The Addiction to Release
La adicción a la liberación
A student describes a repeating cycle of noticing contraction, seeing through thoughts, and feeling release, only to have the pattern return. The teacher points out that focusing on bodily contraction has become an addictive loop, and redirects attention toward examining the beliefs themselves.
The Addiction to Release
A student describes a repeating cycle of noticing contraction, seeing through thoughts, and feeling release, only to have the pattern return. The teacher points out that focusing on bodily contraction has become an addictive loop, and redirects attention toward examining the beliefs themselves.
I guess it's just seeing it when it's here, and then it releases, and then it just keeps going over and over. So it's just a matter of continuing to see it over and over.
If by releasing you're referring to the sensations in the body, forget about that. Focus on the belief, on something that seems to be a real entity, and then notice that it's just made of thoughts. All of the contractions in the body, forget about that. What I think you're doing is creating a cycle of tension and release, tension and release, giving the impression of progress.
It doesn't feel like progress. It actually doesn't feel like progress.
The cycle of tension and release
Good. The frustration that it's not working anymore is a good thing. What's happening is just believing something that is mind-made, of the nature of thought. Semantically, you could say mind is everything; you could say all appearances. But let's distinguish thought from sensation and perception. Thought is everything else that's not sensation or perception that appears, that has any kind of form. Any sense of this being a universe with planets and people and past and future: all of that only exists right now in your imagination. There's usefulness to it, there's practical value to it, but its nature is imagination.
That's clear. It's always clear.
Okay, so that step is clear. Then notice when you start to grant something the value of having its own entity, its own origin: some agent that is "I," that has its own source within that imagination.
That's what I'm calling the contraction. It's happening right now. There's a sense of...
Contraction is a symptom, not the cause
I understand, but the contraction is a symptom. It's not the cause. It's not the source. Because you're focusing on the contraction, it's just going to repeat endlessly.
Okay, so all I'm seeing is contraction and thoughts that are believing there's someone here.
Contraction is sensation. I'm talking about only thoughts. When you recognize a contraction, you recognize it as sensation. There's nothing to clarify. It's like saying "I hear a sound." No clarification is needed. Now, if I hear a sound and then say "it's a bird" and think the sound is a bird, that's confusion. I could instead say there's a sound, and then there's the interpretation that there's a bird, and I'm sure if I go look I'll find a bird. That's practicality. If I have a contraction and I name it "contraction," fine. There's nothing to clarify. But if I have a narrative that says, "This contraction is the source of my angst, and once it releases I will be okay," that is thought. It's mind. It's illusory.
That's just what I notice in my experience. It's like a cause-and-effect thing: there's contraction, there are lots of thoughts about "I'm doing, I'm doing, I'm doing." And then when I notice the thoughts, the contraction releases and the thoughts release.
This repeats because you're too focused on the contraction.
So just ignore the contraction and focus on the thought?
The addiction to feeling good
Yes. I'll tell you why. Because it feels so good for the contraction to go away. It feels like progress. It feels like you're doing something right, like you're moving spiritually in some direction. It also just physically feels good for the contraction to go away. So how do you repeat this feeling good? How do you repeat this sense of progress? By contracting over and over again so that you can release it over and over again. It's an addiction.
Wow. It is an addiction. The self thing is an addiction.
Forget about the contraction. Let it be. Whenever you're contracted, celebrate. Don't try to make it go away, because then you're just going to get hooked. Now focus on the illusory narratives. You said something about hearing "doing" and then seeing it, and then the contraction releases. But you're not really seeing what's there. You're not seeing it deeply enough, because if you did, you wouldn't keep going back to it.
So I'm not seeing the thoughts deeply enough. I'm confused about what that means.
You're not seeing the belief in what you think you are in that context of the doing. You're not seeing it as what it is. You're creating a thought that seems like "this is me," and then you create a contraction in the body, and then you repeat a mechanism of disbelieving it, releasing the tension, and repeating.
I'm with you on that. That makes sense. I guess what doesn't make sense is how I'm not seeing the thoughts. How do you see them more clearly? I see them and I get that they're illusory and I don't believe them.
You said something like, "The doer comes back." Say more about that so I can hear it in your words.
Doership without the word "contraction"
While we were talking, there was a sense of a someone trying to understand you. And I noticed that. But this brings us back to the contraction, because that's my primary recognition that there's a someone here. There's an alert, and then I look at the thoughts of "I'm trying to hear you, I'm trying to understand you."
Let's continue for the next few minutes. You're forbidden to use the word "contraction."
Okay. So there's a noticing that there's doing, that there's a someone here doing. And then there's seeing what that's made of: just the thoughts of "I'm trying to understand you."
You said there's a noticing of a doing. Describe that.
Well, I can't. I'm forbidden.
Right, because the contraction is not the doing. That's exactly where the illusion is. The doing is not there. It's not in the contraction. You're calling something what it's not.
I guess this is where my mind goes blank, because that's all there is: thought and sensation.
Then contemplate that. Take this to your retreat and really trust me enough to explore this deeply. Just see what you see. Forget about the contraction, forget about affecting it, and try to see what this sense of doership is without using the experience of contraction as a way to explain or define it.
Okay. So that basically just leaves us with thought. Find whatever thought...
It'll leave you with the belief.
That makes a lot of sense now. And the irony is the vipassana technique is all about sensation, which I wasn't planning to do that way anyway.
What I mean is not "don't have sensations." Don't mess with them. Don't try to stop the contraction or analyze it or undo it. That actually is vipassana: just stay with it, let it be, and look at the thoughts.
Just to clarify, I wasn't doing anything with it. I was just noticing it.
No, you're doing a lot with it. You're defining the sense of doership and grounding it in a sense of reality, because you are defining the contraction as that doership. It's not.
Okay.
Listen to this recording again and hear yourself.
Seeking in the right place
I think it's making sense. The sensation is there. If it gets my attention, that's fine. But redirect toward: what is the belief, the thought, creating the experience of a someone?
We were talking before you joined about seeking. My take on seeking is that it's a good thing; the problem is seeking in the wrong place. As we deepen and as we awaken, the seeking becomes more refined and directed toward what needs to be seen, until seeking stops because everything that needed to be seen is seen. I'm saying this because you are seeking partly in the sensations. You're seeking liberation, release, peace, well-being in the sensations. All I'm saying is: don't seek what you're looking for in the sensations. Seek it in thought, and in thought alone. Seek it in the manner of: what is the belief I'm having here that is not true?
I remember when you were talking about that earlier, and I was trying that on with this as well. There is an aspect to that. I'm going to explore it.
Good luck with that.
The vipassana technique is, I guess in theory, just being in pure seeing. But for me it just feels like more doing.
It depends on how you do it, but it can have a method and a routine of scanning. You could just sit, pay attention to sensations, and then look at the thoughts.
A practice for the retreat
Is there any more directed thing? I'm going to be sitting for many hours all day. Anything more specific?
Look at everything that seems like something's not right, something's missing. Look at the nature of that, the source of that, in thoughts, not in sensations. And this isn't a rule for everybody. This is for you.
Can you repeat that?
You will be sitting, and you will repeatedly have different experiences, different forms, different colors, different flavors. The flavor of something missing, something not being okay, something lacking, something that could be different: "This sensation could end and then I would be okay." Or: "If only I saw something or understood something, then I would be at peace." This is going to recur, most likely. As it recurs, inspect it by seeing what its nature is, what the source of that is. Specifically, you will tend to arrive at the conclusion: "The source of this is this contraction, and this contraction is the problem. If this contraction left, then I would be okay." That's another thought. That's the belief. Go back to that.
Well, now that you've drilled that in, I don't think I'm going to believe that anymore.
It'll probably come back. But then what is it, if it's not that? If the sensation were never to go away, why could you not be at peace? How are you not at peace now? Whatever came up when I said that is made of something.
When you said "how are you not at peace now," I looked, and I said: I am.
Then keep looking. And whenever something other than "I am at peace" comes up, look at what it's made from.
The habit of checking
You're right. I notice it's a habit to check for that contraction, to be like, "Am I at peace? Okay, yes, it's still here." But then I have to keep doing that.
One hundred percent an addiction.
That's becoming clearer and clearer as we're talking. So the peace is here regardless of that contraction.
You have to look more deeply around the conditions you have for this peace until you realize: no matter what is happening, contraction or not, thoughts or not, anything, the peace is still here. This is not something you achieve. It's not something you arrive at. It's not something that appears that wasn't there before. It's seeing reality for what it is, here and now, as it always has been.
The conclusion is always "yes, that's always been the case." But whatever that gap is that forgets and needs to prove it again...
It's just refining more deeply. And it has to do with identification and the mind, the sense of "I here, I not there." You could say, even ultimately, the sense of subjectivity implying objectivity.
Just continuing to look at what's the root of the "I." But I also remember you said: even if doership is here...
Yes, that it's seen as an appearance of thought, not as anything but that. You could look, for example, at the process of choosing: where do choices come from? But this is already a little too much. Just stick with what we were talking about earlier.
Yeah, my mind's getting more confused.
Good. That's good. The sensations of contraction: that's the key for you right now.
Thanks. This was good.
Enjoy.