The Loss Inside the Illusion
La Pérdida Dentro de la Ilusión
A student explores the fear of death, the impulse to act out suppressed emotions, and the sentimental attachment to the stories we tell ourselves, discovering that letting go involves both genuine loss and a deepening intimacy with experience.
The Loss Inside the Illusion
A student explores the fear of death, the impulse to act out suppressed emotions, and the sentimental attachment to the stories we tell ourselves, discovering that letting go involves both genuine loss and a deepening intimacy with experience.
When I trace it back, there's a fear of death. Can I be with that?
"Can I be with that," but also: what is it that can die? Because if that doesn't get clarified, then "can I be with it" leads to what you yourself say, that nobody can. Only through clarifying what could die and what I am can you transition, so to speak, through that. The transitioning is the dispelling of illusion. It feels like dying, but it's not dying.
Are there certain things that just have to be acted out? You speak a lot about consent, about how we choose. Thinking about the meditation and these natural movements, sometimes it just happens. Anger comes up, maybe because it's something I've repressed in the past. It seems like sometimes things come up to be expressed, or even acted out.
The body's need to process
Those aspects are valuable. They have to do with how the body-mind processes. They're useful, and at some point they seem necessary, but they're not what's driving things. They're an aftereffect of deeper seeing, of glimpses. To allow it, to enable it, to assist is wise, and there are more or less wise ways of doing that. Acting out anger: it's wise to hit pillows, not to start trashing your place.
At some point it might be helpful to explore it in that way. And then it might be seen that you can just observe the anger and it dissipates. But don't force that, because if you're attached to not expressing it, sometimes the body has energies it needs to move. There's an opening to what you could call shadow feelings, shadow emotions. It's very natural that in this process there could be a lot of pain, a lot of crying, even sobbing. If we have some resistance to that, or some idea that it's not okay, that it shouldn't be happening, there can be a blocking of a natural process of unwinding.
The sentimental attachment to the story
Ultimately, we're very attached. We're afraid to die, but what we're really attached to are the stories that constitute what we think we are. We don't want them to end. What we don't want to end is the illusion of the story of what I am. When there is identification, we don't want that to end. It's a disappointment. It's a disillusionment. I've seen this in myself, and I've seen it recently with many people I talk to. It's really hard.
It's tempting to want to control.
It's hard for many reasons, but I think it's more sentimental than that. It's not just hard in a technical, mechanical way, like "I can't deal with not controlling." That's an aspect too, but I'm talking about something more sentimental. There's a certain beauty to the illusion, and we want to stay in it. There's a sentimental, emotional attachment to it. But there's also a humbling in seeing that all of my struggles were me creating them.
It feels both humbling and funny in this moment. I want to explore that. I can sense what you're saying about the sentimentality of the story, the attachment to it. The examples coming up in my experience are like, "Oh, that's very juicy." The story adds more juice. Suddenly I'm not as present; I'm in this whole narrative in my mind and it's very exciting. Before that, I was just hiking, which is beautiful, but the story adds more pleasure to the situation.
Acquired tastes
That's exactly what I'm talking about. What happens is that the story is seen to be just thought. The more that's seen, the more you start to refine what you can savor. I often talk about acquired tastes. I find it to be the only metaphor that really fits. In the past, something I was experiencing was horrible, and now the same thing is delightful. But it's not because it changed from horrible to delightful. It's like giving whiskey to a five-year-old: they'll spit it out and wonder what you're doing to them. But a very nice scotch, a very nice glass of wine, that's a different experience entirely. The experience of embellishing with thoughts is actually like adding ice to a fancy scotch. It just waters it down. You shouldn't do that. Don't ruin it.
I think I follow.
The actual sensations of hiking on its own, with the mind doing what the mind does but without focusing on it, will become much tastier. Eventually you don't need to bother with the whole effort of looking at thought and pulling away into sensation. At some point it becomes completely irrelevant, because thought just goes back to being thought. It's no longer something we're pushing or pulling against. It's hard to describe, but then there's just experience, and thought is just a veil, a filter.
The pain of seeing through
But maybe, as we've talked about, we don't want to let go, or see through the thought, because there's a loss in that.
Yes, there's a loss, and it can be painful. I'll offer a metaphor, though it's not going to be big enough, because what we're talking about is actually a really big deal, a big shift. Metaphorically, it's like telling a young child, "We're going out for ice cream." Then, just before getting there: "Oh, it's closed. There's no ice cream. We have to go back home." There were twenty minutes of building excitement where it felt like that was all you wanted, the most important thing in the world. And then, boom, it's gone and you can't have it.
It's painful, but I've also noticed that when there isn't that seeking, there's such an intimacy with things. Yesterday I had to take a short nap, and when my alarm went off there was this sense that the sound was me. I have these moments where it's like, "That's me," and it feels so right and natural. So yes, there is a lot of pain, but it's also quite pleasurable. Maybe that's what you're describing as the acquired taste.
Yes. The acquired taste is around experiences, sensations that used to be unpleasant. Then some veil is removed, and the experience is known, or tasted, as sacred, delicious, alive, vital, free, loving.
Thank you. I think I'll explore this.
You're welcome.