The Splinter That Removes the Splinter
La Astilla que Quita la Astilla
A student describes a recognition that everything is impersonal, including the body, and notices fear arising in response. The teacher confirms the validity of the insight while cautioning against settling into it as a new belief.
The Splinter That Removes the Splinter
A student describes a recognition that everything is impersonal, including the body, and notices fear arising in response. The teacher confirms the validity of the insight while cautioning against settling into it as a new belief.
I've had this realization or recognition over the past day or so. I've had it before, but it feels different energetically right now. The recognition is that I'm not the body, and it feels like everything is impersonal. The body is just doing what the body does, and it's the same as a table, or a chair, or the floor. I'm not sure what I am in relationship to that. I think, like you've said, I'm kind of the sky that holds it. But there doesn't feel like there's any personal element to it, and that's bringing up an energetic of fear. The body is really reacting right now. I had a similar response on retreat with you once when the body kind of disappeared. I'm curious whether I'm seeing it correctly, and how to proceed with it.
All views are false. That said, the impersonality is true relatively. In a sense, it's the antidote to the view that everything is personal. As children, we naturally adopt a view: I am this, everything is happening to me, I am limited, I am a victim of creation. Everything is happening to me, and now I have to manage and battle life. Me, me, me. My mind. Very personal. That is an incorrect view in the sense that it's not reality. We can awaken from that and have the experience you're describing, which I think is correct and accurate: the realization that it's all impersonal. My body, mind, table, sky, clouds, feelings, all of it is not me.
Yes, it feels like a vibrating energy field more than anything.
That's a beautiful realization. It is, let's say, a form of awakening. But it isn't true absolutely, because it can then become a view where impersonality is just another perspective. There is still something to which things are impersonal. What's in between? Everything is personal, and everything is impersonal. Both true, both false.
There's nothing really you can say about it.
But it's a contemplation. Right now, savor this realization. Don't try to mess with it. I can confirm that it's valid, so you're not trying to shift something that's shifting, which is your sense of self. But contemplate: there's nowhere to land. You can't land on "everything is impersonal." That's another perspective. It can become a belief system.
Right, like it's a concept, ultimately.
Exactly. It's the splinter used to remove another splinter. But once you've removed the other one, "everything is personal," do you need to put the new splinter in its place?
No. And I notice the body kind of freaking out about it, an energetic response.
The body's adjustment
That's what I'm referring to. Just allow that. Don't mess with it. There's going to be an adjustment in the body-mind, because when we're attached to a belief system, there is a whole mechanism: psychological, chemical, the hardwiring of the brain, the way we function, the way decisions happen. When that shifts to a deep degree, all of it needs to readjust, and it takes a process. So let that unravel. But also keep an eye on this: don't settle on impersonality as truth. Don't settle on "everything is impersonal" as the new truth.
It's like you've spent your life seeing everything through glasses painted red. Then you put on blue glasses and think, "Wow, I thought everything was red. Now I realize it's actually blue." No. The contrast of seeing everything blue shows you it wasn't really all red. It can all be blue too. But then take those off. Now you can see: it's all different perspectives that project a coloring. Which is the true perspective? None. It's all mind.
What's strange is that I've had this realization before in different ways, but energetically there's something different right now. It feels almost like something is letting go in the body, like the energy is trying to move outward, as opposed to being contracted in.
How a glimpse works
That makes sense. The glimpses usually happen in a way we might not even notice. What a glimpse really is, is seeing through a belief. Before the glimpse, what we believed was just reality. We didn't realize there was a belief, that there was a perspective on reality. I grew up with red glasses on. I believed reality was red. I didn't consider it a belief. Reality is red, painted in red, this is reality, everybody experiences it this way.
Then suddenly we have a glimpse. We take the red glasses off for a second, or there's a contrast like blue glasses. And suddenly we realize: oh, the red was mind, was thought. That glimpse makes the whole red reality become a question. But it doesn't remove the red reality, because the body-mind has such a habit that we instantly go back to seeing red. That's why it's usually a glimpse. But we remember: the red came and went, so it's not absolute truth. We start to see it's a perception, an interpretation, a filter, a habit. That's when the shift starts where the body-mind stops filtering everything as red. And that changes what begins to be felt. The energetics, feelings, releasing of pains, encountering of fears, all associated with why we were seeing red in the first place.
I think of what you often say about savoring experience. I'm noticing this energetic movement and the fear coming up, and I think about savoring. What is it that judges that as not good or not okay? It's really thought. The sensations are very strong right now, like there's a big storm inside the body. But just watching: oh, there's a thought about how this is going to be later. The sensations themselves can just be here.
The thought "how is it going to be later" has an energetic, which is fear. That's another cloud. Savor that. Instead of recognizing "there's a thought about later, so I need to stay with what's here," no, that's a whole other cloud. It is fear, with its energetic of worry, tightness, anxiety. Savor that. There is no tomorrow. There is no later.
It feels like there's a belief about how effective I can be in my life if I feel one way versus another way.
That's a cloud. Being effective, functional. Savor that. What are all the colorings around the narrative? What are all the colorings around the emotional tones it has? Instead of seeing it as "I've figured out the problem, it's this thing, so now I'm going to get somewhere because I've understood the underlying issue," no. It's just another cloud.
Savoring versus solving
When we're able to fully know that, know it in the way I describe, let yourself see the whole story, the whole narrative of functioning and the worry that comes with it, the fears, the sensations of "if I don't function, what's going to happen, how my life can go wrong." All of that has a taste. The contractions in the body, the emotions and feelings around it. What's in the narrative around the past that's there as well? All of it can be savored. It can unravel. It can be met. As it comes and you allow it to move and appear, that's how it often settles on its own.
Versus, if you notice it as "that's the problem," now you have an agenda to figure it out, a way to react to it, to push it, to shape it. Then it's like you're trying to keep the water in the river moving in a certain way, and you're fighting with a current. If you just let it appear, swim with it, dive into it, it's more likely to shift faster and come back less and less.
It's so interesting how I'm oriented toward problems and solutions, so subtly. That's great that you're pointing it out, because it's so true. It's like going to the well. I notice the worry about the future and there's a pulling back from it, a not wanting to savor or stay with the different clouds. It's amazing to see that right now in a visceral way, this sense of creating a problem-solution. And it doesn't even work. When you go into it, you keep having to go back to solve the same thing, and it remains a problem.
It works in ways. It's quite effective in ways, but not when we want things to work at a deeper level. It's not effective when we want to discover true deeper well-being, peace, freedom, and love. It does work in other ways: controlling environment, creating certain situations and contexts, making things be a certain limited way. That's what the human mind can do well, shape environments and control things. But it often has negative consequences overall if it's coming from there, because it's coming from "something's not okay right now, I need to change it." It's coming from a fundamental rejection of what is here, and that comes from fear, not love.
There's a different perspective. Once I don't need this to be a certain way, once I can be with what is, then working with life, with time, with choices, becomes more of a playing with. It becomes creativity, because I'm not needing this to be different. There isn't a fundamental problem here. The creativity is free. Looking at problems, operating with a mind that sees problems, there's nothing wrong with that. I can see problems, and now it becomes a creative process. But the objective of what to do with that isn't to avoid the thing I can't experience. The objective now is how to create something more beautiful, more loving. A wisdom can start coming into that process.
The more I move into this awakening process, the more I realize it's never about getting to a better or different state, never about controlling anything. It's about being loving to all experience. It just keeps hitting me in the face over and over.
And you can realize there's nothing to get, because you already have it. What we really want is experience. And experience is what is given. It's already given.