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A control group
yagr
Veteran
At some level, what is generally thought of as the human condition, can't exist without trying to exert control. If I surrender all attempts to control, yagr disappears. How do you try and control?
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And I wonder what/who notices the disappearance?
No one notices the disappearance ....other than awareness...
Thus have I heard... Awareness does not need a 'self' to operate...It can do it's job without a subject...and news of the experience AKA the disappearing act, filters through to the sense of self after the experience, not during it...
I'll join!
Wait … no need …
Control what? Control who? And why? Control is a positive attribute when applied to one's self. However, depending on the circumstances, it canbe a negative quality, if imposed on others... so everything is relative...
Perhaps you're right.
Here's where I'm coming from: This Sunday I have my second appointment with a psychologist who is seeing me for a diagnostic assessment which, if I receive the diagnosis that I and my entire health team are expecting, it'll allow me access to some assistance in areas of my life that are excessively difficult currently. To that end, I want this psychologist to 'see' me - rather than the façade I typically present, especially with people who I have just met (like her).
My desire to have her 'see' me and the concern that she won't, thereby preventing me from accessing the help that I require has resulted in fear. But when I sat with the fear, my belief that the fear arose as a consequence of the situation that I am in, fell away. It wasn't that the fear fell away - that was intact; it was the realization that the fear wasn't the effect of the situation. The situation arose. I met the situation by trying to control it - to control what she saw, to control how she perceived me, etc. Except I can only guess how to do so. That uncertainty that I am not controlling this situation adequately, or correctly, or the results won't be what I think I need, or... is actually the cause that results in fear - not the situation itself.
If I stopped wanting or trying or believing that I can or should or need to control the situation - what would happen to the fear? Seems to me that there would no longer be a cause for the effect of fear to hang its hat on. Then I extrapolated, realizing that I try to control my experience constantly. Perhaps though, it is not part of the human condition after all, and it's just part of the developed personality of yagr.
Awareness can walk through any door, but won't when my egoic self (the subject) is standing in the doorway blocking entrance. It's not that awareness couldn't flick me out of the way; it just doesn't.
The expression that one "can't fight their way out of a paper bag" springs to mind. I have to get out of the way, but I can't figure out where "not in the doorway" is because the doorway is my whole Universe.
So I try to control my behavior by directing myself to get out of the doorway by giving myself instructions that don't make any sense outside of the doorway - I might as well be pointing to the moon....oh wait...
@yagr
The egoic self can be a useful tool when it come to analysing things and along with awareness can work in one self's best interest...
It is often seen as the problem when in fact it also has the capacity to be the solution to the problem...
At times @yagr Metta (loving kindness) towards your 'self' and others is all one needs to keep the egoic self in check... creating a calmness of mind which allows awareness to just be present....
However...Using the intellect has its limitations....
When the intellect ventures into where it does not belong, it becomes lost in its own confusion
In other words at times we try to use thoughts to solve something which is thoughtless ...where the intellect becomes the barrier, so to speak...
What you are describing also reminds me a bit of "The Gateless Gate" the illusory barriers constructed in the mind...
You can watch the whole video of just start at 21 minutes in, to get an explanation of the meaning of The Gateless Gate ( Mumonkan- No gate locked...This gate has no lock... )
Control is often a useless exercise, it is better to strive for wu-wei-wu, the natural spontaneous action which becomes like actionless action, everything flowing effortlessly from That Which Is, if you will permit me to move like a Taoist for a moment.
The endless ways we try to control our own storylines is like a stirring up of muddy puddles in the hopes of finding clear water within them. Our storylines and mud puddles, when no longer fiddled with, each return to the clarity of their original natures.
So simple...and yet so scary.
Isn't a spiritual practice just the means of always turning us back towards that fear.
Gee, yag, it sounds like a certain amount of overthinking. I mean, I understand about wanting to be "seen"... I've never been big on facades, though. But I haven't had to go through life as you, with your particular set of challenges, so ... I can understand, that it's possible, that one might have to use a facade for everyday coping in public.
But then, at times like this, suddenly the facade becomes a burden. You're having trouble setting it aside when you need to, and then the realization of that fact is also causing you dukkha.
Still, I think these realizations are good. I think this is more Growth.
<---- hug
If a tree falls in the forest, and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?
If yagr relaxes his grip on his facade, and just lets himself flow, will he cease to exist?
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Of course not. In fact, he'll be even more real than before.
Over-thinking? Probably. I'm still a little fuzzy on the whole 'appropriate amount of thinking' for a situation. It always seems to be a Goldilocks kind of issue - subjective et al... Nevertheless, on the over-under thinking issue, I do tend to be an outlier.
Hmm. I'm not going to say that there is not dukkha present - but there is a significant amount of joy present in that I am looking honestly at this for perhaps the very first time in my life. One might not be thrilled to discover they have stage 1 cancer ... but it's way better to know now then when it gets to stage 4, right? That's kind of how I feel about this. Okay, I have a challenge. Today, it is not insurmountable. Tomorrow, it might have been. So grateful I found it today.
I agree! Thank you! ~hugs~
Thanks for the additional info about your experiencing joy as you make these discoveries. That's great! Your earlier main post mentioned fear a few times, so it gave a different impression. It turns out, you don't need my advice at all!
Thank you so much! Seriously, I hadn't seen that people's responses might have been tied to my mentioning of fear...that makes so much sense now that it's been pointed out!
To clarify then...sure, there is fear...hmm. Okay - got it! Arguably the most vicious land based mammal, the polar bear is the only animal who will hunt humans by scent without ever having met one before. It's a completely different experience running into a polar bear in the wild as opposed to the zoo, right? Fear is in the zoo...actually, so is joy - so I can experience both but there is some distance - we are not sharing the same space.