The inner journey
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
It seemed like a good idea to write a little about the inner journey. I think as soon as you let go of your certainties, your anchors in life, you embark on an inner journey of ideas, meditations, reveries and dreams. You will end up encountering aspects of your imagination, your beliefs, your trauma’s in sleepless nights and daydreams. All these things will come past in various shapes.
The things that you still cling to will be revealed, those things that call up a response of “this is very important” end up coming to the fore. In some people this ends up as strange beliefs and psychosis, while a meditator will weather the storm by saying “these are just thoughts and I will observe them”. The Buddha said that in the end all attachment to views should be let go of, or so I have heard, and this is good training for that.
In a way this inner journey is both a blessing and a curse, a curse because it is arduous, painful, disconcerting; a blessing because it is a ceaseless series of revelations of what we have not dealt with. As long as you continue to operate with inner honesty the path remains clear.
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This made me think of my backpacking treks. I'd start out and its all exciting and I'm full of energy. After the first day the soreness and unpleasantness arises. The next several days there's more soreness. But after a bit the body acclimates and the aching muscles largely dissipate and the whole experience becomes more pleasant.
Journey?
I thought we have always arrived.
Pah!
Time to start again.
Ah ha! Beginners Mind!
Inner and outer are part of the same. One reflected in the other ...
In a sense it is our companions who drive us through the difficulties but the journey is walked alone ...
Meditation can sometimes be described as the gradual unfolding of every expression of data that we've ever clung to, rejected or deliberately ignored as it passed by our sense gates. Each nano bit of that data that we've manipulated become the very knots holding in the very dreamscape that the Buddha exhorted us to awaken from.
A meditation practice is simply an offer to all our past manipulative intents of a possible unbinding of these knots by our willingness to simple accept their arising, their life and their eventual departure, should they revisit us..
No wonder that they take us up on our offers of freedom with each other and that such visits continuously unfold for as long as we practice, although in ever subtler manifestations.
I'm reminded of this...
Samsara=Mind turned outward lost in its projection.. (lost in thought)
Nirvana = Mind turned inward recognising its true nature...
Inner journey, outer journey, hmm yes. It’s very possible that the disconcerting and painful aspects of the inner journey that I emphasised are like the aching of the body and do eventually pass. My own experience has been that it has been difficult in phases. Sometimes I come across a trigger which brings out a succession of inner rubbish, all of which has to be processed. It takes four to six weeks and then it vanishes again.
One of the things I have had difficulty with has been watching-for-threats, which puts you in a negative mind frame, like the parable of the coil of rope which appears as a snake. It makes some things that look threatening appear as evil or dark, which then sparks off inner conflict or further negativity. In the end these things are in the mind, but they cause a dissipation of your own energy and concentration. It is best to retreat to just observing when the process starts, or not to pay it any heed and focus on other things, depending on how intrusive it is.
I don’t know to what extent other people experience this, but it strikes me there are similarities with a range of mystical processes such as the ‘dark night of the soul’. It is like a play or a drama which occurs in states where one isn’t fully awake, where one is befuddled, but one isn’t quite asleep either.
That’s about the size of it, except that it’s not quite so granular for me. The whole process seems to hook in specifically on my own reactions to sense data, in mental spaces where the mind is a integral part of what you perceive.
When I am fully awake everything is clear and crisp, and it requires an effort to access these more troubled states. When I am moving from one state to the other, clarity arrives immediately but some of the memories and emotions take ten or twenty minutes to clear, like arising from sleep.
Dear @Kerome
This says to me that you are a honest practitioner and an honest practitioner is one who is already on their way to what the Buddha teaches.
Those things that 'trigger' you and bring 'a succession of inner rubbish, all of which has to be processed' sounds like genuine practice.
Do you see? You see the 'rubbish' because you are shining your light on it. Remember what Thich Nhat Hanh says? The rubbish is used to make beautiful flowers. Remember what Ajahn Sumedho says? The suffering is the angel/s that will eventually liberate dukkha.
I agree that not all things immediately leave, yet this is also the practice. Feel it, hear it, welcome it if you can also.
Thank you for your practice.
That is because they are there - the more they are repressed, avoided or pushed down the more they will find their way to you. You are stronger than all of these emotions, thoughts and memories. They are not your true being, but they are your work to be cleared it appears.
Just my 2c.
You are welcome!
Yes that post not exactly for me but ...
Eventually they merge. Life is practice for ... life.
This inner/outer is part of the reflection sphere of separation. I like the negation of knots that @how mentions. In this sense the world looks into us and reveals itself.
In a strange way we are turned inside out by the unfolding ... until the nots are loose ...
Thanks @dramaqueen ... I think you are right, and I have certainly tried to approach it as such. It certainly has been interesting working with mind states which are not fully conscious, I have tried to bring a more conscious approach to it, but in the end the best I have been able to do is just observe.
He is pretty wise. I have lately been going back to some of his teachings and finding unexpected depth and resonance.
Yes, a good teacher. An authentic one. We are grateful that they have done it to show us how.
I take it you sit @Kerome - sitting will allow you more of a steady base from which you let that which comes come, and let that which comes go
Thank you for your practice
Yes knots is a good way of describing all those little contractions we have inside of us - they get finer and more refined over time. And I guess one day all the knots are released. You turn back and say "What?" "Thank you".
That is the good news....
Some call Buddhism 'inner science where one gains an understanding/insight of how one/the self ticks, and from what I gather once one is aware of how oneself ticks one becomes more aware of how others psycho-physical phenomena tick....and becoming more aware of how others tick helps one to navigate the often rough waters of Samsara and keep the raft afloat.....
The inner journey of non-self discovery....warts & all, so to speak....
Well said @Shoshin1
Stillness to experience the silliness of the mind-tick-talk.
The inner journey is the preparation for the journey of life.
The Wise is freed from sankharas. Laid down the burden of sankharas.
Freed from all dramas.
The thing is, I am not aware of avoiding or repressing anything. Usually I am very calm and clear and present. But when I am in these low-consciousness states I notice that there are various impulses that come from within some of which are old conditioning, and some which i have a hard time acknowledging as ‘mine’.
One of these is a tendency to see damage as good. It is unhelpful because it runs counter to flourishing and flowering, it is a side of me which is like a berserker and is the exact opposite of a nourishing or feminine self. The closest I have ever come to expressing it was chain-pulling mobs in dungeons in World of Warcraft, but I haven’t done that in a very long time.
It feels as if that part of my nature which is destructive is in conflict with those elements which I cherish which are loving and caring. In these inner drama’s I see both coming to a more full expression than they do in real life.
Don't feed the wrong wolf. Or better still just be the onlooker. Watch the play of empty phenomena or drama playing out.
The last few days I have noticed that I am not a captive audience anymore, I can look away and choose not to give the drama my attention now. I feel I have learned enough from it, I will take a break from its convolutions.
Good advice.
We have to feed/resonate/attune with the process that will liberate us. This initial focus/discipline will need to be followed because most of us are random undisciplined noise which we imagine is a real self. It is just a delusion of consistent being. A projection of me/mine/I am.
Eventually we still into a healthier wolf. Ultimately as polarising as any ravenous monkey minded wolf.
Not self. No mind is still and initially watches/hears the interference between the multiple mind arising states ...
Clear. Emptying. Gone.
gate gate paragate parasamgate
"gone, gone, gone beyond, completely gone beyond"
Heart sutra
https://www.sanghalou.org/oldsitebackup/heart_suttra.htm
Yesterday evening I was watching a part of the movie Solaris, and there was a part of the story where people onscreen were discussing their relationships with these simulacra, which the intelligent planet below the space station had lifted from their memory and was causing to manifest near them.
It seemed to me that my relationship with parts of the inner drama I have experienced has definite parallels with what the main character goes through in Solaris. There is this thing with encountering an image of a loved one, and having to kill the image in order to achieve inner peace, which is painful.