The Contraction We Maintain All Day
La contracción que mantenemos todo el día
A reflection on how we spend our lives contracted against fear and pain, when even those experiences, met openly, are part of vital aliveness.
The Contraction We Maintain All Day
A reflection on how we spend our lives contracted against fear and pain, when even those experiences, met openly, are part of vital aliveness.
You could still call it a choice. But it is hard to prefer to eat the burger every day. It is hard to prefer contraction and suffering when you could be resting in open, vital aliveness and loving peacefulness, even when there is fear and pain.
Fear and pain as open aliveness
Because fear and pain, when they come, are themselves open aliveness. It is not that fear and pain come and go while we remain free the rest of the time. We are contracted all day, every day, precisely in order to avoid them.
Going toward pain without making it a method
That is why I say quite often to go towards fear and pain. But that instruction can be taken as a method, and then it becomes a kind of masochism. What I really mean is simply this: notice that the whole story you are living is intent on avoiding fear and pain. That is all.