The Love That Is Already Here
El Amor Que Ya Está Aquí
A student who left a career in entertainment for the spiritual path asks about working with triggers, discomfort, and the difference between shifting a state and recognizing what is already present.
The Love That Is Already Here
A student who left a career in entertainment for the spiritual path asks about working with triggers, discomfort, and the difference between shifting a state and recognizing what is already present.
I followed my life's passion, which was acting. I was performing and doing stand-up comedy in New York City comedy clubs with some of the most famous comedians. I was living my dream. I also wanted to be a singer and had started pursuing that, but I had already seen the entertainment industry and where it was going to lead. It was empty. Everyone was miserable; I felt miserable. So that's when I turned to the spiritual path, and my dreams shifted. On the deepest level, what I was trying to get from performing was just this love, and the spiritual path is so much richer. It felt like I wanted to go all the way with the spiritual work and not go back to the old life, even though I still love it.
I hear you, and what you're describing is exactly what I keep talking about: the balancing and rebalancing. You developed and worked more in one aspect, then more in another. But I'm talking about something like a dance of being in life.
If I use the story you brought up as a kind of metaphor, this person left her previous life, moved to India, lived in an ashram in Pune for two or three years. There were a lot of adventures, because that work is very tantric. Then she moved to Australia, lived a very beautiful romance with a very interesting man, her teacher, someone deeply engaged with life. My read of her story is that she was saying yes to everything and going all the way with everything. That's how I'd playfully reinterpret it: not as somebody who neglected any aspect of development.
That does make sense. It's funny that my life is so parallel. I did the same thing. I moved to India, did the same kind of work, moved to Bali. The paths were very similar. And all of that was full-on life; it was also a deepening. But then there was a point where it went into deep trauma work, and I think that's when I turned away from life again to do all this inner healing, hoping for the full awakening to emerge from that rather than turning back to the question of what desires on the human level I could say yes to in another way.
Trauma work in the context of life
I hear you. I have open questions in the sense that I don't know your situation fully, but a lot of trauma work is often most deeply done in relationship to life. In the story we're using as a metaphor, she was in a romantic relationship while she was doing all of that work. She worked it in relationship. And if you look at the final awakening, it happened when she got tossed into life. It wasn't in retreat. He basically said, "It's time to go," and she had to face life. In those last couple of months, she faced deep terror, a deep terror of being in life and being on her own.
Let's treat this as a story from a book that we're playing with. What I see is a yes to everything, to all of what life brings. And that's what I'm pointing to in what you're sharing. I hear these little flavors of "not this, I'm going here now," but there might be room for "yes, this and that and that." Because otherwise there's so much room for subtle control coming in through the back door.
It does make a lot of sense on an intuitive level. I also studied a lot with a teacher who would always ask, "What do you want?" I know that's what you ask too.
I didn't know she asked that, but it's nice to hear.
Two ways of asking "What do you want?"
It's funny because you actually use it differently. She uses it to get to the very bottom of what you want. Anything you want will inevitably end in, "I want this because it gives me peace, love, truth." So the point of that question is to use the wants on the human level to get to the deepest want, which leads toward awakening. Once that's revealed, the egoic pursuits are seen as unnecessary. Coming from that teaching, all these other wants have been put aside. What am I really trying to get from performing my music? Joy. And that's here now. Great. Nothing to do. I don't have to go sing.
But I'll turn it around. Let's assume you're fully awake and liberated, the whole thing, everything you could imagine. What are you going to do? What would you do in this life?
Then I would sing and play and dance. That's tantra. That's it.
Then sing and play and dance.
I know. That's the part of me that totally resonates with what you're saying.
It's both. And they're both the same thing.
Somehow it doesn't manifest as the same thing, because one understanding leads me to sit on the couch and just be in bliss and peace where nothing needs to happen. There isn't necessarily a motivation to go pick up my guitar or even leave my house. And then another perspective, like what you just said, is, "Of course I can go do all these things."
The love you are not doing
Yes, but if you say you sit on the couch and bliss out, why does that stop? Why does that peace stop in your experience?
I think it's whatever triggers might come up amidst that, and then my response can either be just to love it and keep sitting on the couch with it.
Let's work on that, because I think that's the heart of it. What I'm seeing in what you've shared is that there is a certain stage where the approach, the wording of an approach, can look a certain way, and then that needs to shift when we're further along. So you're going to like hearing that I'm saying you're further along.
The work of "you loving something" is in the past. You're saying a trigger comes up, then you do a practice and learn to love it, and then you're blissing out. That's a really good practice until it's not. It's a good practice, but then it's going to end up being a crutch. The crutch is this: if you interpret that you are doing the loving and there's something you can do, then the direction to what is more real is that the love is already there. You can recognize it, but you're not doing the love.
When you said you sit on the couch and you love it, but then you go into life, there's a trigger, and you need to sit still with the trigger to love it. This back and forth is what you can see through. You're not actually doing the loving there. You are recognizing. What I'm proposing is this: look at the possibility that the deeper reality is that you are recognizing a love that's already there. And so then you don't need to go back to the couch. Whatever brings up the trigger, you can recognize the love in the being triggered, in all of the things that happen.
In the beginning of your sharing, you spoke a lot about things that can throw you off and how you are learning to love that. What I would propose is that you look at how that love is there in the triggering, in the reactivity, in whatever is happening. We're calling it love because it's an appropriate word, but it could be anything else: freedom, peace. That which you're wanting, that which you're looking for, is already there no matter what is happening. This is going to rub against your sense of you doing something and getting somewhere.
I remember you told me this before, and I was doing that as well. But I think that still brings up this "me doing something," this checking.
That's fine, because at least you have a more accurate interpretation. To recognize something that's already there, even while "doing the checking and looking," is a more accurate representation than "I'm doing the loving. I'm the one bringing the loving to this thing that's not loving." The other framing, "I'm looking and discovering the love is already there," can lead you all the way, because that will undermine the separation, the sense of you doing something. If you honestly follow that all the way, whenever you feel something's missing, whenever you feel the loss of the center or of this love, whenever you feel thrown off and you look and you realize, "Oh wait, the love is also here in being contracted." You're talking a lot about discomfort, the discomfort of going into the world. So you don't need to go to the couch to deal with the discomfort. You don't need to sit still to deal with it. You can be in the discomfort and find that the love is there, that the peace is there in the discomfort.
The thing with the couch is I was already on the couch.
I'm using it metaphorically, as the needing to step away from something. So look for it in the thing. Look for the love and the peace in the discomfort, in the fear, in the reactivity, in the appearing of rejection, avoidance, seeking, or whatever you want to call it.
Seeing through versus shifting out
Do you think that's the same as, if I'm having a trigger and I'm angry with a story about someone doing something, I might ask, "Who is angry?" and then I'm immediately brought back to presence?
No, it's not the same. What you're describing is valuable, but what I'm describing is different. You're creating a shift of state, and that's valuable. But what I'm talking about is: when you are triggered, when you are angry and there are stories, see through that directly. Without having to shift the story, without having to shift the energetic, the experience of contraction or anger or pain, look for the love in the middle of that experience.
There's going to be a sensation when the story is triggered, a sensation that you're shifting yourself out of it. What I'm proposing is that in that sensation, you stay with it and find the love in that sensation. Then you will no longer need to do that process of asking. It's still a useful process: you ask, "Who is angry?" and you're brought into presence. But you can bypass that. Go directly to the love in the triggering, in the contraction, in the discomfort. It's truly unconditioned, but you need to see it. You can't tell yourself it's there. Telling yourself is not helpful.
The reason I asked about the "who" question is that my experience is just asking it. I'm not trying to change anything. I'm still in the fear or the anger, and then it will shift into presence on its own. So I'm imagining that your suggestion would do the same thing, that it would shift to love and then the anger would dissolve in the same way. Not in order to shift it; I just mean that would be the result. Or are you saying there would still be anger and love at the same time?
I can't describe what would be there, but it's not what you're imagining. I can't describe it, but it's going to be a whole other level of freedom. What I can say is that there will be more wisdom, and the anger will not be misused, or will be misused less. But there will be no need to shift out of the anger or have it dissipate or dissolve, or the pain or the discomfort. It's really a freedom from anything that is appearing, and it's not because whatever appears you can shift out of it into something else. That's already too conditioned.
The wall you never touch
That's why I said that caveat, that I'm not trying to get rid of it. It has just happened that way, that it dissolves.
It does dissolve, but this is a matter of closer, closer, closer. As you get close, imagine you're walking toward a wall and I say, "Walk half the remaining distance to the wall." Now walk half the remaining distance again. And again. You're going to get closer and closer, but at one point you're just not reaching the wall. You're infinitely getting closer forever, and you never touch it. The work you're doing is doing that, and it's very valuable: you're walking toward presence, getting closer toward presence. But that last step is a leap.
That last step is the one you're asking for, the one you're looking for. It is a leap where you don't need the shift of the anger, you don't need the shift of the discomfort. You are touching the wall simultaneously when there is anger, pain, discomfort. And touching the wall, to me, is a metaphor for peace, knowing love, tasting freedom.
It deeply resonates when you say it. It's just a big yes. It's the unmovable, the unchanging, and that's what I want to know at the deepest level in the midst of all that. That's what you're saying.
Yes. And that is already here.
From initial awakening to liberation
At this point, the work requires a shift. In the beginning, it requires effort, all of the work that we've all been doing. But at some point it's more of a constant recognition, deeper and deeper, of something that is already here. Once we've tasted it, then it's more and more about learning to taste it and see that it's here always, no matter what. That's the difference between what is called an initial awakening and liberation.
An initial awakening is the tasting of our true nature, recognizing that we're not what we thought we were. It tastes like nothing ever before, and it's very groundbreaking. But then we're left chasing it, trying to get back to that. The second process is the recognition, the tasting, that it is always here no matter what.
Whenever I stop and check, it is always here.
Check instead of stop and check. Literally, because "stop and check" implies some form of reaction or response, a shift, an action, a doing. Just don't stop. Whatever it is that's happening, have no interest in stopping it, or any kind of shift. Just look at what is there. What is it really? What is the thing you're wanting to stop? What is the experience? What are the sensations? What are the thoughts? Just look at what is really there, with the direction that love, freedom, peace is here as well. With the mind doing what it's doing exactly right now. With the emotion, sensation, body doing exactly what it's doing now. Absolutely no time or change needed. Not a hair needs to move. Not a thought needs to change. No sensation needs to shift. It's absolutely right here, no matter what is happening.
I think this is what I've been circling around, and maybe it's so subtle that it's hard to describe. I remember last week I was telling you that every time I try to open to these triggers, it's so overwhelming.
Keep looking. What you're calling overwhelm is a concept pointing to an experience that probably has a mix of thoughts, emotions, sensations. But it's going to be somewhat repetitive. You'll find yourself saying, "I'm here again now."
The love in opening
Even without the thought, or at least my awareness of any thought, just focusing on the pure sensation, there was something that in the past felt like I couldn't go anywhere. But since this opening of the heart last week, it was more like whenever I would open to the emotion, there was this love that would come through. That was the missing piece I was trying to discover. It's hard to describe, but it was such a difference in how I was approaching opening to emotion versus with this hint of love. Not "I am loving it" actively, but the opening itself is the love. And then it felt like, okay, now I'm really meeting it.
Exactly. That's beautiful. And now, skip the opening. Recognize that the opening already is. That's where it gets closer and closer. "Opening" is alluding to some kind of shift again, and it's real, it's a true and important thing, and we have to practice that. But at some point we can go deeper and see: the opening is. The love is. Consciousness is. Awareness is. Freedom is. Peace is. It doesn't come and go. It doesn't appear. It doesn't move. That last hair of a shift I'm pointing to is tiny and makes the biggest impact.
I feel the intensity of that. There's such a knowing that it's true, because of course it already is. There's nothing that needs to open. And then there's still the resistance, and that resistance was what was trying to open. But I can feel what you're saying, and it's so subtle that I can't say anything about it. I can only keep going.
Nothing needs to open because the openness already is. But you can't tell yourself that. It has to be a recognition, because otherwise we could be closed, identified, telling ourselves, "I'm open," while the organism behaves inappropriately.
Definitely not on the mental level. It's something I can't quite articulate.
You know it. You taste it. You smell it. And that's why, in a sense, it's going to be the unraveling and the undoing of this whole thing of you doing the spiritual work, you doing the loving, the opening, the working on this and that. All of that falls apart when you see it's already here. What you're looking for is right here. You can't go anywhere. "In front of you" is even terrible language, because it's not in any location and it's not separate from you. But it's right here. It's just so relentlessly, freakishly, all the time here. Always has been, always will be. And it's like, "What? This is what I've been overlooking my whole life." Just to see the reality of what is. Buddha nature, the kingdom of heaven, all those metaphors: it's this. It's here.
It's so obvious when the tension isn't here. But when the tension comes, I'm hearing that the only thing to do is, in the midst of the tension, even though so much energy wants to go toward avoiding it, to get out of it, to notice that it's right there in the tension.
The nature of what is moving
Taste the tension directly. Taste it so intimately and deeply that you can experientially know what it's made of, rather than trying to shift it or undo it.
If you're coming from a tradition like the one you studied, in Hinduism they speak of Sat Chit Ananda. You might know: nama is name, rupa is form. Form is what appears: sensations, thoughts. Sensation is nama, the name. The experiential knowing of sensation, what it is like, the seeing, the appearance of image, of sound, that is rupa. The naming of it is nama. Now, what is it really? It is satchitananda.
So the discomfort, the reactivity, is rupa. We call it reactivity, we call it discomfort. The experience is rupa; it's form. What is it made of? It's made of satchitananda. And in Hinduism, that trinity is consciousness, experience, bliss. What I'm trying to point to, the core of it, the heart of it, the essence of it, is ananda. So what is the actual contraction, the experience of contraction, the experience of anger? What is it made of? It is ananda.
For whatever reason, sometimes that's the experience. When I go fully into that sensation, it is bliss. And then other times, it's just tension.
Think about something else, because what you're calling bliss is a form of rupa. There's bliss that is of form. There's bliss whose nature is experiential; there's a taste to it. So what happens is you taste the discomfort or contraction, and then you shift it into the rupa of bliss. But what I'm describing as ananda is not form-like in its essence. That's why it's hard to talk about. The actual form, the sensation itself of discomfort, does not change. The discomfort, as it tastes, is seen to be made of satchitananda. It is bliss in the form of contraction. So you don't need to shift the contraction into another form that is pleasant. That shifting is a valuable practice, but you can stay doing that for a long time.
I hope you understand that I'm not trying to shift anything. It's just happening spontaneously when I look at it.
I agree, and what I'm pointing to has two aspects. One is that we learn how to shift, and also it appears that something shifts or dissolves. That's happening and it's going to keep happening. But I'm talking about something more subtle: the invitation is to see, in the form that it has, that it is ananda already.
I understand what you're saying. I don't think I have that experience yet.
You can see it as that when you see it. The experience is that. What I'm describing is the experience, is the nature of experience.
Like the awareness of it?
The experience you're having is what I'm describing. You're just misinterpreting it. You don't need to change the way you experience. We are experiencing and knowing Buddha nature all the time. We are misinterpreting it.
Misinterpretation, not missing experience
Would you say that the shift between being identified versus being awareness, the seeing of it, is where the difference lies?
The identification is the misinterpretation.
That's clear. So then I think I'm just flip-flopping.
It's more subtle. Even more subtle. I think you're getting closer and closer; I'm just saying even more subtle. It takes a bit of a leap of faith to really consider something we've been in a position to reject for so long, something we've so deeply interpreted as "this should not be as it is." We've created such a huge narrative around our whole sense of being: "This should not be this way; it should be this other way." It's operating at that subtle level. To see, "Oh, that was a complete misinterpretation. What I'm looking for is here." Now, that is a huge rug pull from under the whole sense of self, even the valuable sense of self of the spiritual search, of what brought you this far and to this level of depth and awakeness. Even that can be seen, in a sense, as not even necessary. In a sense, it is still an avoidance.
I definitely see that. And what's amazing is, on a gross level, "this shouldn't be this way" is showing up in such a big way. I got a tow sticker on my car and the rage was so huge. "This should not be happening." It felt so personal, and it actually was personal because I know who did it and I even asked them not to. But the rage was enormous. Such a contrast.
That's the stuff where there's more to see.
That's the life part. But it's so much louder than it's ever been. I'm sure it was always there, but it's so intense.
It's louder because you're getting closer. Lessened denial, lessened coping mechanisms, lessened escaping mechanisms. You're close to the fire and the body-mind screams for its life. The mind especially. The body just responds to what the mind is interpreting as, "This is the end of me," and it reacts as if there's a tiger running at you.
That's one hundred percent it. Total survival, primal. And then I think that's where the question comes up: in that moment, is the movement just to so subtly recognize what's happening?
Yes. If that's happening a lot and you become completely dysfunctional or act in a negative way, then you should step into the practice you've been describing: you retreat, you pause, you sit under a tree and calm your whole system. You've learned that. But if you're just seeing the reaction and it's not impairing your functioning and you're not behaving inappropriately, you're just seeing this whole reaction, then now it's time to look for that in the reaction, to look through the reaction and see what it's made of, what's really there.
The difference between psychological work and seeing nature
So I don't necessarily need to do the psychological work of figuring out what's underneath this or what I'm avoiding?
That's psychological work, and that's not necessarily the life part. The life part is more like, "What do you want to do with your life?"
It becomes the life part just in the interaction it leads to, like discussing with the person who did that.
That's up to you to discern. What do you want to do? What's the best approach? Maybe the best approach is to ignore it even if it's personal. That's moment-by-moment discernment. What I'm talking about is: don't look for a way to immediately resolve it. Look for what its nature is. What is the nature of that reactivity? Not in the psychological sense, not "Oh, this is because I have this belief system." I'm talking about the nature of the actual experience.
That's what's been confusing: knowing when to do the psychological work versus this other seeing.
None of it, at this level. No psychological work at this level. Psychological work is needed if you're reacting inappropriately, if it's not good for you or for others, if you're not behaving well or not functioning well. Then you need to do that kind of work. But once you're at a point where you're functioning pretty well, you're not causing big problems to others or to yourself, and you're able to function, then the work is less psychological. It's less around shifting yourself out of a state, out of a contraction, and more about looking at what is actually happening when it's happening. Not the dynamics, but the nature of what's moving.
If I'm being fully honest, both are needed. I'm not having great relational dynamics. I'm not always perfectly in control. I'm not harming people in some extreme way, but I have awareness of my impact, and I'm not sure that people would say I'm super peaceful and perfect.
That's up to you to discern how to work on it. When you're able to not react and not affect yourself or others negatively in behavior (and behavior includes what you say and your energy), when you are able to be with that and not behave in ways that are problematic, then it's a good moment to look at what I'm referring to.
Relational work and the deeper freedom
I think that should be my focus. It's more internal than external, but I can see that there's still a lot of looping around relational interactions because of unprocessed anger.
That's a whole other process: working relationships, communication, all that healing work. It often only really gets resolved by working on it within honest, open, vulnerable relationship. And it has to go both ways. You can't do that with somebody who's not committed to it, whether it's a friendship or a romantic partnership. It has to be committed on both ends for it to go deeper.
But if you don't find someone to do that with, then it's always just you.
You work on what you can when you're on your own, but there are always relationships, friendships. There is a catalyst when you find a partner or a committed friend. But all of this, while important, is not the heart of it. The heart of it is the freedom that is possible before any of that is done.
That's the part I care about the most. I just get confused about when to focus on that versus whether I need more cleanup to see more clearly.
Don't think of it as either/or. The doing is always going to be at the level of life. What I'm describing, seeing the reality of what is, is always about what is, right now.
I'm just doing it right now as I'm talking to you, and it's so beautiful. This noticing.
And when some conflict appears, while you're addressing it, figuring out what to do with it, whether you need to withdraw from an interaction or have a conversation, as you're doing all of that, you can look at the nature of what is happening. Look for the love that already is there. Look for the openness that already is there.
What you are looking for is not a feeling
So then I start to feel the love and the bliss physically, and I know that's not what it is, but still.
That's not a bad thing. That's beautiful. Celebrate that.
I think what happens is I probably get attached to that feeling and then I associate them.
Yes, and then you're in a back and forth. What you're looking for is not a feeling. It's not a state. It's not a sensation. But at first it is tasted so close to certain sensations that it gets confused as the sensation. The tasting of this also releases great shifts that appear as sensations and feelings, which we then get attached to. But the heart of it is not a sensation. It's not a feeling.