I find two ways that I want to be right.

First, wanting my initial belief about something to be right. When I take a story as true, I identify with it and its perspective, and since it becomes an “I” I feel fuel other stories that prop it up, flesh it out, defend it, and make it look right to myself and sometimes others.

Then, wanting to find what is more true for me than the initial belief. What is the grain of truth in its reversals? What happens if I see all of those stories as just stories, with a limited practical value only?

So for instance, when I received the email from the Bernadette Roberts student, and he seemed to assign views to me that didn’t fit my familiar identity, the first impulse was to make me right and he wrong. I don’t have those views, and I’ll prove it to him.

But the signs of being caught up in beliefs are hard to notice (tension, wanting to protect and defend a position or identity), so it quickly shifted into wanting to find what is more true for me. How is he right? Can I find it, in a genuine way, right here?

What is the belief I got caught up in? (”He shouldn’t assign views to me I don’t have.”) What happens when I hold onto that belief? Who am I without it? What are the genuine truths in its reversals?

Now, having found - to some extent - what is more true for me around it, there is a release of that tension. There is less need to have to protect or defend a position or identity. I can find the truth in what he is saying, and also expand it so the fuller picture is more true for me than either of our initial positions. (As I tell myself those positions were.)

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Somewhat convoluted…

I find different reasons for practice at the levels of who I am (this human self) and what I am (that which experience happens within, to and as).

At the level of who I am, the reasons for practice are healing and maturing. And at the level of what I am, inviting what I am to notice itself, the motivations are truth and love.

Right now, it seems helpful to differentiate the two.

At the level of who I am, I practice to heal and mature, and this reduces suffering and sets the stage for happiness. It invites in both, in a genuine way and to an extent that is sufficient for most of us.

The world is a mirror for me, so I find in my own human self what I see in the wider world. There is a sense of wholeness, embracing the (evolving) fullness of who I am, of self-reliance. I am not looking for people or situations for happiness, but carry it with me in my own wholeness.

So this alone is a pretty good reason for practice, and - as mentioned - quite enough for many of us.

But for some of us, finding this approximate wholeness as who we are, is still not quite enough. We see that it is an approximate wholeness, no matter how much we work on it, and there is still a sense of I-Other, of a subtle separation, of something not quite right, of something missing, of not quite being home yet.

So then there is the practice at the level of what we are, inviting what we are to notice itself more clearly. The motivation here is truth and love, finding the truth of what we are, and acting on our inherent love for existence itself. (Said in a glib way, there is the love of truth, and also the truth of love.)

I am not practicing to get, compensate for, attain, or escape from anything. I am just practicing to find what is really true, and to act on and deepen my love for existence itself. (Aka God, Brahman, Tao, etc.)

The good news here is of course that the practices - the tools - we use in either case often are the same.

The Work, the Big Mind process, allowing/being with experience, exploring the sense fields, choiceless awareness practice, and many more practices, all work on the levels of who we are (inviting in healing and maturing) and what we are (inviting what we are to notice itself more clearly). The relative emphasis of the two depends somewhat on how we do the practice and our intention.

And even if we start with motivations at the who level (healing, maturing, release from suffering, fining happiness), it may shift (or not) into the motivations at the what level (truth and love).

So for myself, when I see motivations relating to healing and maturing - and reducing suffering and finding happiness, I know they are motivations at the who level. And when I find motivations of truth and love, I see that they belong to the what level.

This is quite different from what I see in most spiritual groups and traditions I am familiar with, and I am not sure if it is just a matter of preference or if I am missing something here.

For me, if I saw someone wanting healing/maturing, I would recommend finding increasing wholeness as who they are. That in itself gives a quite deep release from suffering, and invites in a stable happiness. It may not be “complete” but it is really quite good.

And if I saw someone with truth and love as their main motivation, I would point them in the direction of inviting what they are to notice itself. Of course also including the who level, since working on that level makes it easier for what we are to notice itself, it makes it easier for our human self to function in the world, and when what we are notices itself, it makes it easier for it to express itself more fluidly through our human self.

I would not promote a practice with the intention of what we are to notice itself, if what the person seeks is release from suffering, and happiness. It wouldn’t be honest, since a practice aimed at wholeness at the who level is more than sufficient for this.

Come to think about it, that may be why most Buddhist groups - although their “mission statement” is at what level awakening - often emphasize healing/maturing at the who level. Most people come from the motivation of seeking healing/maturing, and that is exactly what most groups and teachers emphasize.

For the few suckers (like me, it seems) who can’t help it and really want to find the truth and act on their love, there is always the additional teachings, and the additional work that invites what we are into noticing itself.

There are the few more steps beyond the healing/maturing at the who level.

The long form improv guideline of Yes, And is a great way of meeting people where they are.

We find the grain of truth in their perspective, which is always there, acknowledge it, and then add another perspective to it.

It is a way to meet people where they are, and then gently expand the perspective. We expand our own by taking into account the truth in theirs. And we expand theirs by adding something new.

It is also a quick way to finding common ground, simply by noting the truth in their view.

And it is a way to stay in integrity. I find the genuine truth, for me, in their perspective. And then add something on my own.

It is very simple, almost childishly so as so much else in this journal. But it has a profound impact if we really bring it into our life.

I don’t seem to be finished with these nerdy sorting-outs, so here is one on the relief of truth…

There is a relief of truth in many different ways, including the ones we all know from daily life when we are honest with ourselves and others about things we hid in the past, or have impulses to hide even now.

In terms of practice, there are also different forms of relief of truth.

For instance, the relief of reversals, seeing the grain of truth in the reversals of any story, and especially the ones we believe in. This brings the relief of not having to defend a story as an absolute truth anymore, and also having to defend against the truth in its reversals. And it brings the relief of consciously exploring and acknowledging the truth that we already somewhere knew… the truth in reversals, and the inherent neutrality of the situation the story refers to.

And the relief of being with our experiences, fully allowing them, in a wholehearted and heartfelt way, as they are, as if they would never change. This is the relief of not having to push them away anymore, of not having to identify with resistance to them, of not experiencing them as a disturbance and intrusion.

Finally, the relief of noticing the truth of what we already are. Of awakeness noticing itself, and its content as itself too. This is the relief of not having to resist Ground, the relief of not having to overidentify with certain content of awareness (this human self) and underidentify with the rest (the wider world), the relief of not being caught up in the drama of beliefs, the relief of not having to defend against the truth of reversals, and the relief of not having to resist any experiences.

I am getting into doing The Work again, after not having done it for a while, and see again how the truth sets me free.

When I find what is genuinely more true for me than an initial belief, it gives a sense of liberation and freedom. My personality may not like what comes up, as in the most recent inquiry, but just being honest about it is a huge relief.

And there is a simple story why:

When I attach to a story, rigidly holding onto a certain perspective and identity to the exclusion of other ones, I am at war with what is already more true for me. It takes a great deal of effort to do this.

I need to monitor what is going on, making sure I am shooting down whatever the initial story does not include, and anything that may show that it has only a limited truth. I need to fuel it by repeating it to myself, and creating supporting stories. I need to act as if it is true. I need to filter my whole experience of the world through it.

So when I finally give up, and look in a more honest way at what is already more true for me, all of this can fall away or at least - for the time being - be fueled less.

There are innumerable dishonesties in our lives. All the little beliefs and stories we attach to that are not aligned with life as it shows up for us.

And then there is the major one: that there is a separate I here, an I with an Other. In our immediate awareness, here now, there is just the field of awakeness and form, inherently free from an I with an Other. Yet right away, this is covered up by an attachment to a story of a separate I, which filters it all making it appear true.

Like any other belief, it is a belief that needs constant maintenance. It requires a great deal of energy.

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Adyashanti often talks about how we go to the mind and body for the truth, and when I explore that for myself, I find the same.

Going to the mind for the truth is pretty obvious. We rely on thoughts to tell us how the world is, what is true, and how to behave.

Going to the body for truth is maybe a little less obvious. (I wrote about this one in the previous post.)

I find that I go to the body for truth, relying on two different signs. One is emotions, which are really just sensations and a story about these sensations. And the other is sensations such as tension, discomfort, shallow breath, and so on.

And I find that the bodily sensations I rely on for truth are the ones coming from beliefs. Any beliefs trigger reactive emotions, muscle tension and changes the breathing pattern, especially when it clashes with life as it unfolds or may unfold. These beliefs are, by definition, taken as true. So I associate these bodily changes with not only a story, but a true story, a truth. The outcome of all this is that reactive emotions, muscle tension and changes in breathing patterns are all taken as indication of truth.

Or more precisely, I see that beliefs all have to do with shoulds, with how life should be. So these bodily signs tell me that life is showing up differently than it should.

Somebody acts in a certain way, which triggers these bodily signs of reactive emotions, muscle tension and shallow or forced breathing. I notice these bodily reactions, and take them as a sign that life shows up differently from how it should, and that this person acted differently from how he or she should. And from there, I look for a story behind it, a story also telling me that life is wrong, life is unfolding differently from how my story and body tells me it should.

I attended a talk where the speaker said something along the lines of the only thing I can be certain about is that I am here, and body breathes and have weight on the floor.

When I look into this for myself, I find that the only thing I can be certain about is that there is awareness and content of awareness. And that this content of awareness is awareness itself. It is its own content.

And I cannot be certain about anything within this content. Everything this content appears as are only appearances, filtered, interpreted and flavored in many ways. Any differentiation, and any characteristic, of anything within content comes from an overlay of stories, and an infinity of these stories are possible.

It may appear that there is an I here, with the rest of the world as an Other, but that comes from a story of a separate self as one particular region of what arises (a set within what arises), and the wider world as the rest. It may appear that body breathes, but that too comes from a story of a body, as a particular region of what arises, and a story of breath overlaid on particular sensations within this region. And it may appear that all of this happens within space and time, but space is a story overlaid on what arises, creating the appearance of space, and time is another story, creating the appearance of continuity.

All of this happens in immediate awareness, and, when attention goes there, is seen as it happens.

This is another not-new insight, but one that becomes very clear through different forms of inquiry:

When I suffer, it is because I am willing to pay the price of suffering to be right.

Or rather, to be right in the sense of holding onto one story as right and its reversals as wrong, taking it as an exclusive truth.

The belief has a shadow, which is the truth in all of its reversals, and also the inherent neutrality of the situation which is revealed when the relative truths in all the reversals cancel each other out. And this shadow is what creates the suffering.

Life shows up in ways that correspond to the shadow rather than the original belief, there is a dissonance, and suffering.

There are two ways to lose a belief, and they often go hand in hand.

One is through friction.

I have a belief telling me how life is or should be, and an identity telling me what I am and am not. In both cases, I split life right down the middle, allowing one region of the landscape and not the rest.

When life inevitably shows up outside of my belief or identity, there is a friction between my belief and life, which is experienced a uncomfortable… as stress, something being off, suffering, anger, fear, and so on.

This friction, if it continues, slowly wears off (and out!) the belief. Over time, constantly at odds with life, it has to go, in spite of even the most persistent resistance. It is just too obvious that life is more than my belief, and I more than the identity. My personality may not like it, especially at first, but there is not much choice there either.

The other is through investigation.

I notice the warning signs of holding onto a belief or identity (stress), I identify the belief or set of beliefs behind it, and investigate its effects, what would be without it, and the grain of truth in each of the reversals of the initial story. This too allows it to fall away, although it can be faster and less painful, even fun.

In the first case, I take the side of my habitual beliefs and identities, and it may be a drawn out and painful affair.

In the second case, I take the side of life inviting the belief to go, and it becomes more playful, have a sense of more ease, and can even be fun and enjoyable.

Although most of the time, there seems to be a mix of the two. There is the friction between life and belief, and the stress and resistance that comes with it. And there is the ease of the investigation, when that is finally engaged with.

When we are used to live with and from beliefs, and we hear about allowing beliefs to fall away, then the natural question comes up: if beliefs are gone, what is left?

First, what is a belief?

It is taking any idea, which only has relative truth, as an absolute truth. More precisely, it is adding a story onto another saying that it is absolutely true. And right away, we see that there has to be a dissonance here. We cannot know that any story is absolutely true, yet we try to make it so for ourselves. We make it appear true at a surface level, yet know at the same time that we cannot know if it is or not. Also, any belief creates boundaries for life, for what can and should happen. So when life shows up outside of these boundaries, or even when we fear/hope that life may show up outside of these boundaries, there is also stress. When there are beliefs, we get stress from two sources.

Then, what is left when they are gone?

It is simple. It is the same stories, without beliefs. The stories are there, as before, but not believed in as true. They are seen as only relative truths with limited, temporary and purely utilitarian purposes… nothing more. If we go one step further, we see that all the reversals of any story also contains a grain of truth, revealing the inherent neutrality of the situation.

We can still use the stories in daily life, and really, we have to. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to function. But now they are revealed as only stories, added onto the inherent neutrality of any situation. They are revealed as tools of limited and temporary value only.

There is a tremendous freedom here. A freedom to play with any story and its reversals. A freedom to not get stuck on the inside of the boundaries of any story, because it is only a relative truth.

Why the photo of the bindi in the previous post?

It is a reminder of transcendent truths, of that which is free from and holds all conventional truths.

Of Existence inherently free from, beyond, and including all polarities of existence and nonexistence, spirit and matter, emptiness and form, living and inanimate, life and death, mind and body, nature and culture, a forest and a city, Jesus and Hitler, you and I, clarity and confusion, awakening and delusion, sense of I and realized selflessness.

It is the eye that beholds and intimately embraces the pair of conventional eyes, of polarity.

In others and myself, I see that beliefs sometimes seem too true to inquire into. They are obviously true, so what’s the point?

Still, if we follow the general guideline of following the stress, we are lead to inquire into even those beliefs, no matter how pointless it may seem at first.

Appear true

Of course the belief seem true, and of course it may seem pointless to inquire into it.

We believe in the thought, and - as Byron Katie says - it is the job of our mind to make it appear true. Everything becomes a proof, including the reactions of our body and emotions. The whole universe seems to support the belief, because everything is taken as a proof. That is one way the brilliance of our mind functions. Taking an illusion and making it appear real to us.

And it is all completely innocent. There is a belief in a thought, and everything becomes filtered to make it appear true. That is all.

Choosing peace over being right

When it gets stressful enough, and we have the tool of inquiry, we’ll inquire into even (apparently) obviously true beliefs just in the hope of finding some relief.

We are willing to choose peace over being right. We are willing to sincerely explore and find what is true for is in our immediate experience, rather than staying with our familiar surface beliefs.

We are willing to align ourselves with what is already more true for us - and find peace in that.

Follow the stress

The process is simple. Find a stressful situation. Notice the thought (or set of thoughts) that goes along with the situation. And inquire into these thoughts, one at a time - independent of how true or not they may appear at first.

Stress if our guide. And as we become more familiar with this process, stress becomes a friend - our most intimate advisor. Stress becomes the gateway to insight, peace and liberation. It is revealed as its own medicine.

Stress becomes what we are looking forward to, because it shows us where we are still stuck - where we still attach to a belief and are out of alignment with what is.

When there is an identification with any segment of what is, there is the appearance of I and Other and the whole dynamic which emerges from that. And this dynamic includes, quite naturally, a certain lack of trust.

I am an object in a world of innumerable unpredictable objects, so I cannot fully trust the world.

Selflessness and trust

The only way to uncover a deep and unconditional trust is through tasting and ultimately realize selflessness, and deepen into that realization.

As Byron Katie - and mystics from any tradition - say, God is All and God is good. When there is no I there is no Other, and there is nothing to not trust.

Seeing the truth about beliefs

To realize this, we need to see through the belief in the idea of I. This core belief which creates the I-Other appearance. We actually need to see through any and all beliefs. We need to see what is really true for us - in our own immediate experience - about the beliefs.

We can come to see thought and abstraction as what they are - innocent questions about the world. Not accurate or true representations.

As BK says, we come to see - gradually, one inquiry at a time - that reality is always kinder than our stories about it.

Trusting truth

A part of this process is to trust truth. Not any abstract and absolute truth, not any permanent truth, not any truth handed over from someone else, not any truth discovered in the future.

Simply what is true for me - first person singular - in the present.

As long as I am identified with any segment of what is, I won’t completely trust my own truth. That too becomes an Other, and something to be suspicious of. And this seems to be even more the case in our western culture, inherently suspicious of nature and the universe.

This is one of the beautiful aspects of Byron Katie’s inquiry process. I gradually, slowly, learn to trust my own truth - what is true for me in my immediate experience.

I see - over and over and in smaller and larger ways - that the truth does indeed set me free. It is the only thing that does. I come to want and seek my truth, because I know the liberation inherent in it. I find courage in the form of a desire for truth and liberation.

Truth vs. shoulds

I also see more clearly the relationship between truth and shoulds.

The various spiritual traditions are full of “shoulds” in the form of ethical guidelines and so on, and these can be very useful. They help us live with less conflict, and also help align us with a future realization of selflessness (they - at their best - reflect how we naturally tend to live when selflessness is realized).

At the same time, when I look into what is true for me in the present, I see that I don’t need any abstract guidelines. The same is found in my own already existing truth, when I only look. So instead of a should, imposed from the outside, it becomes a want emerging from myself.