The Trust Beneath the Pain
La confianza bajo el dolor
A student reports on a meditation experience in which sticky sensations led to avoidance, contraction, and the desire to escape into spaciousness. The dialogue unfolds into a deep exploration of trust, the illusion of control, and the possibility of peace within pain.
The Trust Beneath the Pain
A student reports on a meditation experience in which sticky sensations led to avoidance, contraction, and the desire to escape into spaciousness. The dialogue unfolds into a deep exploration of trust, the illusion of control, and the possibility of peace within pain.
I have more of a report than a question. That was a really great meditation. What became really clear was a few things. First, there was a sticky sensation sometimes, and then it was really clear: this tendency to want to move back into spaciousness.
Do you mean like a desire, or was there an actual movement?
I think it was a desire, because it felt like avoidance. Moving into spaciousness felt like an avoidance.
Once a discomfort was felt.
Yes, exactly. So then I played with the discomfort, and it was really clear there was a sense of me trying to do something with it. There was a visual picture of where it was in the body, and this abstract picture of me trying to do something.
Direct knowing vs. narrative
Do you mind if I pause you there to go into that a little bit? I might forget. So what I'm understanding is: there's a discomfort, probably a sensation or an emotion. It's probably familiar or known, but then it's interpreted or seen as something that should not be happening, should not be here. And then there's a response to it, a reaction to it, a strategy of what to do. That is the movement away from the direct knowing of what just appeared.
By direct knowing, I mean: I can know the experience of, call it, textures of touch. Or I can know it differently. Even though textures are appearing, I can relate to the experience as "I'm moving my fingers, making an unusual gesture, and this is my hand." The same thing is happening, but known directly as textures of experience. That's where it works.
It's like trying to describe a painting versus the direct experience of looking at it. Looking at the painting is still happening. I'm either just looking at it, or there's the narrative, the knowing of it through the filter of thought. What you were describing is that mechanism, that habit appearing, which can then go down the rabbit hole. Once I've declared this experience, say, as a sensation of discomfort, and I declare it as "not good, should not be here, this is not right," then I go about figuring out how to fix it, remove it, change it, improve it. The actual knowing of the experience is now an afterthought. It's no longer known.
The loop of reaction
In fact, often what happens is that if you really just know the experience as everything, it moves and it changes. What often remains stuck and repetitive is an experience of discomfort that is actually coming from looping thoughts. I can have a thought that is a worry, and that thought creates an emotion or even a tension, which is then known as the thing that shouldn't be there, which then feeds the worry. The only thing that seems to repeat and not move and change on its own is something we are actually recreating over and over again.
There's no doubt about it. And then it got even trickier later on. But with that first example, I noticed there was a sense of me trying to do something with it. Then the attention went to the "me," and it's like it popped back out. It just seemed rather trivial. There wasn't any importance in the sensation anymore. There was an awareness of a sense of me there and a sense of sensation there, and then it didn't matter anymore.
The illusion of movement into spaciousness
Exactly. And another comment on that "popping back out": there isn't actually a real movement, if you notice. The background was already there.
Think of the optical illusion of the vase and the two faces. To see the faces isn't a movement. You were already looking at the paper where the face is. Only the interpretation changed. This "popping back out" that seems to be a movement into spaciousness isn't truly so, because that spaciousness was already there, and is in fact prior to and more fundamental than the non-spacious perspective. It's simply recognizing the reality that is already here, recognizing spaciousness that is already here.
And then that can become more of the norm. It's always available. That's why it's tricky to say, because it's always there. This is the reality. It's always here.
I played with that as well. After that first experience, I got caught in a thought: "I'd like to speak about this now." And upon recognizing that, even stronger sensations arose. I wanted to spontaneously ask a question and report, but it doesn't seem to work that way. Then there was a much stronger sensation of mild anxiety, which was even trickier. But then, either you said something during the meditation or the thought just came into my mind that this spaciousness is always the case. And then it popped again.
Trust as the foundation
If anything, it has to do with trust. It's a trust that we can acquire and learn. This could be said poetically in infinite ways, but one way is: trusting our true nature, trusting reality, trusting the universe. That is what can allow for this spaciousness to be more the norm.
What is missing is trust. Trust that it's okay. It's really okay to not have to contract and effort and struggle. There's a sense of safety that's missing, and the contracting and identifying is a reaction to that, but it's self-propagating.
You're referring to what I just mentioned, wanting to say something?
Yes, the popping, what you're calling "popping back out," and then having a thought, and then the intention to do something, and then seeing that you're not actually that in control of even asking a question. All of that is this mechanism of control, but it's really the illusion of control. It comes from the sense that "if I don't do this, there's going to be more pain, more of what I need to avoid."
The trust is in recognizing that this isn't what avoids pain. Life is life. Life will bring pain. But the trust is that this freedom that we are can be seen and known to be at peace in the pain. It's not one or the other. It's not "I need to struggle to avoid pain."
That's a really old habit. There's been a lot of attempts to control.
Pain is inevitable, suffering is not
Yes, and really the core is: there is pain, and because there is pain, I need to do something about it to avoid it. And then there is struggle to avoid pain. But pain is inevitable. There's nothing we can really do about that. Being embodied, there will be pain.
When you say pain, do you mean just emotional discomfort?
No, I mean pain in all ways. Physical pain, psychological pain, emotional heartbreak, all kinds of human pain. That's really what we want to avoid. We've learned so deeply from a very young age that the pain is non-stop, that it will keep coming, as well as pleasant things, but that's not what we worry about. Pain is what we worry about. So there's fear of pain, and then there's the efforting to avoid it.
But the path through this, the way to break free from what becomes an addiction (the addiction to thought and control), is to understand: pain is inevitable, suffering is not. And instead of coming to a nihilistic conclusion, where it's like "pain is inevitable and therefore life is terrible," some negative view on life, the way is to trust that there's a possibility, which has been spoken of by many and which I am also speaking of, where in the pain there can be peace, where in the pain there can be deep satisfaction and love. And to a very large degree, this transmutes the pain to the point where it almost isn't pain anymore.
I was literally just going to say: it's curious now, the sense of anxiety isn't the same. It's still there, but it's not pain anymore, not something that needed to be avoided.
The filter of resistance
Is it like the not-wanting-to-feel-it was laid on top?
Yes, maybe.
The fear, the not wanting to feel it, to know it, colors the flavor of it to a point where it makes it unwanted and uncomfortable. Whereas in the direct experience of it, the filter of pain goes away. The filter, the name of it, "pain," "unwanted," "scary," that goes away. And the direct experience of it could be sweetness, could be vulnerable, juicy aliveness, celebratory, joyful, longing. If I were a poet I'd do a better job, but that's the quality of it. And then it also comes and goes. So then it's known: "Oh, now this alive, vulnerable experience is happening." Because there isn't the idea that it's inevitable and maybe going to last forever and never end, because there's such a deep knowing that it's going to go as surely as it showed up out of nowhere, then there is almost a childlike savoring of it.
Yes, exactly.
It becomes more pure and sweet and direct, less complicated, or even without any complication. It's just a sadness, or a worry that's more gentle, coming from a concern and a caring for our lives or our loved ones. It's not this biting, contracting experience.
All of this comes from the conversation around trust. In that wider perspective, there can grow or appear a deeper perspective where reality is goodness. Even when there's pain, there's well-being and peace.
It's as simple as this: think of the most painful thing you could experience, the thing you're afraid of most. You experience it and recognize that all of the negativity about it was a belief system. The direct experience of the scariest, most painful thing is this sweet, loving, heartbreaking, mysterious, magical, intense experience. Then what's the problem? Then all of that contraction and striving to avoid the thing you're afraid of most becomes irrelevant.
The sense of me at the center
It's curious. It feels like the sense of me is really intrinsic in all of this, like the same thing.
It is all about that. That which we fear the most is what we imagine it will feel like when "me" ends. Something that has to do with the ending of that which I think I am. So I'm talking about death, but it's not really the death of the body. We can experience it without the body dying. Obviously the body dying is one of the ways, but it can be experienced when we have a really big life shock, like a close one dying, or a breakup. It shatters us. It brings us to the edge of that sense of me ending, because the experience is so intense that the attachment to the idea of "I" starts to shatter. We start to feel things that have to do with the pausing of the structure of self in mind. It's like, "Whoa, I'm not ready for this, I don't want this."
But really, those feelings are just textures that are more intense. We just don't feel ready to feel that. Once we do, what I was describing earlier is possible: you felt the thing you've been running away from your whole life, and then there's no need to run, no need to struggle. This is the Buddha sitting under the tree, facing whatever comes. This is Jesus in the desert, staying as long as it takes, facing the devil. The devil wasn't external. It was the feeling in him, the fear in him. And once that is felt, known, seen, experienced completely, there's a really big freedom.
Conditioned distrust and growing trust
So this trust you speak of: my whole life I've been taught or conditioned that it's a scary world and you have to do all these things to survive. And I'm sensing it more and more. What you're saying is that all of this is safe and trustable.
Safe in spite of the pain. It's not safe in that I'm guaranteeing there won't be pain. What I'm guaranteeing is that there's a possibility for there to no longer be suffering when there is pain, for there to no longer be any fundamental problem or deep distress.
I feel like what I'm saying is that just getting totally out of the way is safe. There doesn't need to be a controller anymore. There never needed to be one.
The language here is tricky, because the way your mind is going to interpret it could lead to another identification, another position. This is about that true shifting into spaciousness where it's not you moving back into something, and it's not you not doing anything. It's not you on the couch doing nothing. Action still happens, movement still happens, thinking still happens, planning still happens, decisions still happen. But who, what, when, how: I don't know. It's more of a sense or an intuition.
I just want to be careful with that language, because the mind can interpret it as "now I need to move from one place to another." It's not that. It's an allowing.
Desire that comes from life itself
Desire appears. What the universe desires, what you deeply desire, appears. Now, there's a connotation that desires are a bad thing, but desires are different kinds. The ones that are problematic are the desires that have to do with a reaction and a rejection of what is, and that only happens in thought. For example: there is this experience, I don't want it, so I need to stop it. That all happens because I interpret the experience as "not right," and then I need to do something to change it. This can accumulate a lot of emotional intensity, which turns into a desire and a lot of action.
What I'm talking about is a desire that's inclusive of everything that's happening. It's a deeper movement, a movement of life. This could be anything. That's why it's hard to name. But it's what comes from love, from the heart. This is why questions like "What do you really want?" and "Why are you here?" are asked so often. They try to connect us to what is more of a life desire, a life force. For example, for me there's a creativity that has always been strong, and one of the ways it expresses is through music and piano. That's just there. I have no authority over it in the sense of making it happen or quieting it. The desire is there, so I just allow it. Then there's the dance of how to make room and space for it and how it happens. One day it might stop, I don't know. But it's really just there, happening, appearing. To allow it, or rather not get in the way, not struggle with it, not fight it, but be in service of it.
It could also be a million other things. It could be small things, like making a meal. There could be an energy or a movement to make a nice meal. Don't get in the way. Just allow it and be in service of it. Listen to it, and allow the reality, which is that there's potentiality for a lot of beauty in everything.
Everything is sacred
In fact, it can then be recognized that everything is sacred, everything is beautiful, everything is loving. The label becomes meaningless: everything is sacred, and there's no non-sacredness. But to allow that lovingness in everything also requires a bit of trust. I remember this sense of: "But really, can I trust that there's lovingness? Really, can I trust that it's okay?"
Feel that. And if there's anything I can do here, it is to say: trust it, and discover it for yourself, in yourself. You will know more and more peace, well-being, and goodness in everything, in you, in life. But it will require the shattering of all of your ideas of what this is. You think you're just a human in a world that's material and absolutely real. That needs to break before you know this trust. This trust I'm talking about does not coexist with the belief that interpretation is true.
It feels like it's crumbling and the trust is growing, but there's still doubt there.
Oh, yes. That's very normal progression. It takes time. It's this slow, gentle (and sometimes not so gentle, not so slow) movement. It's a movement where what's already true and real, like when you have that popping sense, that's already there. It just becomes more clear.
It's like a puppy. You don't know if it's going to bite your hand, so you get close to it slowly. Say you're four years old and it takes you thirty minutes to get close to this puppy. In the end you realize it's the loveliest, cutest, most harmless, adorable, loving thing. But it took you thirty minutes to discover the reality and to trust it. And maybe it's a puppy, and puppies bite, and they have sharp teeth. So you think, "That's really painful." But then you realize it's playing and it's not biting deep. A puppy can bite a two-year-old, and the two-year-old goes into terror, crying for thirty minutes, "The dog bit me!" But then it turns out the child actually wasn't harmed; it was just scared, and the puppy was playing. This is life. Then you can start to realize: all those really deep, scary pains were actually loving and beautiful, and there's a whole other reality, more true, where there is total lovingness in the pain.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
What you were talking about, about trust, was helpful. I'm a bit confused about what I want to say because I only have a few minutes. But what I was telling you about, this confusion: I had this glimpse where the sense was like, suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw, "Oh, you sneaky bastard, you are a thought as well. You're just a thought." And the confusion and the struggle come around this: it was never really "me" that did the action and had control. And now it's manifesting in things I don't want in the external world. Recently I've been making little money, and there's this feeling of not wanting to let go of the idea that I have some control. Like, what if life wants me to be even worse off?
You and life are not two separate things
The issue there is that you think you and life are two separate things, and that life might want something you don't. Look at that. If that's all the time you have, look at that belief. How are you and life two separate things?
The thing is, that's what I saw in that moment, that I'm not separated. But then it's as if I fell back into identification again. At the same time, I can't totally unsee what I saw.
So just keep looking at that. You still have a lot of doubt about what you saw. You're not believing it. You're going back to the beliefs that deny what you saw. Keep looking at that.
The fundamental thing here is that you believe there are two desiring, willing entities: one is life and the other one is you. And you're afraid that the universal, or life, will desire for you something you don't want, for example to be poor.
True wanting vs. reactive wanting
Just know this, and trust and explore the possibility: what you really want is what life wants. It's not two separate things. You don't want to be poor, but that wouldn't be expressed that way. It would be expressed as wanting abundance. A true want is not "I don't want to be poor." Not wanting to be poor is a reaction; it's mental, it's identification, a reaction to what is. A true want is a creative impulse, a loving creative impulse. So look at what you do want, not what you don't want.
If there is a true energy and desire for a certain kind of abundance that has an aspect of it that is financial, how does that experience happen in you? What does it look like? What does it feel like? For it to be true, real, and deep, it will be expansive, creative, positive, optimistic. It won't be a negative reaction to what is. It won't be fear-based. That's the mind.
It appears like there are two separate wants because we're identified with the mind, and from that perspective we are fighting something that has a much bigger reality, which is life. Then we're pushing against the stream.
That's helpful. And at the same time, I see it's kind of absurd, because what I saw is that it was never me that made things happen. It was never me.
Yes.
Thanks.
You're welcome. Glad you had a few minutes.