Freedom from Becoming
Libertad del devenir
A question about habitual physical tension in the body during meditation and inquiry, and whether this clenching and discomfort is part of the process or something to resolve.
Freedom from Becoming
A question about habitual physical tension in the body during meditation and inquiry, and whether this clenching and discomfort is part of the process or something to resolve.
It feels like a bit of a silly question because we don't often talk about this in our society, which is maybe why it feels silly. But there are certain ways I notice the body, because I've been paying attention to it for some time. Lately there's this habitual clenching right here, these little muscles in my face. My face can get so tired, and sometimes I get headaches with the exploration or with the meditation, or just in life. Really, lately it's like my jaw has a hard time. It doesn't seem to be just because I'm watching it. It seems to be some kind of holding. There's nothing wrong with that, although I do try to consciously relax it. I guess the reason I'm bringing it up is that I'm curious about the physical tensing that can happen, that can cause pain. My sense of it isn't simply, "That's going to go on until it doesn't, or it arises when it does and doesn't." But I wondered if you could speak to how the body can react to this inquiry.
You bring up a good question. It's a very complex subject in a sense.
The simple approach and its trap
The simple approach is that the body will do what it does. There is a tendency to overly focus on that kind of thing. That's where you have a lot of the more conventional bodywork and healing work, which is very valuable. I've done a lot of it, and it's been extremely helpful. But there was a tendency in me, and I think it's common, where it's very easy to have an idea or a notion that once that resolves, then I will arrive. There was, at least in me, a subtle belief, an attachment, a strategy: "If I can heal this, undo this, shift this in the body, in the mind, in the habits, then I will have this thing. I will arrive at this thing." That thing is awakening, which is what I was talking about in the meditation as "the promise."
Waking up versus growing up
That's why I try to be very clear and to pose it as something very different: the waking up from the growing up. In the meditation today as well, I find it's very important to keep highlighting that distinction.
Tensions in the body will always be there as long as there is a body. As long as there is a mind, there are going to be thoughts that are neurotic. What can shift is the identification. When that shifts, in a sense, none of that really matters. The neurotic thoughts can be seen as just thoughts. The tensions in the body can be seen as just tensions. There is no agenda attached, no desiring attached, in a general sense.
That is actually what makes the neurotic behavior lessen. That is what makes the tension in the body lessen over time. Although it does help, and is invaluable at some point, to do therapy, to do bodywork, to do all kinds of healing work, it must be clear that none of it is ever going to get you to where you really want to go, which is here, now.
I'm wondering if that resonates, or if you have more questions.
It does resonate. I can see how often and for how long I have thought about life in general in terms of a process, a becoming, and then applied that same lens to awakening. I'm seeing through that more and more. I can see what you're pointing to: that it's in the discomfort, that whatever is happening here is already it. Just as you were speaking, I felt, "Oh my gosh, that's so free." It's so free that there could be neurosis. It's so free that there could be tension. It's really beautiful.
Allowing, not dissolving
And there is the added advantage: there's a freedom for it to be okay if there is neurosis, okay if there is tension. On top of that, because there is an openness and an allowing, the neurosis does not become action as much. It does not become the focus as much. Because there is an allowing for it to be what it is, it starts to dissolve. But it's not by trying to dissolve it that it dissolves. Trying to remove tension is a rejection of tension. Trying to push neurosis away is a rejection of neurosis. By being with it, seeing it, understanding it, and in a sense not giving it too much importance, there is an openness to it.
There's a phrase that was said to me once, and I've heard it a few times. It was very powerful for me: "the freedom from becoming." I just remembered it because you used the word "becoming." In a sense, this is the freedom from becoming.
That is so beautiful. Thank you.
And then the process of living, of growing, of the growing up, of the becoming, becomes the play, the exploration, the fun, free living, and not the clenching and contracting into trying to get somewhere.
Thank you. I feel very moved. I'm going to be with that.