Beliefs, Not Doubts
Creencias, no dudas
A question about doubt in social situations opens into an inquiry about the belief in being a separate self, and how that belief, once seen through, cannot be reassembled.
Beliefs, Not Doubts
A question about doubt in social situations opens into an inquiry about the belief in being a separate self, and how that belief, once seen through, cannot be reassembled.
How's the week been? Interesting. It's hard to say good or bad. It's been what it's been. Lots of gratitude, thank you so much for whatever this is you're doing. The talks are really good too. Maybe you could talk a bit on doubt. That seems to be one of the themes coming up here.
There are kinds of doubt that are, in a sense, healthy and unhealthy. Let's say good or bad.
Unhealthy doubt, then.
And what would you consider unhealthy doubt?
Excessive doubt.
Doubt about what? Because you might have healthy doubt that is experienced as unhealthy doubt simply because it's unwanted.
Right. Well, there's a lot. We could look at doubt in social situations.
Can it be even more specific?
Of course. Not being accepted, not fitting in, not being funny, these kinds of doubts. They're not so attached, but when they pop up, there's an emotional flavor.
Doubts versus beliefs
Those are not doubts. Those are beliefs. Now, the healthy doubt would be: I wonder if these beliefs are maybe not true. I'm not so sure this is actually true. That's a healthy doubt. "I believe that I am not funny. I believe that I am not accepted." Or it is appearing as a very convincing part of my reality, which is my interpretation, that I am not funny, that I am not accepted, and so on. Then the healthy doubt is: I wonder, first of all, whether these are beliefs. Maybe they are. And what if they're not true? That's a healthy doubt. It's an inquiry into truth.
Another aspect is: why would it matter? The underlying belief is that it matters, that I am funny and accepted. That's again a belief. But it is important. To dramatize a bit, there's a sense of life and death associated with being funny, accepted, and wanted. And it actually is true, because parts of our experience are what is called conditions, which is different from conditioning.
Conditions and conditioning
Conditions mean we have two hands, we have a body, there's this experience of being human. Reality has these conditions. I cannot suddenly be a bird. There is gravity in this experience. Those are conditions. Now, the conditions of this include the genetic ones. Some have to do with the shapes and colors of the body, and others have to do with a certain kind of programming of the mind, inherited through evolution and genetics.
So there are conditions, and those move a little more into the world of conditioning, because they can change. Some of them cannot change, but they can become known as not what they appear to be. What appears as a need can become known as not a need, just a condition or a conditioning of the mind. For example, the instinct of survival that this body-mind has can be recognized as not a need. This is where we praise the heroics of people who have overridden the instinct of survival in order to behave in ways we can call loving.
I'm saying all of this in reference to what you're talking about, because I'm addressing a condition. Through evolution, through the genetics and the creation of body-mind, there has been a condition: if you do not belong to the society you are born into, you will likely die. If you do not manage to fit in and be accepted, you will likely die on your own. This is still part of very ancient conditioning.
That must run pretty deep, because it's not realized here clearly. It's another instinct, right?
The instinct to belong. Like the instinct of survival, it's the instinct to appeal to the society I am within, to be accepted and wanted, to be funny even. That is part of it, because if you're funny, you will be wanted, you will be accepted, you will be given the things you need to have a better life, which ultimately means to survive.
So I've picked it up from seeing other people act that way and wanting to be that way.
It's deeper than that. Where did they get it from? It comes from this deeper instinctual conditioning. But it is also played out unconsciously, in the sense that very few people recognize it, are free from it, or can override it.
Is it fair to say it feels more like a collective movement rather than just me moving that way?
The collective nature of mind
Yes. All of that behavior gets mirrored, imitated, reprogrammed. And there are other ways in which minds are not separate. There's an aspect of mind which is just what is appearing here versus what's appearing there. But there are aspects of mind that are collective, where thoughts appearing for you are not necessarily yours; they are appearing in a collective. You can consider this, even just theoretically, as a possibility, a map of a possibility of reality. Then what matters isn't about not having that experience. It's about seeing it for what it is, so that the choosing that happens can be free from it.
For you, it might look like going into the woods or the mountains, living for a long time on your own, or forever. That can be a free movement, but it's not necessary. It can also be that you simply behave naturally and authentically as you, which can be a little shocking and awkward to those around you.
Then you would not be accepted in society, right?
You don't know that. You could be rejected by part of society while another part says, "I really like this person, I want to hang out with them, because they're not like everybody else."
I'm just imagining the local village.
That's just mine, mine, mine. It's thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. It's fear speaking. Fear is creating a compelling reality that says, "If you go there, this is what's going to happen." It's that same instinct kicking back in. It's a powerful fear, and it's even more powerful in those of us who have felt this desire, or calling, to wake up. You can't have one without the other. You will not see somebody in a process of awakening who is fully immersed in consensual, conventional living as if that were reality. You can't. It's the same thing.
What do you mean?
Waking up and not fitting in
It's not two things that happen together. To not fit in and to wake up are the same thing, because what we wake up from is the illusions of the mind, which is essentially what society is. Speaking generally, the norm today, and since the beginning, has been illusion. Not the belief in separation, but the reality of separation.
When people speak about believing or not in God, everyone understands they're talking about a belief. They can choose a belief, and it can be a god or not, or which god, and so on. But what I'm talking about is much deeper, because it's not experienced as a belief the way the belief in a deity is. I'm referring to something experienced as reality, though it is actually a belief. The belief is so deep and so ingrained that the very experience of being arises from that belief. It's as if the belief is the substratum, and I am appearing within it. And that reality is separation.
This is what we're clarifying here: one is experiencing this as separation. Look at your experience, and most people will say, "Yes, I don't experience the laptop as inside, or the sound as here and not out there." That's not the normal experience. "But I do know it's just a trick of the mind, an illusion. There is no sound out there, no world out there in the sense that it's experienced out there. I know that to be a fact."
The magician's trick
It's hard to describe, but when it is seen through, it is obvious. And it's obvious how it appeared to be like that for me always, how it appeared absolutely true and real. Once the illusion in the mind is seen through enough (it can be a bit of a process; it took me about twenty years), the reality now is that it's just an illusion. It's like a magic trick. A really good magician pulls off a trick, and it looks absolutely real, mind-boggling, until you see how it's done. Then it's obvious it was an illusion, and there's no way to go back. You can't return to being fooled, because you know in real time how it's happening. The trick still happens, but it's transparent. You no longer experience it as the thing it's supposed to look like. Something appears out of nowhere, but not to you. You see where the coin is hidden. Even if you're not seeing the coin, you can see how the hand is concealing it. You can no longer experience, "Wow, the coin is appearing out of nowhere."
It's the same with this illusion of separation, the illusion of believing that I am thoughts, that I am the imagination of "Nicholas," the belief that what I am is coming from this body and this mind, emerging as a thought. When I believe I am a thought, the thoughts are coming. The thought of "Nicholas" is changing, coming and going. That's why it feels so full of restlessness and threat, because the imagination of "I" is always coming and going, always about to dissolve, dissolving, then coming back. That's the whole experience of restlessness, of stress, of "I am going to end."
But when one hundred percent of the experience of "Nicholas" disappears and I am still here, when "Nicholas" is absolutely gone, then his coming and going becomes, "Oh, interesting, there's the thought again, here it goes, and it's gone." So it's about thoughts. No longer can I believe I am the thought "Nicholas." It's not possible. It's like finding out that Santa Claus is not a real person coming from the north, that it's one of your parents. You can't go back. How can you put that genie back in the bottle?
The self preserving itself
So it feels like it's more about, for example, in a social situation, that doubting thought or belief comes up, and with it comes the feeling of "Barney." Is it the same thing, more clearly?
Exactly. Yes. It's the attempt to preserve the mental state, which is "Barney" in that moment. "Barney" could be the mental state "I am depressed," and so I need to preserve depression in order to remain, because what I am is depressed.
Yes, I see that.
This is why someone who's depressed, if you want to move them into joyful situations, will resist and fight it as if fighting for their life. The attachment to depression is so profound. The root of that is suffering. The same people who are in suffering are attached to self, and they will choose suffering over freedom, over the end of suffering. This is a process we're in here, and I understand it very much from how it was for me. I have infinite compassion for that, because I know the journey can be full of struggles, pains, and fears.
But ultimately it is the attachment to how I am at this moment, which is not yesterday, not five years ago, what I am imagining myself to be right now, and then preserving that through every moment. Because everything is moving, life is constantly moving, the body is moving, thoughts are moving, it's a really unstable job. That is the nature of suffering. I am believing myself to be something super unstable, because it's just thoughts, and thoughts come and go. And now I need to make sure that state is as pleasant and as permanent as possible. Life is going to keep knocking you over every day with little things. You might manage to control life enough so it's pleasant, but there will be a non-stop, subtle dissatisfaction, a subtle restlessness, a subtle "this is not going to work, or is it going to work?" It's the preservation of the mind-state: "I am the mind-state, I am Nicholas, I am this body-mind." That's the identification.
One glimpse
The recognition of "I am" is: "Oh, Nicholas is gone, and I am. I'm not Nicholas." It only takes one glimpse of that to shatter the belief, because you know it experientially. You only need to see your father go grab the gift from the closet and put on a Santa Claus suit once. You only need to see that once, and then they could try to put the lie back together, "Well, he was busy today, so I put on his suit," but you only need to see it once. That's the beginning of the end of that belief.
When you see once that "Barney" is gone and I remain, I am here, "Barney" absolutely gone, completely disappeared, all knowing and all experience of "Barney" gone, and I am still here. I am. That is the end of a belief. What happens to "Barney" then starts to not matter too much. You can still love and take care of that experience, but the worries about "Barney" ending start to dissolve, start to become unimportant, seen for what they are: unnecessary. And there is a freedom there. Through that experience, all the movement and choices now at the disposition of life living as "Barney" suddenly open up. Before, it's narrow, because it needs to preserve this idea. Then there can be movements, choices, words, activities that are not based on "Will I be liked or not? Will I be accepted or not? Am I going to be funny or not?"
So in a sense, it's not about "Nicholas" not mattering anymore. It's about the fears that were appearing no longer being important. Now the experience of being "Nicholas" is a wide-open possibility, with a lot more freedom and a never-ending discovery of more freedom and well-being. Whereas before, the more I look back through memory, the more contracted, horrified, and terrified I was. Dark. People who have known me for many years will remember: super dark. It was horrible. It was real. It was my reality. But in a sense it was pure imagination. And holy shit, did it feel and look real, because that's what I thought was reality.
Peace was always here
What also happened is that I could see, in hindsight, that the peace and well-being I know now were also there. That's why it's an illusion. There's peace and well-being, and there's hell, both here in the mind, and I'm believing hell to be reality while ignoring all the peace that is here. It's not that peace suddenly comes out of nowhere from the future, that I achieve it, that I arrive at some state. No. I'm creating a state of misery and suffering that is only in the mind. It feels very real because it's also affecting the body, the sensations, the chemistry, the emotions. But reality is just this peace, expansive, and it's there even while I'm believing the mental-emotional reality to be the only thing here.
It feels like that identity is not even really needed for this process.
What do you mean, that I need it?
Before, in that meditation, it was quite clear. It was really, really sad to see how "Barney" had been trying so hard to do this. Trying and trying. I guess it was seeing that that isn't really needed anymore, in a way.
When effort is still needed
That's a tricky one. In a sense, it's needed until it's seen that it's not needed. But before that, to say it's not needed can be a tricky way the mind slips into avoidance.
No, I recognize that.
While your experience is that you are body-mind, it's good to exercise will and effort. Then it can be seen that you don't really have a separate will. But that's already tricky to talk about.
I'll take that back. I guess it continues until it doesn't.
Yes, and it might end before you realize it did. In a sense, nothing needs to continue. What's happening now is what is. You could have a thought, "I still believe I'm Barney, so I'm still identified, so something still needs to continue until it stops." But that was just a thought. "I still believe I'm Barney" is just a thought. So look at your experience right now, very closely. You can see you're not "Barney." What knows "Barney"? How can you speak of "Barney"?
Something does know us.
Knowing thyself
Whatever knows "Barney" and speaks of "Barney" cannot be "Barney." In the ultimate sense, there is no such thing as knowing thyself, or talking about oneself. You have to play with words a little. You can talk about "Barney," but that which knows "Barney" cannot be "Barney." "Know thyself" is, in a sense, a misnomer, because the self is self-knowing. That which knows is not at a distance from that which is known. That's why it is said that our true nature is emptiness, or that what we are is consciousness, which is no form, no colors, no shapes, no taste, removing anything that appears to be content.
There are different ways this has been spoken of. Another way to describe it (these are just words) is that what I am is totally, absolutely empty. It's emptiness itself, and it's also everything that is appearing, everything that exists, simultaneously.
Becoming is a belief
So the notion that something still needs to happen, that "I am still believing I am Barney," is a thought. It's just another belief. It's still the belief in becoming, the belief that something needs to change, something needs to happen. The belief itself creates the experience that something's missing, something's lacking. The mind thinks in terms of cause and consequence, but reality is a lot more subtle. That's why in Zen they have koans like "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
One can imagine, "Because there's a belief in self, which I'm told creates the sense of suffering, I need to arrive at a place where I no longer believe this. I've gone back and forth, but there's still dissatisfaction, so at some point in the future I will arrive at where that stops." But it's just about seeing what is here now. "I am identified, I still believe I'm Barney," is a thought. It's just a thought. What you are right now does not believe anything. What you are right now has no beliefs. What you are right now is just knowing. This is open. I cannot put words to it, but it's already free. Already unbound.
Then the thought appears, "I am bound, I am Barney." That's the belief. You can't say you have a belief in a belief. It's just the thought. The thought appears, and one can choose to believe it or not, right now. But to believe that I have a belief is nonsense; it makes no sense. The belief itself is like water. There's a lake, and the moment I put my hand in, there is wetness. The moment the thought "I am Barney" appears and I consider it real, there is dissatisfaction. The moment the thought appears and I see it as the reality of what I am, something's missing. It's not about, "I still have a belief in Barney, so in the future..." No. Just thoughts, all thoughts.
It's become very subtle.
A house of cards
That's where it needs to go. It's a very attuned, intimate seeing, because the lesser illusions are built on top of the deeper, more subtle ones. It's like a house of cards. I can see, "Oh yes, I have this belief that I am smart, or not smart," and that can be challenged. But ultimately there will be infinite beliefs about who I am. What needs to be seen is the really subtle, deep, foundational one: that "I am Nicholas" itself is the belief, that "I am Barney" at all.
One question that can help: if "Barney" disappears, do you disappear? Can there be, let's call it, knowing? Can there be being, knowing, without "Barney"? The answer can be, "I don't know," or "no," or "yes." But none of those answers should come through a belief. They should come through your truest experience.
Now, if you say, "If Barney disappears, there can be no beingness, no knowing, no consciousness, no awareness," that's a belief. From there, one can move to, "I don't really know." That's a doubt, a healthy doubt. Then there can be a knowing through experience, where nobody can convince you otherwise, because you know in your experience that "Barney" can be completely gone. There is no experience of "Barney" whatsoever, and you are here. It will be recognized as the background, the background knowing, the background of experience that was always here, all your life, in all experiences.
What feels tricky now is that it's hard to pin down "Barney," but there's still a sense of "Barney."
Partial and total glimpses
That's perfect. Look at the idea, the belief, that there needs to be no "Barney" here right now. It can happen, what I described, where "Barney" is gone. But it doesn't need to remain that way. In fact, it can't. There can't be no functioning in life. You could enter a state of samadhi and remain there forever; that might be your destiny. But what I'm speaking of is just a glimpse. The glimpse can be more partial or more total. Partial: the thought "Barney," with much of the narrative, stops, disappears, and there's still an experience of body known without the label, but familiar. Or it can be deeper, where the experience of body also goes, disappears, stops, and there still remains the same knowing that is "I am."
I think that captures it pretty well. It's clear there are still sensations in the body that carry a slight resistance or attachment.
Not this, not this
Don't give power to a sensation. The sensation is just like a thought. Don't expect the sensation to have to stop or go away. Just look: that sensation, which is felt and known, tastes like "I." It's been called "I" for so long. But is it really "I"? Again, this neti-neti process: what knows the sensation?
When there is illusion, there is a sensation and a thought, and the two are experienced as one. That is illusion. There's a sensation, and then a name, "my hand." Then there's the idea of "I" as an object, and the hand as belonging to me, and the sensation and the image of the hand become one and the same. That's illusion. Now, through the process of neti-neti, "not this, not this," which is the answer to the question "What am I?", it can be seen that the sensation of the hand is appearing, and there's something knowing it, and that knowing is not "I." It is appearing. It is known by something you could say is not the hand.