When Moving Through Becomes Avoidance
Cuando fluir se convierte en evasión
A vipassana practitioner asks about the tension between flowing through all sensations equally and staying with a single core sensation, as the teacher had been recommending to another student.
When Moving Through Becomes Avoidance
A vipassana practitioner asks about the tension between flowing through all sensations equally and staying with a single core sensation, as the teacher had been recommending to another student.
I practice vipassana, and one of the teachings is that you scan the body, flowing up and down, without narrowing in on any particular sensation. You keep moving. The idea, as I took it from my teacher, is that too often we focus on a strong sensation and miss a more subtle one. So the practice is to keep feeling all the sensations. I understand vipassana is also about an art of living; it's not just concerned with awakening. I also do self-inquiry work. But with this focus on a single, stronger sensation, I was curious what your thoughts were.
The way I see it is this: if vipassana as a practice were directed to focus on a specific sensation, it would be very problematic. It's about the ability to flow through whatever is appearing, just as vipassana points to. And that flowing is going to start clearing what is more on the surface.
The foundational practice of not attaching
But what I was discussing with the other student doesn't begin as a strong sensation. It is actually the most subtle, deep thing. As we start to clear everything, as we become able to move through it all without getting attached (which is the problem in foundational practices: attachment to certain sensations and thoughts), we naturally go deeper.
So yes, what we want to do is move, move, move. That's the foundational practice: staying with the breath, or vipassana, observing thoughts without getting attached, observing the train of thoughts and sensations. But if you keep doing that, going deeper, clearing, and being able to move through, there is going to be some core energetic that will also be changing and moving.
The core energetic that changes shape
When I say it's one core sensation, I mean it's going to be a kind of core energetic that, as I said in the meditation, is like a chameleon. It will change shape, form, and flavor. But the more you clarify, the more it becomes this one big "no." It's going to be really subtle at first, but the more you get close to it, the more it becomes like a screaming "no."
That's what I was discussing with the other student. His situation is very different from, say, someone sharing a different experience, where we would address it differently. But once you start relating to and touching that kind of deeper energetic, then I would recommend an experiment, an exploration, where the question becomes: how can I touch that more directly and not push it away?
When flowing becomes avoidance
Because there is another aspect to consider. If I'm just trying to move through, it might be an avoidance of something. There is a bit of a balance here, and it has to do with the intuition I was referring to earlier. There's an intuition: am I now in avoidance, or am I in attachment? Am I avoiding a sensation, or am I attaching to one?
As you practice the art of moving through, you might at some point come to a way of practicing that is actually saying no to certain sensations. Something might move and appear, and the response is, "Oh no, not that," and then you move to the head, or to some other space. That can be recognized as you develop your intuition and your capacity for seeing the mechanisms of your own mind. You will recognize, "Oh, that's me jumping away from something. Why don't I just stay with it a little longer and see what's happening, and then maybe move through?"
What gets revealed when the noise clears
It will start to happen. You will see in descriptions from people who have gone deep and had profound awakenings that something gets, in a sense, ignited, something you cannot avoid. It is actually revealed because you have seen through all of the noise. When that starts to happen, there is going to be a kind of practice needed. It's not really a practice, but an invitation into relationship with something that is really hard to be with.
Does this resonate with you?
Yes, it does resonate. I think I want to explore that. I'm going to spend some time with it. Thank you.