What Makes Identification Gradually Lessen
Qué hace que la identificación disminuya gradualmente
A student describes how hearing the teacher point out the false produced an effortless seeing, then asks about the cumulative effect of practice: if identification is always a moment-by-moment matter, what accounts for the gradual lessening of it over time?
What Makes Identification Gradually Lessen
A student describes how hearing the teacher point out the false produced an effortless seeing, then asks about the cumulative effect of practice: if identification is always a moment-by-moment matter, what accounts for the gradual lessening of it over time?
That was so compelling, so poignant for me. When you described the false, there was almost an experience of, "Oh, I see the false," and then it dropped. It pushed me into this space where there's nothing to do. I'm just seeing it, effortlessly.
All that is needed is seeing.
I understand that. But what you did was push me into seeing effortlessly. Usually it's more like "I get it" or "I can sort of see it." But this was very compelling. It was seeing with a capital S, in the moment.
The question of cumulative effect
And it relates to a question that keeps coming up for me. It feels like an unnecessary question, and yet it persists. For a long time I was looking here and there, and some things were more helpful than others, but there was no cumulative effect. It was up, down, up, down. Then I met someone with whom I dialogued over a period of some years. I don't think he was realized, but he would talk about something (he never called it nonduality) along the lines of "there's no one there." We would talk, and over time I noticed there was a cumulative effect. Later, with nonduality and realized teachers, the same thing happened: very, very gradual, but something was accumulating.
That made me wonder: what is that cumulative effect, exactly? Either I'm identified or I'm not, moment by moment. I understand that. In this moment I might feel very identified, and a moment ago I didn't. But it seemed to me like the conditioning started to peel off, and for some reason it stayed peeled off. I became less identified, I guess.
Could you shed any light on that? What makes the difference? Because it's not about the person, not about what I'm experiencing or how I operate in the world. It's about: do I see or not see? Am I identified or not? Do I have that right?
Thought cannot grasp what is this simple
The thing is, it's not about expanding your thinking. The more you try to grasp this with thought, you'll always be confused. The issue is that it's really simple, so simple that thought can't grasp it.
So I don't even need to ask this question. I haven't wanted to because it always felt like a reinforcement of the separate person, and yet I'm curious about it.
It feels like an intellectual question, and the answer, in a sense, reflects that. I can riff on it. I can have intellectual, philosophical conversations about why identification happens. But that's not necessarily going to be useful in seeing.
Right. So the only thing I can say about this is that there has been less identification. That's what strikes me.
Yes. There is a gradual shifting of