I see what is left to be worked through, represented as a black rectangle with some substance and thickness.
This was a dream image that stayed with me after I woke up.
It has a sense of something that needed to be exhausted through practice and effort. And also that they exhausting itself is the point of it.
Adyashanti likes to talk about what happens when wanting falls away: We want something, get it, and experience the fullness and contentment that is there when the wanting goes into the background for a while.
Of course, his point is that the absence of wanting is what gives this sense of fullness and contentment, not getting what we (think we) want. What we think we want may be an object, but what we really want is to experience the fullness and contentment always here, and coming into the foreground when the wanting is in the background.
What do I really want?
One way to explore what we really want behind our surface wants is to make a list, and then for each want ask what do I hope to get out of this? And then the same question, until we arrive at something that is not reducible to something else.
A simple sequence may look something like this: I want money >> security, safety, freedom >> happiness, freedom from suffering, freedom from and not victim of circumstances.
Is it true it is not already here?
Having found this, we can ask ourselves is it true that what I seek is not already here?
Happiness: yes, I can find that right here. When there is a simple quiet being with whatever is experienced, there is a quiet happiness and bliss here, independent of whatever else is experienced. Freedom from suffering: yes, I can find that too here. There is something here always free from suffering and any other content. Something not touched by content. A wakefulness, clarity, capacity for everything to arise within. Seeing free from any of the particulars of the seen. Freedom from circumstances: yes, that too is right here, in the same stainless wakefulness and seeing.
Big Mind process
Through the Big Mind process, we discover the same but with more differentiation.
We see how seeking mind is immensely useful in many ways, including on a purely practical human everyday level. Yet, if seeking mind is typically in the foreground, there will be a chronic sense of dissatisfaction. There is always something to seek that is just around the corner, just over the next hill, just into the future or over there.
When nonseeking mind comes into the foreground, there is a sense of fullness, quiet, contentment. Here, we notice that what we seek is already here.
They both have their functions: Seeking mind on a practical relative level, and nonseeking mind as a reminder of the absolute.
In the relative, there may indeed be lack and something to gain. In the absolute, there is nothing missing. Both are needed.
