Find the Problem First
Encuentra el problema primero
A student asks how to see through the illusion of being a person in the body, and the teacher redirects attention away from solutions and toward a more intimate acquaintance with what is actually experienced as the problem.
Find the Problem First
A student asks how to see through the illusion of being a person in the body, and the teacher redirects attention away from solutions and toward a more intimate acquaintance with what is actually experienced as the problem.
I would like to ask about investigation and what I believe is seeing through the illusion: the illusion of the sense of feeling like a person in the body. The total illusion feels like a sensation, like "I am speaking." That is the quality of what the illusion feels like. I don't always see through it. I can say, "It feels like I'm speaking, like a sensation," but I don't know how to totally see through that sensation, to see that it's not there. And really there's nothing to worry about. It's only extra sensation.
I understand. You said something just now at the end: "How do I see so that it's no longer there?"
Yes. I think that's a thought, a hidden desire somewhere, that this sensation of "I am talking" would disappear. And there's also a realization that no one is talking, that it's only a concept.
The strategy of solving
If you look at everything you've learned about this and the strategies about what needs to happen, what you need to see, just look at how it's creating a certain strategy, a certain process. If you were to see something, if something clicked, then you would be free from something, and that would get you what you want. Something like this, right?
Now, the sense of you as a person in the body, or the sense of you speaking: how do you know that there's a sense of you speaking?
It's an assumption. It sometimes appears strong, sometimes it doesn't. Right here, right now, in direct experience, it's not strong at all. It can be easily accepted.
So what's the problem right now?
There is no problem. No problems at all. I think the problem is the worry that later on it gets strong.
That's a problem now, which is: you're worried that tomorrow or later you'll have a problem.
This sensation, this sense of self...
What's the problem with a sense of self?
It's the experience of time and space that comes from the sense of personhood.
And what's the problem with that?
With space and time still feeling real? That is the foundation for the collapse into thought.
Same question: what's the problem with collapsing into thought?
It's not a problem. Experiencing thoughts is not a problem. In the end, what the thought suggests wouldn't cause any problem.
No problem, but it feels like one
So if you don't have a problem now, the only problem I've heard is that you might have a problem later.
Yes. And I cannot figure out the problem. I don't have a problem, but I feel like there is a problem. I don't know where the problem is.
And that's important. Where I'm going is for you to have a more refined, more subtle awareness of what you're experiencing. You're describing the feeling that there's a problem.
I think it is this experience of time and space.
I'll pause you there, because that's an analysis. You've been told or you've heard that time and space, or the belief that they're real, or the self, or the sense of self, is the problem. And so that's the strategy you're having: "This is the problem. I just need to figure this out and then the problem will go away." But that's not really the problem. That's what you are interpreting as the problem. The problem is something you're feeling.
Yes. So I am being absorbed into this concept of no time and no space. I'm so into this belief about what reality is: no time, no space.
I'm guilty of that, because as I said in the beginning, as soon as I say something, it's already wrong.
The language is immediately taken in by the mind and interpreted. I am totally going into it, sometimes realizing it, sometimes not. At this point I realize I am kind of drowning in this concept of non-duality. I'm realizing it. I don't need to get out of it. I'm just experiencing an idea.
Forget the solution, find the problem
I understand. The direction is to really look for the problem. Forget about the solution. You are experiencing a problem, but you don't know it closely enough. You don't know it well enough. There's an experience, but you're too focused on a solution. And that's like a labyrinth of concepts and words and teachings and teachers and traditions. It's an infinite labyrinth where you will get lost.
Find the problem first. We can go back and forth on it over the weeks. You might think, "Oh, this is the problem," and then again it turns out to be something else, not really that. It's an impossible task as well, what I'm giving you, because there is no problem. But that's for you to see. So I'm giving you the solution ultimately. But you're experiencing a problem, and in that sense it's true and it's real for you.
So just look for that. What feels most authentically your struggle or your problem? The way I talk about this is "the sense of something's missing" or "something's not okay." But those are my words. It needs to be your knowing of it, your experience of it. You could describe it as the sadness that the bird isn't singing today. Whatever it is that is deeply anguishing. It could be fear, it could be sadness. It has infinite forms, and it's very personal. It's not going to be one thing; it's going to change. But it's for you to really get close to it.
Because right now, everybody has that experience. It's a human condition. And because we don't know it really well or closely, we try to solve it with things that are given to us. All religions and non-duality, it's all the same: making more money, the relationship, the non-duality. The only difference with non-duality is that it's closer to a real solution. But it can still be really misleading and confusing, because it's words.
So it's really important to get close to what is experienced as the problem, what in Buddhism they call dukkha. But it has to come in your words. Because you could say, "Oh, I have dukkha. Okay, what's the solution? Non-duality." And then you're going to go into a process of figuring that out. But you're not as connected to the raw, direct experience of that sense of something missing, something wrong, something lacking.
What would be different?
What sort of problems do I have?
If you could get any question answered that would solve the deepest issues for you, what are the questions? What are the issues? And if you could distill that to one thing?
I don't quite understand that point.
If the answer and everything was how you wanted it to be afterward, what would be different?
I would be free of the mind. Not feeling like I'm living in this idea of what reality should look like: no time, no space, the body doesn't exist.
Free of the mind. Stay with that.
I just suddenly thought something. I remember that even the body is a construction of the mind.
So, free of the mind. What does the experience of being a prisoner of the mind feel like? When you say "free of the mind," then we have to have a conversation: if you want to be free of the mind, it means you're not free right now. You're not free of the mind and you want to be. So right now, in this moment, you are not free of the mind. How is that experience? How does it feel?
It's peaceful.
Right now, the experience of not being free of the mind is peaceful?
There's no pain, nothing. I am speaking, but it's just speaking.
That which knows the mind is not mind
Whenever you refer to the mind, whenever you experience being trapped by the mind or not free from the mind, you know the mind. And whenever you're experiencing "not free from the mind," you are knowing the mind. That which is knowing the mind is not mind. It's already free.
But this will come back. Right now it's been exorcised for a moment. It will come back. When it does, just do the same process: what's the problem, really?
Yes, that is indeed my way of self-inquiry.
Forget about self-inquiry. Do problem inquiry.
I guess it's problems for no one.
Well, are there actually any problems? Where are they? What's your problem, specifically you, at any moment?
For the last two days I thought there was a problem. I literally just meditated throughout, and I thought I should be doing something else, like studying or something more energetic than meditation. These are ideas about what should be. And there is no "what should be." It just happens the way it happens. As you said at the beginning, there's nothing needed to change.
Fear underneath the problem
That's a natural process. There's a concern or a worry around how to live. But what could be just a natural way of reflecting becomes this thing that bites, because then there's the idea that maybe if you studied instead of meditated, your future would be better, and you might be going in the wrong direction. But now we're talking about fear.
Yes, it is fear.
It's important to recognize that, for it to be really immediate: "I'm worried" or "there's fear." Then you can get closer to that sensation. It's a sensation of fear. And then you can quickly understand that this whole thing you're describing ultimately is this fear.
And there's also a deep desire to see the truth. That could be why, although I have ideas to do something else, I still meditate, thinking that I could meditate my way to the truth.
Desire for truth and love of truth
See if your desire for the truth is not in fact actually just love. So that truth isn't something somewhere else that you can desire and get to. The desire implies something somewhere else. You might actually be relating to a love for truth, and that no longer requires truth to not be here. In a sense, this will kill the desire. The desire implies that you don't have truth, that truth is somewhere else, that you can get to it if you try hard. Freedom from the mind is somewhere else, you can get to it if you try hard. It's not. It's here right now. It's already here.
As you tasted a few minutes ago, when you saw what happened around the mind and you were experiencing peace, that's already the freedom. It's that simple. We know it. It's nothing new. The only thing that shifts is that at some point, this just becomes where you go all the time, or most of the time. But it's not something new.
The shift that is described, and it happens differently to different people, is more just the realization: "Oh, this which I've tasted is actually always here. It doesn't come and go." It just becomes really obvious. But it's not something beyond what we know. It's just that taste you had a few minutes ago of that peace, while you were in the experience of wanting to be free from the mind, and then that whole thing just vanished. In the sense that it's still there, what's happening is happening, but it's suddenly no longer a problem, and there was laughter. It's that simple.
Already here, always here
The more we're able to recognize that, over and over and over, the closer the shift comes, which is: there's nothing other than that. It can never go away. It's always this. And then every problem you could imagine is going to be a relative problem. There is that thing and there's that other thing, and sure, not a big deal. There's something at the essence, this knowing that there is this. Put into words: peace, or whatever you want to call it, silence. And then the problems are just, well, this one's another real important problem, this one's a bit more important. But it's all relative. It's not a core thing. And that's it.