Letting Go of the Resistance - What Happens when we stop controlling?
It's described as a wordless experience that can't be described so much as pointed to. A teacher of mine, Joe Hudson's favourite pointer is to 'Drop the resistance'.
While the phrasing 'drop the resistance' is a great pointer. I've been missing a piece needed to more fully with his teaching. I've recently noticed myself spinning in resistance loops.
I came across Adyashanti's framing of meditation as simply 'not trying to change anything' and It's been amazingly powerful.
It feels exactly how I would expect 'dropping the resistance' to feel.
It also reminds me of 'the great perfection' that so many Buddhists have referred to, Naval Ravikants preferred 'drop the intention' meditation, and the state I get into when I meditate on the idea that there is no future or past, only the sliver of a moment that is 'now'.
Meditating, I tend to notice what I'm trying to control or change, notice where I'm experiencing that, and let it go as best I can. That usually reveals a deeper layer.
Today during a brief meditation, I focused on letting go. Whenever I do, it seems as if the backlog of unfelt feelings shows up. Usually, there's intensity & something fear-like.
Up to now, the two have shown up in a near-perfect pairing. Today, an idea hit me:
What if the feeling I'm labelling as 'fear backlog is actually just fear of the intensity?
What if the feeling I'm labelling as 'fear backlog is actually just fear of the intensity?
It would mean that it's not an inevitable backlog but just something I'm doing right now, and reflexively.
The intensity may not itself be a negative emotion, but rather resistance might just be showing up with such perfect timing that I don't notice the difference.
That would mean I'm not the inevitable victim to a backlog of baggage but rather I just happen to be doing fear instead of... well... not.
What if that intensity that I'm labelling baggage, is actually all of the joy, enthusiasm, etc. that I've been "looking" for?
Is that the thing that we keep hearing 'is there all along' that you don't need to do anything to find, but rather just stop doing. Stop labelling, stop fearing, stop resisting?
Well f*** me I hope so 😅.
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