Trust Without an Outside
Confianza sin un afuera
A student shares how practicing presence has naturally loosened attachment to future outcomes. The teacher refines the notion of "external" fulfillment, pointing out that what we call external exists only in imagination, and that the problem arises when thought is no longer seen as thought.
Trust Without an Outside
A student shares how practicing presence has naturally loosened attachment to future outcomes. The teacher refines the notion of "external" fulfillment, pointing out that what we call external exists only in imagination, and that the problem arises when thought is no longer seen as thought.
I have something to share on this topic, because I love the theme of trust, and I feel it's something I've really been intending to cultivate. It's been emerging within me over the last month. I've been focusing on being in presence and taking the advice you gave me about feeling myself as the space. Just from doing that, a natural detachment has been arising in me, particularly around future outcomes and things I thought I wanted or needed. I just don't care about them in the same way I used to. I think it's because I've been focusing on this idea that nothing external has what you need. It's always just a detour away from yourself. It feels really beautiful. There's always been this space in my heart, since I was a child, that has longed to trust. And for me, a big part of that has been letting go of attachments, or finding them naturally releasing.
That's beautiful. I would suggest one thing, though. It's just a little reframe. When you say "what's external," look to see if you're referring to something that exists only in thought. Where is the external you're referring to?
The external would be like a certain outcome.
And that outcome is the imagination of something.
Are you saying that in this moment it's an imagination? I guess what I mean is that I'm no longer wanting to engage with the future the way I used to, thinking that when some future moment arrives, then I will have fulfillment. That doesn't make sense, because it's always temporary.
The "external" is imagined
I agree, and everything you're saying is beautiful. I'm just suggesting that you look more subtly at what you mean by "external" and see if it's actually just what's imagined, what's in thought. Then it becomes simply the creative tool of thought and imagination: sometimes useful, sometimes not. The so-called external doesn't truly exist as such. I could use that language myself because it can be useful to communicate something, but in this context and the way you said it, I wanted to refine the point. What you're calling external is actually in your internal imagination.
Yes. Because I'm associating thought with an outcome, and I'm even creating an outcome through that.
Exactly. It's the imagination of the future, the imagination of something going a certain way, even the imagination of people over there or things over there, and then the busyness of thinking around all of that. Time, future, past, places, spaces: these all exist in imagination. That is not to throw imagination out entirely. It's not all problematic. The problem arises when thought is no longer seen as thought, no longer seen as imagination, and is instead taken to be reality.
Stepping out of the imagined world
It's remarkable. I really see the difference between this imagined world, the identity structure, living in the mind, versus when you come into presence and rest in that empty looking, that empty observing. Everything is just here. Everything is fine. I was creating drama in my head. It was like a different level of functioning, a different dimension or frequency. You tune into that, but when you tune into the actual moment, it's completely different from what you were in before.
Yes. The difference is like watching a movie and believing that's your reality, versus sitting on a couch, immersed, enjoying being immersed in a movie. Immersion is one form of experiencing, and you're not bothered by the movie. That is why imagination can also be valuable for creating and living. It's a very beautiful thing. But the problem, as you were describing, comes when the world of thought is not seen as thought.
When you talk about stepping back, metaphorically, into that spacious open emptiness, even there you could have a lot of thought, a lot of imagination. If it's recognized to be thought, then it's simply part of the whole field: sensation, perception, sound, sight, imaginations, thoughts. The mind only creates from what it has learned through perception and sensation. Your thought works through images, sounds, and imagined sensations. Then there are the sensations that come through the skin, the perceptions of sound and sight that appear from a different mode. But it's all one field. There isn't a division between sight and sound. There isn't a division between sensation and thought. It is one moving field of experiencing.
No inside, no outside
From the clarity of that perspective, seeing that this is all one moving field of experiencing, time and space exist only in interpretation and imagination. There is no actual symbolic meaning to "internal" and "external" other than for communication and practical function. If there is no external, there is no internal either. You could say it's all inside, but inside of what? There would need to be something outside for something to be inside.
Right. There's no boundary.
It's a subtle thing, but it can go deep.
I like it. Thank you.