Trusting the Rhythm of Curiosity
Confiar en el ritmo de la curiosidad
A student asks whether genuine self-inquiry can be forced through discipline, and whether curiosity has its own natural timing that must be trusted rather than controlled.
Trusting the Rhythm of Curiosity
A student asks whether genuine self-inquiry can be forced through discipline, and whether curiosity has its own natural timing that must be trusted rather than controlled.
I'm a bit curious about something in relation to the self-inquiry. I'm curious about the curiosity itself. It doesn't seem like something that can be forced. I started doing more self-inquiry in the recent two weeks or so, and I noticed a curiosity that was sparked by a dream my wife had. It went hand in hand with the fact that I started swimming more. I would go in the morning to swim, and after swimming I would start doing the self-inquiry. There was this natural curiosity, and things started happening. But I was also thinking about what a teacher once said about doing aerobic exercise followed by meditation, and how he would recommend that. So I wondered: is it the aerobic exercise beforehand? Is it the dream that sparked this curiosity naturally? Because when I approach it from the angle of "I need to self-inquire, I need to figure this out," it doesn't work. The curiosity just isn't there. I guess it's something that can't be forced. I'm not sure what the question is exactly.
You can't force that. Perhaps there is some value in doing it from pure will and discipline and routine, but I would suggest that if it's coming from a deep curiosity, it will be infinitely more powerful. And that first point is a big "if." It might be possible for a will-driven approach to have value, but I'm not sure it would have any at all. It needs to be a really deep, true sense of wonder, because otherwise it's not an inquiry. I would even suggest that if you don't feel it's coming from there, don't do it at all, so that you're not creating a habit of forced inquiry.
But how do I know the curiosity wasn't sparked by a bit of discipline? I mean, the regularity of doing it, and then suddenly it appears and I start doing it from curiosity.
Forced discipline vs. true discipline
Then I would say that discipline actually was curiosity. I could sit at the piano many hours a day if I had time, and it would look very disciplined. When I'm practicing, everything looks like a very intense discipline in how I do it. But it's not coming from anything forced. It simply did not work that way.
True discipline, to me, isn't when we're forcing ourselves to do something we don't really want to do, not really knowing why, because we were told to or because we think it's good. I think that doesn't have much value. I'm inclined to suggest: just don't do it. True discipline comes from a deep, genuine desire. When you know the value, you feel it, you desire it. Then it looks like a crazy intense discipline, but it's coming from desire, from passion, from curiosity, from openness. That is where true learning happens.
I get it. You're doing it because you really want to, because you're enjoying it.
Trusting what wants to know
And I would also say: don't worry about it. It's not that important. In a sense, you need to trust that in you which wants to know, and not try to control it. Your question, in a way, reveals a wanting to control the curiosity. Let's say you recognize that it's a deeper, truer curiosity rather than a disciplined one. Good. But that recognition itself can become a bit of a controlling mind. Just trust that in you which wants to know truth. Trust that in you which wants to know reality. And trust its rhythms.
I think so.
By rhythms, I mean the natural energy and when it moves. For example, the rhythm of sleep, the rhythm of work, the rhythm of enjoying, the rhythm of eating. There is a deep natural rhythm when it's not distorted. If we try to force ourselves to sleep at a certain time for a certain length, or to eat at a certain hour, that's very different from trusting the natural rhythm. If you're trying to force the rhythm of self-inquiry because you want to get something from it, you want it to go faster, you want it to go deeper, you create a forced discipline. Instead, trust the rhythm. Stay open, stay curious. When inquiry comes as a genuine curiosity, listen to it and follow it. When it's not there, maybe the rhythm in that moment is to swim, or to walk, or to play music, or to do some work.
The trap of wanting to want more
I see what you're saying about control, because last session you said something about how fast you wake up depending on how much you really want to see it. And I remember thinking: how can I make myself want it more?
And then it's the same control mechanism. You just jumped into something really complicated: there's the you that wants whatever it wants, and then there's a you that wants the other you to want things differently. Instead of that, trust. There really is nothing to get, nowhere to get to. The path is the goal. The goal is the path. This is it.
Great, thanks.
What came up just now while listening is that I noticed the mind keeps going, the attention keeps falling into stories while listening to the talk. There is a control to keep the attention away from the mind's story and to try to go back to what you were saying. So there is a noticing of this movement, this internal fighting. Is that discipline? From what I have realized, the attention can be trained to refocus on listening and on the conversation. What do you think about the mind trying to distract away from the conversation, going to stories from the past? For example, while you were talking, there was this recurring idea: "How does that relate to what I can apply in life?" It's a habit of the mind trying to apply what you're saying, and it keeps going to thinking about how I can use that idea in everyday life. But I purposely noticed that it's just a pattern of the thinking mind and tried to keep my focus on your talking.
Seeing the mess for what it is
I have a sense of what you might need. I think you've done a lot of good work seeing your mind and attention and all of that struggle. When we start to see the conditioning, it's a big chaotic mess. The mind and the emotions, it's just such a mess. And the more we see it, the messier it looks, because it was always a mess. We just didn't see it.
That's why sometimes it's really hard to persevere, because it seems like things are getting worse. But it's actually because we're opening up the seeing. We're uncovering what's there, and it just looks like a mess. The attention, the mind: it's really complicated, but it's a normal human mind. In Buddhism they call it the monkey mind. It's just a monkey mind, and that helps normalize it. It's all human minds.
Bringing attention to feeling and the body
What I sense could be good for you at this stage is this: as all of that is happening and you're noticing it (and everything you're doing is great), bring your attention to sensation and the body. In a similar sense to the openness we've been talking about, bring a curiosity to what's happening in your body and in the more feeling, emotional space.
There is an aspect of what you are seeing that is still a bit unseen. On the level of mind and attention, you're seeing through things. You're understanding, "Oh, the intention of that kind of energy of thought is this," and you're starting to see the structures and patterns. But there's an aspect that is missing, which is what's happening at the level of emotion, feeling, the body, and sensation.
So, as you're noticing all of that happening, bring your attention to the breath, to the skin, to the body, and more specifically, bring a question: What am I feeling? What kinds of emotions might be happening? Just see what comes up. See what can be revealed to you by simply looking. That might be the missing piece of the puzzle, the part that helps you unlock things and see a bit deeper. For example, you could notice, "I'm actually a bit nervous," or whatever it is at the level of emotional being. I don't want to put words to your experience.
When it was the self-inquiry meditation about "Who am I?", a similar question came up during the meditation.