The Fear of Delight
El miedo al deleite
A student raises a question about the paradox of "not knowing" when certain things, like the hand, seem already known. The conversation shifts to reveal a deeper pattern: the avoidance not of pain, but of playfulness and enjoyment.
The Fear of Delight
A student raises a question about the paradox of "not knowing" when certain things, like the hand, seem already known. The conversation shifts to reveal a deeper pattern: the avoidance not of pain, but of playfulness and enjoyment.
You know a hand. You cannot unknow a hand. There is a bit of a contradiction to "the flow of wisdom is 'I don't know.'" So to what extent does that hold?
What is this hand? You really know what the hand is? You have a name for it, and you understand a lot about it. Its usefulness, that it is part of the body. But really, what is a hand?
The "I don't know" I am talking about goes to that extent. You cannot unknow that it is called a hand, true. You cannot unknow the name, the sounds we have all agreed to use to refer to the thing that is sensation and perception and functionality. But that is really all you know.
Functionality, language, words as tools of communication: all of that is healthy. That is fine to know.
The difference between certainty and probability
The flow of wisdom, the "I don't know," has to do with absoluteness, with certainty, which is different from probabilities and relative knowledge. This is a hand, so you can say it is a hand. But to somebody who does not speak English, you are saying the wrong thing. And I could call this a "bra" in a language that only I speak. Is that wrong? No. It is just an agreement.
But then, what is the hand itself? What is the body? What is the world?
For our purposes here, it is not that useful to dive into what is explored in physics or in the sciences. But up until very recently, all scientists thought they knew and understood what the world was, to roughly ninety-nine percent. And then very recently, it has all blown open. It has become very clear that we know almost nothing of what anything is. We have maps and approximations, but there is very little consensus about what matter is, what reality is, what light is, what time is.
There is more and more acknowledgment in the sciences that we understand very little. We have good maps.
Wisdom as not knowing how to act
Now, what I was specifically talking about has to do with a certainty around what is related to wisdom: what to do, how to act, how to be.
The more you think you know exactly how to be and how to act and what is right, the more likely you are doing the wrong thing. The more you recognize that you do not know how to act, how to be, or what the right thing is, and you try your best, using all of your capacity, all of your attention, all of your intelligence to do the right thing while knowing that you have no idea what the right thing is, the more likely you are to act in the best way possible.
The reason is this: the more you behave from a certainty of knowing, from a conviction of "the right thing," the more you are operating based on thoughts and beliefs coming from the past. And the right thing is always only right in this moment. You cannot know what it is; you can only know later.
That can only come from openness. Listening, metaphorically. Open mind, open heart, listening, and then acting with all the intelligence possible, all of the intention to do the most beautiful thing, coming from the most deeply insightful place, but not knowing. That is where the whole universe is acting, and you are not coming from a belief based on the past.
For me it was helpful to take the journey through science, because I was a very rational, scientific person, completely averse to anything religious, skeptical of all things spiritual. I did the journey of thinking I could understand and know reality through science, and then I went down a rabbit hole and discovered there is no answer there.
What does this bring up for you?
I know there is no answer to any of this, and yet it does not stop me from asking questions.
But does it need to? Is that not delightful?
It is more like frustration, because there is no answer.
The heart of the frustration
No, but this is the heart of it. If you are here and you are asking, I understand the frustration, the pain, the suffering. I have known it for decades, most of my life. But can you tune in to your experience and see if there is anywhere where it is enjoyable? Even the frustration. Something alongside the frustration, but even the frustration itself.
I feel okay with the frustration being felt. That is just frustration being felt. I am okay with sensation, even intense sensation. I can just feel it. I do not have a problem with that. What I think is happening is that the mind is tangling up with something. Any answers are not meant for me to hold on to, and they do not clear the questions. Questions will keep coming.
And that frustrates you? That the questions keep coming?
I think it is a rabbit hole I am digging. That is what it feels like. I can clearly see I am going nowhere with these questions.
We have come here before. I made a joke just now, and you smiled. I asked you, "Is it not delightful?" And you are frustrated. I know we have had this conversation multiple times, but I think you are avoiding feeling delighted, avoiding letting yourself feel what you feel, letting yourself be playful, be delighted. Or even enjoy something.
I thought the key was to feel all sensations, even if they are delight. To fully feel them and not avoid them.
Avoiding pleasure
Yes. Even if they are delight. Even if they are enjoyment. Normally we try to avoid sensations that are painful or scary. But it happens to all of us that there are pleasurable experiences that are scary, that can be perceived as threatening.
Yes, I think you are right. I think I am a bit of an awkward personality.
So am I. That is so silly, is it not? It is nothing to scale. If something feels good, it feels good.
So the frustration: I think you also like it.
I think some people like to pick bones to chew on. That is their sort of "poor knight" routine.
But also, you have a very playful quality. There is this really lovely innocence and playfulness in you, and you show it rarely. I think you are avoiding it, because I think it scares you. There is a fear being avoided, but the actual experience that is scary is an enjoyment, a delight, a playfulness, a kind of youthful childlikeness.
Sometimes I cannot hold that feeling, and I cannot help it showing up. But most of the time, it goes down under a layer of protection, probably coming from past experience. It is mostly protection.
The contraction around aliveness
It is protection, probably like all of us. But you have probably been a young child who was very bright and playful, and then things happened that were painful. And so that lively, open, spontaneous playfulness became withdrawn and contained. Then, having a bright mind, which you do, that becomes the refuge, the safe place. But everything contracts.
It contracts to a point where you have even told me there is nothing in life you are interested in, nothing you feel like doing, nothing at all. I could believe nothing less than that. It is such a big lie.
There are these two realities. There is the mind that deconstructs everything to a point where there is no meaning, no purpose, only questions. And then there is this delightful, playful, alive being.
Which one is more real?
Thank you.