The Habit You're Fighting Is the One You're Choosing
El hábito contra el que luchas es el que estás eligiendo
A student describes clearly seeing through the sense of self in direct investigation, yet struggles with the persistent habit of identification in everyday life. The teacher points to a subtler layer: the sense that this habit is "happening to me" is itself the identification, and the dynamic is being chosen, not merely endured.
The Habit You're Fighting Is the One You're Choosing
A student describes clearly seeing through the sense of self in direct investigation, yet struggles with the persistent habit of identification in everyday life. The teacher points to a subtler layer: the sense that this habit is "happening to me" is itself the identification, and the dynamic is being chosen, not merely endured.
I had a direct investigation where I very clearly saw that I can't find the "me." I really have this experience of not finding it. But everyday life still reinforces this idea of a separate self. I do feel it is a strong habit. My identification is automatic and immediate, dancing along with whatever is happening. It really takes a strong break from these habits, every single time realizing it, choosing to stay with just the awareness of what's going on, awareness of thought as thought.
I started trying to break this habit of going to the mind by keeping my attention on something that is not imaginable by the mind. For example, this screen we are seeing: it is immediately seen, and then the thought "I am seeing" is always later. So it is very clear: it is being seen, no distance. There is no distance in the awareness of any object. I feel like I am able to break the habit of going to the mind's identification. It is purely just a habit.
I understand what you're describing. If you could really briefly state the problem, what is the problem?
The problem is the habit of thinking, the habit of the mind's identification.
I suspected that was your answer. So now the question is: why is that a problem?
It reinforces this idea of the person.
And why is that a problem?
It's not, actually. To me, it's only a thought. The idea of a person is only just words. I don't deny that there's some sort of feeling of somebody doing things experientially. But I feel like I can choose not to stay with the idea.
Locating the actual problem
I'm focusing on the problem because, for example, the previous student was describing spells of irritation. That is a problem. The irritation seems like something he wants to stop. So the approach with him was: you've been doing all this work directly with the irritation, so now look at the identification that's the cause of it. What you're sharing is different. The problem is not that straightforward. I'm wanting to see if you could refine, in your experience, more directly what the problem is, because you're not clearly having one, or I'm not understanding it.
I feel like I can choose to not stay with the mind. I can see thought as thought.
The first thing that came for me to say to you is simply: stay with this knowing. Ignore the habit. Because if you're trying to stop a habit, you're reinforcing it. You can't fight a habit. The habit will last the time it lasts on its own, because it has a momentum. If I throw a ball down the road, it has a life of its own. If I'm trying to stop it, I'm actually pushing it.
What happens is I can see, I can feel this pull of thoughts, and I can actually feel the attention forming. I can feel that I can choose to direct the attention onto something else rather than thought.
Manipulating appearances
I still think you're fighting. You're trying to manipulate appearances. You're describing that the habit of identification keeps forming, and you keep trying to redirect away from it. But I think for you, the approach is to realize that the appearance of identification is also empty. There's no need for it to stop.
There is the experience of thought each time, relating to thought. I know it's empty. Eventually the experience of this thought is nothing more than just emotion. I totally agree they are empty.
Then why the attempt to stop it or get rid of it?
It's because I can feel the difference when I'm in the thought and when I'm not in the thought. I can feel the contrast.
One feels more pleasant than the other.
Yes. When I'm not in the thought, I feel more peaceful.
The peace and its loss
So one feels more peaceful and pleasant than the other. In a sense, now that you say that, it is similar to what was shared earlier, just different in its form. You're seeing the process of identification, how it comes and goes, and when the identification comes up again, you feel the loss of that sense of peace.
Now, what is similar for you is that it is also about seeing that there's a choice. Instead of putting the energy on further clarifying that there's no one there, that there's emptiness, instead of continuing that process of seeing and seeing and seeing, look directly at the choice.
You mean, when I say "I am in the thought" or "I'm not in the thought," these are just thoughts too?
It's working with the experience of choice. It's the same as working with the experience of will and the independent will. While you experience an independent will, you use it and work with it. While you experience a choice, you look at it and work with it.
The victim dynamic
What I'm pointing to is that there's a choice that is the root of the problem. Instead of working on clarifying the thing that's appearing, the thing that keeps taking over, notice the underlying dynamic you're describing. You're saying sometimes this comes and sometimes it goes, there's peace when things are one way and not when they're the other way, and you're picking at the habit of identification, the thoughts coming up. Underneath all of that, what you're describing is: "This is happening to me." The word I often use is "victim," but the meaning is simply: it's happening to me.
Yes, absolutely.
So that's where the identification is. Now, instead of looking further into where that identification is, notice that there's a choice. This is not happening to you. It's being chosen. You could also use the word "created." You are creating the dynamic you're struggling with.
I'm not very clear on that. The dynamic I'm creating?
You are the chooser of this dynamic
You can call it a habit, but then there's a separating there. There's a thing that's happening, and it's happening to me. So now we're in a paradigm of things happening from an independent will, happening to me, and I have no control. That's not the true "no control." It's not the true "no choice." It's an identified "no control."
The antidote to that is to see that you are the creator of it, that you are the choosing of it. When what you experience as habit is just happening, the need for that to be different is a pushing and pulling with the experience. That pushing and pulling is the separating and identifying, because otherwise the habits are not a problem.
The energies that are conditioned have a momentum. You observe them, and they will start to wither and dissipate on their own. There's a complete non-interest, no attachment to that happening. It's just on the way out; you're simply saying goodbye. But the need for it to be different, this pushing and pulling with the habit, the contraction, the identification, this whole process you're describing where you're trying to see more clearly so that it stops: underneath all of that, in a deeper place, there is an identification, and there is a choosing of this entire dynamic.