The Energetics Beneath the Thought
La energética bajo el pensamiento
A student describes recurring thoughts about future problems that bring tension to the body. The teacher points to the energetic charge of fear beneath the thoughts, and to the sky-like awareness that holds all experience.
The Energetics Beneath the Thought
A student describes recurring thoughts about future problems that bring tension to the body. The teacher points to the energetic charge of fear beneath the thoughts, and to the sky-like awareness that holds all experience.
One thing that came up, and something I've been trying to be more aware of, is a certain type of thought. It was clearer during that sit, but in general life I notice it just brings tension, and it can sometimes snowball into a lot of tension. Then I have to go somewhere and scream or shake it off. If this thought comes up during meditation, the body generally just shakes it off straight away. It's normally a thought about the future. It's not really catastrophizing. It's recognizing a problem that might come up to do with work or something, and then the solution as well. It's all visualized. It's really clear it just brings tension to the body. I guess I'm asking if there's anything I can do about it. The more clear I am about it, the more it sorts itself out a bit. I felt a lot more clear about its nature this time.
And you find that this recurs, so it might be something loopy? Is there some kind of obsessiveness with it?
Yeah. I used to catastrophize a lot, and then I recognized it. It changed from just the problem being thought about to the solution also appearing in the thought. But it still doesn't feel very helpful.
My sense is that you've done all you can at the level of understanding and seeing the thoughts. But what might be missing is the energetics of fear. You're addressing one side of the coin of the mind. There's a resistance to the fear, even if it's just a really subtle bit of fear coming up.
The thought is not the problem
The issue you experience with those thoughts is not the thoughts themselves. It's the energetics of the fear. If there were no energetic, the thought is just another thought, with no charge to it. There's no difference between a thought about the world ending and me dying, and a thought of a butterfly flying in a beautiful sky. Those two thoughts are completely equivalent until I believe one more than the other. If I have some level of belief in the thought of the world ending, of me dying or my loved ones dying, the catastrophizing, there's only an issue when I start to believe it. When one starts to believe in the reality or possibility of that, there's an energetic response.
I can imagine a beautiful butterfly in the sky. I can imagine the world ending. If they're purely imagination, there's no emotional charge. But when the invocation of that image starts to become a possibility or a reality, then the charge appears. It's like watching a movie. If I'm not convinced by the film, I won't be scared during a scene of fear, and I won't be moved to tears. Only when I'm convinced enough to believe the narrative, when I'm engaged, does the energetic and emotional charge attach.
What I think is happening is that you've seen the mechanics of the catastrophizing. You've made it conscious, so you can recognize and name it: this is catastrophizing. You have a mechanism to shake it off. But the energetic of it is still emotionally charged.
Yeah, I recognize exactly what you're saying. With that kind of thought, there's a little hint of fear as well. But because it's so small, it goes unnoticed. So I just need to bring more attention to what the feeling is in the body when I'm thinking like that.
It's going to be an energetic of fear. There isn't a lot of exploration needed to figure out what feeling it is. It's like you're sitting on a bed, and there's a growing subtle thought of, "oh, there's some scary creature under the bed." You haven't really become aware of that thought until you realize it's been in the background. Then it becomes foreground, and you see this fear of the creature under the bed. You can shake it off, think about something else, neutralize the thought. But there's still this sense of impending worry, of something that's going to happen, of the creature under the bed.
What I'm suggesting is that you can look more directly at the energetic of that. It's going to be sensations, in the body. And it's not just about feeling the feelings. It's really to get in touch with that level of energetics, instead of pushing it away.
The deeper current beneath emotion
Usually, this is the hardest thing. We're better at becoming okay with the thoughts and images, the imagination. That's the first thing in meditation we can become conscious of. But there's a level of emotion, and then there's a deeper current of energetics. That's a second level of challenge.
I can play with it right now. I was just thinking of how anything for me in the future is, and yeah, I can feel a flush of energy and electricity.
Without you saying that, look below it. That's actually something you can do: imagine the thing that you tend to push away. Really imagine it, contemplate it, let it appear as the scary movie. Go into it and explore the energetics. Explore what's happening in your body, all the flavors of the fear and worry, and the pain that's probably underneath.
Usually what happens is we've gone through certain pains that we were unable to fully meet. Through our understanding and our upbringing, we created ways to cope with that, to avoid the recurrence of that pain. So now there's this guardedness, but it's all about avoiding a certain pain that's been hidden.
The sweetness of sadness
You said it's not always fear, sometimes it's...
Sadness.
Yes, and that's a form of pain. The nice thing about sadness is that it can be sweet. If it's allowed as just sadness, it's the sweetness of loss, of having loved something. Even a small sadness, because my coffee is done, or I had a nice visit with a friend and we're saying goodbye, there's always a sweetness to it, a heartfulness.
We've learned to make that wrong, to see sadness as some kind of problem. Instead we could dive into it, savor it, allow it, and let the heartfulness of it be present. Often we fear the most the simplest of feelings, like joy and sadness. We can be terrified of joy, because if we let ourselves be joyful, it's going to end, and the pain of that ending is too much. So I'd rather not be joyful. Same with sadness. If I allow the sadness, it's never going to end. So I need to push it away. But just be sad. It may be a day, a second, a week, maybe a year. But it will end. It will shift. It will change.
The catch is when it's in every day, when you're moving about, doing stuff. I've just got to pull on the brakes a bit.
You can make space for that no matter what's happening. I understand, because I remember that belief: if I'm busy doing something, I can't be in a deeper place attending to deeper sensation. That's not true. In fact, it's the opposite. One can be a lot more functional when one is deeply in touch with what's happening at every level. It's just a shift in mindset.
That's good to know. I've been wondering recently how I can bring this relaxation, clarity, and peace that I find when I'm sitting into everyday life.
You have to realize this is just a truth of reality. There isn't a doing that's needed. It's just the understanding.
Sky and clouds
The metaphor of the sky and clouds is a good one, because the sky is always there. What it points to is that there is always already here something that is aware of all of your experience. So there isn't a need for you to practice, to do an effortful practice in order to bring that into daily life, to bring what you know in sitting meditation into daily life.
The only thing needed, and then everything else takes care of itself, is to recognize that there's no difference. Whether you're sitting or walking, the sky that is aware of all experience, aware of all the clouds, is the same. The clouds can be sitting, the clouds can be walking, the clouds can be experiencing this struggle with mind and thoughts. Those are the clouds. The sky aware of it is always present. When you recognize that, when you see it is absolutely true of your reality, of your experience, then the switch happens on its own. There isn't a practice to bring that into life. It's just the understanding. It's no different.
I guess in daily life it feels like there are more triggers.
The triggers are stormy clouds. It's the same thing. To the sky, it's just clouds. And stormy clouds are interesting. It's fun. When a big storm comes, a lot of water pouring, the images of the stormy clouds are quite beautiful.
My teacher would always talk about watching the sunset, and how the clouds are what make it beautiful. If you have a sunset with a clear blue sky, it's beautiful, but there isn't a lot of color. When there are all the different shapes of clouds, it starts to paint an incredible picture.
If I were to say simply what happens in awakening, defining awakening is another matter, but what happens, the before and after: before, I want the sky to have a specific form. I want the colors and shapes to have a specific form. After, whatever form is happening is beautiful. It's like a sunset.
Thank you.
You're welcome. At any moment in your day, it's just a different sunset, a different storminess. The problem is we believe we are one of the clouds, and for that cloud we need the other clouds to move away, we need the storm to stay off. But what we really are is that sky that is knowing everything, savoring everything, holding everything.