persistent resistance, and the teacher outlines two complementary approaches: actively following what you truly want, and learning to see what resistance is actually protecting.
I just wanted to come back to the part about resistance. If I understand correctly, you're saying that resistance is just pointing back to something, like a belief system of a separate self. Is there something that can be done about this? I can really relate to what was said earlier. I have this tendency to resist many things, all the time. I can relate to what you're saying about how it's a kind of idea that something isn't right, that it's trying to protect something. But I'm really aware of the resistance. I'm really aware of not necessarily doing anything about it. And I'm also aware of the fact that it's somehow the proof of a separate "I." But it feels like the only thing I can do is maybe remind myself, in a thought, that what this resistance is trying to protect is not real. Is there something else?
Two complementary approaches
Everything I teach is an attempt to address that. Every group, every meditation. So I'm sure I say a lot of things about what can be done, but if I were to summarize, I have two approaches, and they are complementary. It's not a matter of choosing one; it's both. You could say one is more active and one is more passive.
The approach I'm calling more active has to do with what I talk about when I speak of what we truly want. We are constantly in an internal tug of war. There is something we deeply want and something we more superficially want, and these desires are in service to different gods, and these gods don't get along. I'm being playful with the word "god."
One is the egoic desire, the desire in service of identification, of the belief in "me," of the contraction and the separate self. The deeper one is a universal calling, from love, from freedom. Most of the time, these parts of us don't want the same things. If we listen to the deeper one, the identified part feels like it's coming to an end. One has to die in service of the other. And the resistance belongs to that with which we are identified.
Going toward fear
So when I talk about going toward your fear, going toward your pain in life, I mean listening to what you truly, deeply want and going for it, which is also taking a risk. It requires doing something that's likely going to be scary or will bring up pain, deeper fear, deeper pain. That's one way we can approach resistance, and it's a challenging way, but it's very fruitful because it's where we test. It's where we can find out what is real.
Just to clarify what you're saying, because for me it's not so clear. The resistance I can really feel. It's super uncomfortable, it's unpleasant. Of course, there's sometimes a desire to stop it, but more and more I've dropped that. When you say, for example, going for what you feel is good for you or right for you...
No.