The Rationalizing Mind and the Relationship It Cannot Resolve
La mente que racionaliza y la relación que no puede resolver
A student describes a persistent inner conflict about a long friendship, and the teacher points to the gap between rationalizing and truly feeling what is present, then a second student asks about the relationship between acceptance, emotional processing, and deeper realization.
The Rationalizing Mind and the Relationship It Cannot Resolve
A student describes a persistent inner conflict about a long friendship, and the teacher points to the gap between rationalizing and truly feeling what is present, then a second student asks about the relationship between acceptance, emotional processing, and deeper realization.
I'm trying to think about how I can use conflicts in my daily life as part of my cultivation. Usually there are not many issues, thankfully. But certain things have been nagging at me. For example, I have an ongoing issue with a judgment I've been making about a friend. I know this judgment is affecting me, and of course it also affects her because of the way I react. It's been going through my mind for quite a long time. I know it's not a problem with her. And yet I find myself constantly negotiating in my mind about why it matters to me. I actually cannot find any reason to be upset. I've asked myself whether there is an emotion involved, and when I look, I can't find one. But the fact that this has lasted for a while made me think: perhaps I could use this as a tool for my practice.
You said you couldn't find an emotion, but you're talking about judging a friend.
Initially there was emotion, at the very beginning. But it's been maybe a year, and I can't find any emotion now, or at least I'm not aware of it. What I am very aware of is that I keep having an internal dialogue about it. It's too much. It's too noisy for my mind. It's something I apparently cannot let go of as easily as many other things. I can't find the emotion anymore, but like a broken record, I keep negotiating with myself.
The relationship behind the rumination
It's possible that it's a relationship challenge. It's not something you can resolve internally. Something in the relationship may need to be addressed, and you might need to speak to this person.
But I've totally worked out the logic of everything, and I own every single part of the issue. Let me explain what triggered it. This is a friend I've known since childhood. We meet up very often, and usually she shares what's going on in her life, which is all fine. She has many challenges, and that's fine too.
During COVID, things were very challenging for everyone, including me and my family. My brother had a stroke. When I was talking to her about it, I mentioned that he was actually very lucky because the hospital took him seriously right away and ran all the necessary tests. My friend agreed and said, "Yes, he's really very lucky," but then related it to herself: she'd been to the hospital for shingles and had to wait in the corridor for half a day before they admitted her, and they wanted to discharge her the next day due to a lack of beds. She was agreeing with me that he was lucky given how tight resources were during COVID. In my mind I thought, well, shingles also needs to be dealt with, and I was okay with it at first.
But as we kept talking, it became apparent to me that my brother was showing signs of dementia after the stroke. That is something deeply emotional for me. He is quite young to have dementia. From the medical findings, it appears he had been having multiple undetected strokes, possibly hereditary. So I told my friend, "If you ever catch me showing signs of dementia, tell me," because it was clear to me that my brother was completely oblivious to his own state. The only change we had noticed was that he was getting more and more short-tempered.
Her response was, "No, no, I think you're very, very healthy. You play tennis." But what I was really saying was that I'm worried I could have a stroke too. Then she said, "I'm the one who's really afraid I'll get a stroke," because after her shingles she kept having pain in her body. And I thought, okay.
At that moment I made a judgment of her, and I was irritated. But then I caught myself. I noticed I was making that judgment more and more often, especially because we have a mutual friend whose only son passed away, and this friend had commented that the grieving mother should have moved on by now.
The thing is, she's a nice person. She's genuinely very good to me. But it's her character: she has felt like a victim of circumstances her whole life. I've known that since the beginning, and it was never an issue. But suddenly it became one. I know I can't ask her to change. I've told myself I should just accept her as she is. Yet I caught myself negotiating this point for a long time. Every time she asks for a gathering, I make excuses and delay. Then when we finally meet, I fall right back into the same internal dialogue.
I kept checking for emotions, but I don't feel them, other than of course whenever I think about the stroke. But that's not about her. The problem is mine. My thoughts and narratives keep circling: "It's not a problem, but I just want a break from her." I just want a break. I don't want to meet so often. Once a year would be fine. Because every time I see her, I spend all my free time having an internal conversation. She's really good, and honestly, she is. But still.
Rationalizing versus feeling
I think there's already a lot we can work on. Do you know that you want this relationship, or do you want a break from it?
I need space. I believe that given enough space, I would be okay with it. I've known her for half my life, since school days. She's good, she's benign. I don't need to sever the tie. But I also don't want to be meeting her too often, too soon. I have no intention of having a super close relationship.
So the problem is that you are still ruminating on the relationship.
No, I thought I had made my decision. My decision is that there's no reason to sabotage, but I want a relationship that is less intense. She has apparently felt the shift, though she has no idea why I'm reacting this way. I also don't know how I could explain, because she made absolutely no mistake. The problem is all mine. I just don't know why I can't settle this with myself.
Do you feel guilty?
The thing about treating her this way: it pinches me, because I tell myself she's done nothing wrong. But sometimes I recognize why I behave this way. It's because she happens to step on my toes right where it hurts. My brother: it hurts. My son: it hurts. A mutual friend's loss: it hurts. She happened to step on everything that hurts. But it was no mistake of hers.
It doesn't have to be a mistake, but there is still something that's bothering you. When you say she stepped on your toes, there is something there. You can either accept that you want distance and choose not to communicate anything, or maybe you do need to communicate. It seems like you have a choice, and you're trying something that isn't working because you're not fully sitting with the decision to distance. You don't seem okay with just that decision.
No, I do want to distance. She's making it difficult because we've been friends for so many years and have been meeting regularly. Before, we would meet about once every two months. Now, with my pulling away, we meet about once every three months. I'm still equally hostile, and I think she's felt it. I want distance because, given enough space, I would be more rational. I'm not rational right now.
You're trying too hard to manage what you feel. You say you don't find emotions, that she made no mistake, but there is actually a lot that you're feeling. When you say she's stepping on your toes, that's a metaphor for a great deal of feeling. You're trying to rationalize, to simplify, and to achieve some kind of closure on the decision you're making so that it's done and finished. But it's not happening, because you're fighting with what you actually feel.
When you say "she made no mistake, it's all me, it's my choice," and at the same time "everything she's doing steps on my toes," she is doing something that, in some form or another, feels painful or difficult to you.
It might be helpful, first of all, to be more transparent with yourself. When we rationalize, we're trying to reach something: resolving this by explaining to ourselves what's happening, what's true, what's real. But none of what you've told yourself is really true, is it? Not absolutely true. She has done things that have hurt you. The way the relationship has been moving has been painful. There's quite a lot of emotion in what you're expressing.
It will help to actually be in touch with that. Then you can navigate better what decisions come from it. But first you need the clarity. Don't try to explain it away through rationalizing. You're using thinking to fight the thinking and the emotions you're having.
And then, perhaps you need to speak to her, to make your decision explicit. That might be a difficult thing to do.
On what grounds? She was only expressing what she felt. This friend of mine has always believed she's speaking the truth, and I recognize that. She has been this way for the two decades I've known her.
The limits of withdrawing in silence
You don't need grounds. You just make a decision and say you need space. You don't have to explain in great detail. But withdrawing and avoiding isn't working. You seem quite clear on your decision, yet you're trying to make it work by just avoiding and withdrawing and trying to resolve it internally. It's not working.
That's the sense I had from the very beginning when you shared this. It's not something you can resolve internally. It's a relationship matter. Especially because you're describing a friendship that goes back to childhood: you can't just disappear and feel okay with that.
Maybe I was just so convinced of my own reasoning.
You're convincing yourself in order to justify these choices, and then you're trying to make the choices feel okay. What you're actually doing is withdrawing and disappearing from a very long friendship, even if all you want is distance. But that needs to be communicated, especially because of how you feel about it. You're not in a place where it feels clear and clean. You seem conflicted.
You don't need to have very clear rational reasons. You feel you need space, and you can communicate that. The details of how to do it best depend on your history with the relationship and the culture around what is appropriate to share and what is not. If you're asking "on what grounds," as though you need an explicit, clear reason, perhaps you don't. You feel you need space, and that's enough.
But the first thing is the rationalizing. You've been trying to convince yourself of things that are not totally real. And that only creates more confusion.
Thank you. I fully agree about the communicating part. But during my own contemplation or meditation, how do I use these kinds of situations?
Meditation in service to life
There isn't really a "use" for it in that way. The meditation would work the other way around: use the meditation to be more clear, to dispel all rationalizations, to feel what you really feel, and then relate to her appropriately. In that sense, it will also feed back into your meditation, because as you do this, more will come up.
This may be a silly question, but if I meditate and feel what I feel, would I end up feeling like a victim? That's something I've seen in my friend for decades, and it's the last thing I want to become. I see very clearly that she has always been able to put herself in the victim's position after rationalizing. The last thing I want is to be that.
You might think that, but you know it's not true. You can see through it and be with what comes up. But I really feel quite strongly that this is a relationship challenge. You just can't disappear from this relationship, avoid, and say nothing. It's not working.
It's quite common to try to resolve something difficult through meditation, to use meditation to fix the problem. But that can separate life and meditation, relationship and practice. Ultimately, meditation is in service to life, in service to relationship, to being more open and loving. That doesn't mean you can't decide to distance from this friend. But to explain something honestly may be the most loving thing in a relationship that carries so much history. It might be difficult and painful precisely because of that history.
We should not separate things by saying, "This is a problem from life; I will sit and meditate so it goes away." That's not working here, because the relationship is still alive and she keeps reaching out to you.
I was trying to resolve it myself because I recognize that it's my problem.
It's a relationship.
Thank you.
Acceptance, reactivity, and the deeper question
(second student) I have a follow-up. You're saying it's a relationship problem, but isn't all relationship a projection of ourselves? Isn't she on the right track looking internally to see what she's projecting onto her friend, perhaps something she doesn't accept in herself?
Yes, of course. But I want to be careful not to work with someone else through your question. Perhaps it would be best if you rephrased it in your own terms.
Sure. A resistance I feel with this approach is around a sense that I need to be all-accepting, and I might use meditation as a way to accept feelings but also downplay them. "I have to accept this," and then potentially not dealing with what needs to be dealt with in the real world. If feelings are coming up, if a boundary has been crossed, something is arising in meditation, then there's this pull toward "I need to accept without resistance," but also the pull toward "I need to deal with this." How do those go together?
It depends on what you mean by "accept." That's the tricky word, because it's used a lot and thrown around a lot. If by accept you mean, "This person is doing this thing and I just have to accept it," then not necessarily.
I mean accepting my own reaction, my own feeling, whatever that person is doing and whatever interpretation I'm making of it. Accept that and feel into it.
Yes, but not just that. By accepting, you acknowledge what's happening, but you can then go deeper and look further. It doesn't mean "this is what I feel and I'm just going to stay with it and let this feeling be." That's a first step, useful when we're fighting something we feel, trying not to feel it, pretending we don't feel it, trying to think it away. Then we accept it. But then you can go deeper and see what is actually happening.
As for the perspective you mentioned at the beginning, that all relationship is just projection: yes and no. If you see all relationship only as projection, that's solipsism. There's nobody there, only me. You have to acknowledge that, in a relative sense, there is another being you can't fully know. And then you acknowledge that you have an interpretation of that person. In contemplating both of these facts (that there is a being you don't fully know and that all you can know is your interpretation), you can begin to relate to the being itself rather than through the interpretation alone. The interpretation is present and part of it is useful (the person's name, for instance), but it can remain open. You can say, "This is what is happening for me in this relationship with you."
But does that investigation of feeling and interpretation happen during meditation? Because I feel like the kind of meditation we practice doesn't necessarily lead us there. It's more of a zooming out.
The root practice and the preparatory practice
It ultimately depends on semantics, on what we call meditation. There are many things we can call meditation. Ultimately (and by "ultimately" I mean at the deepest level), meditation has to do with the nature of self: What am I really? Who am I really? If I put it in words, which it can't fully be put into words, it is to discover that I cannot know what I am, and so to dispel the beliefs about what I am.
Why is that important? To the degree that we are able to see that, there is less and less to defend. Because only that which I am attached to being, as a fixed thing, am I afraid to lose. In that believing, that false knowing of what I am (which I call false because if we know what we are, it's a misinterpretation), we then have to create a whole set of dynamics in our thinking and emotion to sustain and protect it.
If you can get to that root, no other meditation is necessary. It all unravels on its own. And that's the ultimate.
So it's almost at the level at which acceptance happens naturally, whereas what I'm talking about is more at the character level: there's this thing going on, and I need to accept the feeling, the interpretation, and so on. What you're saying is that at the deepest level, not only the conflict but the whole structure dissolves, and there's nothing more to accept. Is that right?
You realize that accepting is your nature, but it's a very specific kind of accepting. It's not an accepting that allows whatever to happen without any response. You realize that everything happening is already being accepted.
That is different from noticing a contraction in the body-mind around a certain feeling or situation, detecting triggers and reactions, and then working to accept them. In that approach, you can train the body-mind to be open to those experiences instead of contracting, which is the habit. The contraction, the triggering, is trained habitually. We do it ourselves out of habit. Ultimately, it's an undoing of a habit, and it can be trained through the practice of accepting you're describing.
But is that practice a necessary prerequisite, or a path through to the deeper recognition?
No, you could go directly to the root. But often, it's not a bad practice. It's important to know that it's not an ultimate practice, though. It's a practice that helps in certain moments as an approach to deal with contraction and reaction.
So it deals with life, but it's not necessarily a path that leads to the recognition of true nature?
That's correct. It's not the path to that, but it might help. It can also distract. It can become something where we tend to believe that all we have to do is repeat this process over and over, getting closer and closer to true, full acceptance. It doesn't work that way.
Acceptance is a realization. By realization, I mean it's not something we do. It can be called an attainment, but the word "attainment" has been used a lot in spirituality to describe something I would say cannot be attained. It can only be realized.
I see. In a sense, it might just loosen up some of the identification, create a bit of space. But it's not a path; it just opens up a little room.
Preparation versus the journey itself
What we're talking about is like climbing a mountain. If you just go to the gym, you're not going anywhere, but you are getting strong, getting ready. The journey (the "journey-less journey," as it were) is the climb itself. You could probably go up the mountain without ever going to the gym, but the gym can also become a never-ending preparation where you never get out the door. Or it can produce the feeling that you're getting somewhere because you're managing to undo some reactivity.
That practice with reactivity does work. It does loosen things up. It does bring a certain degree of peace and well-being, if done well. But it's always going to be to a certain degree. At some point, it's a dead end.
I kind of see it as peeling off layers. "I'm not this, I'm not that." We get caught up in stories and defending them, and then it's like, "Actually, no, I'm not this, I'm not that." You peel off the layers until you're left with a more direct question.
But the idea that it's all just layers implies you can get through all of them that way. That's where the metaphor fails. In that sense, the layers are infinite. Waves and waves, deeper and deeper. Yes, but it's infinite. And the recognition of what we are is not an infinite process. In fact, it's not a process at all. What we are already is. It's here now, and its true nature is already actualized.
But to see that, you went through a process.
Yes, of course, and I'm very emphatic about that. There is a process, but it's different from the process of working through layers. That process helps, but the process of recognition is a different kind of practice. It's not the practice of acceptance and working with emotions. Those can help clear the space. But I would even say, as I mentioned, it can be distracting. There's a risk where you clear enough of the challenges, enough of the reactivity, that you are no longer interested in going deeper because you're okay. For a lot of people, that becomes the resting place: "I used to suffer a lot, I'm suffering less, I can even tell myself I don't suffer anymore." But there's this underlying, more subtle unease, with occasional moments of big challenges and triggers, and still something much deeper that is available.
"Available" may not be the best word, because it's not somewhere else. It's here now.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.