Transcription
Are you endlessly trying to fix yourself? Is the idea that something needs to be fixed about you so ingrained in your psyche that your decisions, uh, your thoughts, your actions all seem to grow out of the sense that something's wrong in the first place and it needs to be fixed?
Now, obviously, when I talk about awakening, I talk about realization. I do talk about a process and I talk about outcomes of a process, but that's not the same thing as living out of, without recognizing, living out of the identity that something's wrong with you. Um, and the reason I want to point this out is because they, they seem like the same thing, but they're, they're really not.
Uh, the orientation to truth, the drive to, uh, correct some underlying sense of things being off or wrong or not fully, um, experienced without perceptual filters. That instinct is, in my opinion, um, grace. There's nothing wrong with it. What happens very quickly, though, is that gets turned into "something's wrong with me." Not that it gets turned into it. The sense that there's something wrong with me has been there a long time. It just gets co-opted, or I'm sorry, it co-opts the, the, let's call it the spiritual process, or whatever you want to call it. Um, so we conflate these drives.
And is that, in and of itself, a problem? Not really. But it becomes, it can become a distraction when we're not fully conscious of the fact that there's something extra going on in your experience that, that's not necessarily intrinsic to the experience itself, or it's not intrinsic to, you know, this, this, um, clear appearance of the colors and the forms and the sounds and the sensations at all. Um, the, the sense that I need to fix something about myself, I need to find something to repair something about myself. Um, that, that it's not intrinsic to that.
So, uh, it's helpful to see that even when doing work, even when doing shadow work, even when doing insight work or inquiry, it's helpful to see that you don't have to buy into the, the underlying belief that there's something wrong with you. With you, right? We could term that something like shame, if we wanted to. There's, you know, a lot of ways to talk about it, but essentially what I'm saying is that, um, if we're not clear on our motivations, then we can slip into some unconsciousness around the, the motivations that are distorted, that are themselves distorted.
>> [clears throat] >> So if you use this as a litmus test for yourself, if you decide to take up a practice, or do a psychedelic, or, um, go to a retreat, or, uh, anything, literally meditate, mindfulness practices, therapy, any kind of helping type of activity like self-help, or trying to improve yourself or fix something. If you just feel into it, use this as a litmus test and feel into it and ask yourself, "Is this in alignment with, with my deeper truth, or with the deeper truth of this moment? Or am I using it to distract myself and go a little unconscious with the identity around something being wrong with me?"
I think it's really important, especially for certain people, to really look into this because it can be rather hidden that, that we, that our motivations are like co-opted, is the best word I can come up with, but that our motivations are growing out of the sense that I need to change something about myself or fix something about myself. Uh, and the distinction is, you don't, there can be a correction of the, the lens, let's say, through which you experience reality, but it's not personal. It's not about you, and it's not fixing anything. It's just seeing clearly.
Um, so hopefully this comes as good news that you don't have to be superhuman. Um, you don't have to fix all of the relative aspects of yourself somehow to, to realize truth. That's not the case. In fact, in earlier stage realization, meaning first awakening, um, usually you don't have to fix anything. You just have to really be wanting to see through the veils. And, and before that sometimes, not always, but sometimes trying to fix things all the time, you're just, you know, chasing your tail because the ego structure is so resilient.
Um, not, I'm not suggesting people don't do any work before awakening. I'm just saying when you're ripe for awakening, when you're like on fire with the dharma, let's say, you don't need to do work. You need to see clearly. That's what it's about. Seeing what's really happening finally. Yeah. It's not a correction of you. It's not fixing anything about you. But turns out that seeing clearly enough will cause a transformation in what you take yourself to be. Then what I'm talking about will make a lot more sense. You'll see there's actually a rather, um, significant divergence or difference between what you take yourself to be and the sense that that is somehow flawed and needs to be fixed and so forth.
But all of that's going to take place in the thought. Even the fix is going to be in thought. And the strategies are going to be in thought. Ultimately, they're going to keep reinforcing that sense of the, the suffering one, the separate suffering one. Uh, and there's a divergence between that and this kind of relaxation into life itself, into truth, which is all around you. And that relaxation is awakening. It's beautiful. It's a letting go of exactly what I'm talking about. The strong sense that there's something just wrong with me and I need to fix it through all the things people try to fix it with. It feels really good to drop that. It feels really good to drop that. Yeah.
So in a way, this is where my message can really, really, not that I have a message, but this message, um, really diverges from something like law of attraction, for instance, because the law of attraction so often, if not, oh, always, it's coming out of a place of lack, right? It's, and it's, it's also reinforcing that place of lack. Now, there can be benefits, sure. There can be benefits to focusing, there can be benefits to sustained attention on something, sustained effort towards something, specifically sustained effort. These ways, these are ways of developing yourself in the relative world, and that's fine.
But when we just kind of keep using thought to try to convince ourselves that we can like have whatever we want and feel better, not realizing that that same thought that we're utilizing to do that is the, is the other, the other side of that is doubt, right? We're reinforcing doubt as well. So we're kind of pushing against ourselves, um, when we again, try to imagine our way out of the pain of being me, rather see through the, the me structure. See how illusory it actually is. That's what awakening is.
So hopefully that's clear and, um, it's a good thing to check in with yourself even in deep realization. Check in with yourself periodically. Am I, am I doing this? Am I reinforcing the sense there's something wrong by continuing to, um, do whatever it is you're doing? Uh, whatever type of practice, whatever type of inquiry.
So, it's really just, it's not an investigation. It's, this is not a, um, uh, criticism of any kind of practice. It's not a criticism of practice itself. It's not a suggestion you shouldn't do it. That, please don't take it that way. It's actually an investigation of your intentions going into it. Just seeing what the mind is actually doing with it, or what the mind is, if the mind is getting, getting sort of co-opted with it. That's what this is about, and it gets subtle. So, it's helpful to, you know, again, check, check in with yourself periodically on this.