I am attached to my sufferings and dramas and don't want to let them go

[Birch]

Yeah I was sort of joking as I would say there is 0% chance of anything like that happening, yet I still don't want to let go of all the internal dramas and grudges which aren't even the slightest bit relevant to my life any more.

 

Forgiveness and letting go is usually such a relief and so beneficial yet for some reason it is difficult to do. I am starting to see the benefit in those paths which do everything for the sake of others, you can forgive and let go for the sake of others but doing it just for yourself is a lot more difficult, most people I see like myself don't bother they prefer to hold on to it all.

 

Oh, I hadn't realized it was a joke. Haha. I believed for a long time 'This time they'll get it'. Nope. They never have. I didn't bother with the forgiveness (of them) step because they refused to acknowledge there was anything to forgive. So I forgave myself (sometimes I still do). Do I hold on to it still? Probably quite some because so much of it became who I am. But it feels different these days.

[thetaoiseasy]

K:

 

A person finds out when she understands that every moment of our living life is already death and rebirth. Death as most know it is only the physical death, the mere decay of organic matter. Every one of us will die in that sense. But the true life and death refers to the state of your spirit. When you grasp the essence of your life, you live. When you hold on to the garbage of your life, you are already dead inside. You do not need to wait for the physical end to know heaven or hell. You know the truth because you are the model of the universe.

 

It's a good topic. How would a person find any of it out for themselves? I think the folks that do 'bardo' practices are gearing themselves up for what they believe will happen. But to actually know?

Edited December 15, 2012 by thetaoiseasy

[三江源]

The Ancient Egyptians believed that when you died, you travelled to the Hall of the Dead. There Anubis weighed your heart against the feather of Ma'at. Ma'at, the goddess of justice sits on top of the scales to make sure that the weighing is carried out properly. You can see Anubis steadying the scales to make the weighing fair. If your heart was lighter than the feather, you lived for ever. We still talk of "a heart as light as a feather" to mean care-free, and "heavy-hearted" to mean sad. If your heart was heavier than the feather then it was eaten by the demon Ammit, the Destroyer. Ammit had the head of a crocodile, the shoulders of a lion and the rump of a hippopotamus. These were all frightening animals for the Egyptians. Thoth, god of wisom and writing, stands by to record what happens.

[doc benway]

Tough questions require tough answers - please don't take offense.

 

I have realised that I am scared to let go of all the conflicts and internal dramas going on inside of me because I fear my life will be left meaningless, it is the personal story of my life which I feel gives my life meaning and if I let it go I will just be a lifeless boring empty shell; even though all theses issues and left over resentments and outdated patterns mostly cause me suffering at least it is life with some sort of narrative and interesting drama, better than boring void.

It is profoundly important to be aware of this.

I think it is also beneficial to ask yourself a few questions.

Who is it that doesn't want to let go?

Who demands that there be meaning to life?

What makes you think that such meaning exists? And if it does, why would you expect to understand it?

It is the nature of thought to look for 'why' so that there is the illusion of understanding and security. And yet with all this baggage 'you' want to hold on to, the why's and wherefore's and the self righteous indignation and injury, how does that enhance your life and help you to find peace and contentment? How does it benefit you and others? If all of these patterns dropped away, would a sunset be any less beautiful?

 

The drama is nothing but the obsessive-compulsive nature of mind to ratify everything, narrate your story, stay "in control", understand and therefore perpetuate the illusion of security.

You might find it valuable to read some of the Toltec stuff by Don Miguel Ruiz about we create the story of our life, it ties beautifully into the Dzogchen approach of letting all of that simply fall away in favor of being, without the clutter.

 

 

If I let go the hurts other people have caused me then there is no consequence of their actions, those people never get to see the affect of their harmful action on me so they get away scot free, so I hold onto my anger and resentment like it is precious and keep reinforcing my revenge intentions in my mind and anyone who tries to take it all away I see as a threat.

So in order to be the judge, jury, and executioner of those around you who are equally (or even more) blind and asleep, and simply living their own story and delusion to the best of their ability, you choose to punish yourself in order to not let them "get away scot free." Is this helping to bring you closer to where you would like your life to be spiritually, psychologically, emotionally? And what if you were to allow them to "get away scot free" - would the injury be any worse? Is your attachment to the sense of being wronged, and the associated anxiety, adequate punishment for the ones who have wronged you? And if you do not punish them by eating yourself up with bitterness and anxiety, what then? And what if you could find a place in you where there is sympathy, maybe empathy, maybe even humor and love for those feeling around in the dark and bumping into each other, and even sometimes bumping into you? Could there be some liberation or relaxation in that? Is there any possibility of just letting it go, on a trial basis, to see what happens? You may be surprised... I don't have any answers for you, you have to do the work yourself. It does help me immeasurably to practice letting go.

 

 

So it could be that most of the spiritual work I have been trying over many years may has been pretty worthless as you can't let go of what you want to hold on to, to steal a phrase of Sadguru it is like like trying to lift up a plank of wood you are standing on. Although it could be that the spiritual work is what has made me finally realise this, can anyone relate or do people find that they can just let go off all their stuff without much resistance?

It's possible it was all worthless, but maybe it's exactly what you needed to get where you are now - on the brink of letting go.

And maybe this struggle is exactly where you need to be now in order to take the next step. Who knows? I do know one thing - it is never easy, there is always resistance in the beginning. If it wasn't, everyone would be liberated. It is extremely difficult and who knows if it is ever really completed until we die? It is an ongoing process. It's relatively commonplace to have an insight, to recognize your own divinity, to have a profound non-dual experience. What is a real measure of one's progress is to live each moment and make each choice from that very perspective. And you will only do it if you are ready and have the courage, strength, and commitment, to do it.

 

Good luck!

[ShenLung]

I think that several of us here (myself included) really want to see you make this breakthrough that you appear to be on the verge of ... but we cannot do it for you, or force you to do it. This is your life and your journey. Take as much time as you need, and good luck! I'm going to let this go now, so that that fear-panic-resistance feedback doesn't harm your progress.

[C T]

I had posted a quote recently in the 'everyone post some favorite quotes' section, but, in case you missed it, here's what Malachy McCourt said: "Resentment... that is like you consume the poison, and then waiting for the other person to die."

 

To me, that made a lot of sense.

 

To be happy, in most moments of one's life, is a responsible decision-making habit. We learn to habitually respond without giving an inch of space to others who appear to spread misery all around. With our intent, we design the kind of mental environment which either becomes conducive to joyful health for all, or, blinded by ignorance, become stagnated by apathy.

 

A spiritual warrior in the making, that is what you are, Mr Jetsun. Not the kind that becomes insensitive to human suffering, which is quite a boon, as a matter of fact. Now you have become wise. What you do with this knowledge is your next assignment.

[suninmyeyes]

damn just lost my loooong post.

 

can anyone relate or do people find that they can just let go off all their stuff without much resistance?

no, it is a WAR and sometimes a love affair.

[Jetsun]

It is profoundly important to be aware of this.

I think it is also beneficial to ask yourself a few questions.

Who is it that doesn't want to let go?

Who demands that there be meaning to life?

What makes you think that such meaning exists? And if it does, why would you expect to understand it?

It is the nature of thought to look for 'why' so that there is the illusion of understanding and security. And yet with all this baggage 'you' want to hold on to, the why's and wherefore's and the self righteous indignation and injury, how does that enhance your life and help you to find peace and contentment? How does it benefit you and others? If all of these patterns dropped away, would a sunset be any less beautiful?

 

The drama is nothing but the obsessive-compulsive nature of mind to ratify everything, narrate your story, stay "in control", understand and therefore perpetuate the illusion of security.

You might find it valuable to read some of the Toltec stuff by Don Miguel Ruiz about we create the story of our life, it ties beautifully into the Dzogchen approach of letting all of that simply fall away in favor of being, without the clutter.

 

Meaning may well be the most important thing that exists for us in our lives, if you read Victor Frankl's book about him surviving Auschwitz there were many people who let go of everything and gave up, and the result was that they died in despair, while Vicor managed to survive because he held onto a glimmer of hope that despite the horrors of everything precious dissolving around him his life could have meaning and purpose if he survived. Just about everything we do is a search for meaning so maybe giving up the individual meaning you have attached to your personal story is just a nihilisitic act.

 

So in order to be the judge, jury, and executioner of those around you who are equally (or even more) blind and asleep, and simply living their own story and delusion to the best of their ability, you choose to punish yourself in order to not let them "get away scot free." Is this helping to bring you closer to where you would like your life to be spiritually, psychologically, emotionally? And what if you were to allow them to "get away scot free" - would the injury be any worse? Is your attachment to the sense of being wronged, and the associated anxiety, adequate punishment for the ones who have wronged you? And if you do not punish them by eating yourself up with bitterness and anxiety, what then? And what if you could find a place in you where there is sympathy, maybe empathy, maybe even humor and love for those feeling around in the dark and bumping into each other, and even sometimes bumping into you? Could there be some liberation or relaxation in that? Is there any possibility of just letting it go, on a trial basis, to see what happens? You may be surprised... I don't have any answers for you, you have to do the work yourself. It does help me immeasurably to practice letting go.

 

I know it's not logical, helpful or anything like that, it is emotionally primitive, but there is no point in pretending any more that it is different from what it is.

[Vmarco]

 

So it could be that most of the spiritual work I have been trying over many years may has been pretty worthless as you can't let go of what you want to hold on to, to steal a phrase of Sadguru it is like like trying to lift up a plank of wood you are standing on.

 

I would agree that your spiritual work has been pretty much worthless,...as McKenna correctly said, "99.9% of the World's so-called wisdom, East and West, for the purposes of awakening, is about as useful as a glass of warm spit with a hair in it."

 

Most likely, as Dolano said, you're just no ready to wake up.

[C T]

[Protector]

If things bother you, take away their power to bother you

The bothering will stop

If you want to bother someone else, make them bother themselves while you stop your own botherings

Oh bother

[三江源]

I dont know wether to mention this or not. I have a family member who is 60 and at every family gathering she brings up her grievances which stem back... well, she has grievances up to 57 years old, against her family. She is 60.

When I see her tight lipped and tight arsed about what has been done to her.. lets get it straight, we're talking family insensitivity and lack of awareness, nothing worse than that.. I want to shake her by the shoulders and force her to stand in front of a mirror and see she is 60.. and say now is the fucking time to drop it already.. how long you gonna carry this shit!

I find it hard to contemplate she might carry that shit all her life. For want of something better to do... maybe. It seems to me she uses her baggage to define herself, repudiation is her springboard.

 

Lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

 

"I cant let go! what do I have when I let go?"

 

" you have exactly what you had before, it's just that you let go of it."

 

 

If not now, when?

[Birch]

K:

 

A person finds out when she understands that every moment of our living life is already death and rebirth. Death as most know it is only the physical death, the mere decay of organic matter. Every one of us will die in that sense. But the true life and death refers to the state of your spirit. When you grasp the essence of your life, you live. When you hold on to the garbage of your life, you are already dead inside. You do not need to wait for the physical end to know heaven or hell. You know the truth because you are the model of the universe.

 

I've had thoughts like that before. I haven't taken them that seriously.

[Birch]

Cat, has anyone acknowledged their lack of awareness and insensitivity to her? I guess that would take aware and sensitive people to do so.

[三江源]

Cat, has anyone acknowledged their lack of awareness and insensitivity to her? I guess that would take aware and sensitive people to do so.

 

I tried to do this, 18 years ago. No, I did it, 18 years ago. I also suggested she relinquish the position she had adopted of sitting as condemning judge and jury, and be more heart centred in her evaluation of events, circumstances, people. She did one of those quiet dismissive laughs. The ones that are supposed to be 'knowing'.

[Bubbles]

I have realised that I am scared to let go of all the conflicts and internal dramas going on inside of me because I fear my life will be left meaningless, it is the personal story of my life which I feel gives my life meaning and if I let it go I will just be a lifeless boring empty shell; even though all theses issues and left over resentments and outdated patterns mostly cause me suffering at least it is life with some sort of narrative and interesting drama, better than boring void.

 

I am quite sure you don't really believe to this. Without your sufferings and dramas, your life won't be a boring void or meaningless but just constant newness. What is boring is the repetitive suffering that plagues your life. Take the time to see and recognize that your old wounds are boring to death. Actually, you may already know it intuitively because you are already seeking a way out.

 

If I let go the hurts other people have caused me then there is no consequence of their actions, those people never get to see the affect of their harmful action on me so they get away scot free, so I hold onto my anger and resentment like it is precious and keep reinforcing my revenge intentions in my mind and anyone who tries to take it all away I see as a threat.

 

You can choose the consequences of their actions. You can choose to show how they destroyed your life, or you can choose to show how their actions brought you to awaken to a spiritual life that allows you to grow better. This might be unsual or surprising to them, but suffering can be the raw material of your internal growth. There is suffering, but there is also something you can make out of it if you use it the proper way. Suffering can be the cause but not the fatal effect of it self. This is your freedom and power, your dignity as a human being. Can you see that?

Edited December 15, 2012 by bubbles

[三江源]

...their actions brought you to awaken...

 

this one

[GrandmasterP]

 

 

I tried to do this, 18 years ago. No, I did it, 18 years ago. I also suggested she relinquish the position she had adopted of sitting as condemning judge and jury, and be more heart centred in her evaluation of events, circumstances, people. She did one of those quiet dismissive laughs. The ones that are supposed to be 'knowing'.

..........

Some people just get so locked into negativity it's almost as though they enjoy being that way.

There was a chap called Frank on the allotments who was so negative about everyone and everything that he came to be known as 'Brutally Frank'.

[Bubbles]

The Ancient Egyptians believed that when you died, you travelled to the Hall of the Dead. There Anubis weighed your heart against the feather of Ma'at. Ma'at, the goddess of justice sits on top of the scales to make sure that the weighing is carried out properly. You can see Anubis steadying the scales to make the weighing fair. If your heart was lighter than the feather, you lived for ever. We still talk of "a heart as light as a feather" to mean care-free, and "heavy-hearted" to mean sad. If your heart was heavier than the feather then it was eaten by the demon Ammit, the Destroyer. Ammit had the head of a crocodile, the shoulders of a lion and the rump of a hippopotamus. These were all frightening animals for the Egyptians. Thoth, god of wisom and writing, stands by to record what happens.

 

This is very important. What you make of your heart/spirit during your life determines the way you die. What kind of life ( I mean spiritually) do we want to live in order to die lightly (pun intended)? I find it is a powerful reminder of how short is our life. Time is ticking,Jetsun, and we don't know when death will occur. It is up to ourselves to know what to do with what we have. No?

[Jetsun]

I am quite sure you don't really believe to this. Without your sufferings and dramas, your life won't be a boring void or meaningless but just constant newness. What is boring is the repetitive suffering that plague your life. Take the time to see and recognize that your old wounds are boring to death. Actually, you may already know it intuitively because you are already seeking a way out.

 

I don't really believe it, but I have to pay attention to what comes up and what takes over when the actual prospect of letting things go becomes a reality rather than just a mind concept, in a sense these are my deeper beliefs or attachments which I often like to deny.

 

You can choose the consequences of their actions. You can choose to show how they destroyed your life, or you can choose to show how their actions brought you to awaken to a spiritual life that allows you to grow better. This might be unsual or surprising to them, but suffering can be the raw material of your internal growth. There is suffering, but there is also something you can make out of it if you use it the proper way. Suffering can be the cause but not the fatal effect of it self. This is your freedom and power, your dignity as a human being. Can you see that?

 

I see it as a possibility, but not yet a reality.

[三江源]

I don't really believe it, but I have to pay attention to what comes up and what takes over when the actual prospect hey ho, fuck it. you dont have pay that much attention to your resistance mechanisms.. the call of the sirens, the delay of lotus eating..oooh, let me check my resistance patterns, procrastinate, just one more time..of letting things go becomes a reality rather than just a mind concept, in a sense these are my deeper beliefs or attachments which I often like to deny. dont deny em just a nod of acknowledgement is all they need .. like passing a dullard on the street who wants to collar you to discuss his blocked drains as you are on the way to a party

 

 

 

I see it as a possibility, but not yet a reality.

 

fake it till you make it with an 'as if' attitude.. behave 'as if' it is a reality..

[Bubbles]

I don't really believe it, but I have to pay attention to what comes up and what takes over when the actual prospect of letting things go becomes a reality rather than just a mind concept, in a sense these are my deeper beliefs or attachments which I often like to deny.

 

I don't know how much of help it can be. But my master insisted that we can't let things go. He thought this was a misleading way to put what the internal work was about. Things come to us because we are attuned to them in a way or another. So they tell us something about us we need to see, recognize and learn from so that we can access to another level. He was saying that we had to digest them totally (kind of making love to them..), fully to nourish ourselves from them because they are disconnected part of ourselves we are meeting externally (events) and internally (suffering etc). So unless you make this work of fully recognizing, acknowledging, tasting, understanding, transforming and integrating them into your being, you won't be able to let them go anyway. But as soon as you do that, these things will let you go because they have reached their purpose and you have done your work with them. Life is information, and we have listen to it etc.. to go higher ( grow) in our internal unification.

 

My two cents.

Edited December 15, 2012 by bubbles

[Birch]

 

 

I tried to do this, 18 years ago. No, I did it, 18 years ago. I also suggested she relinquish the position she had adopted of sitting as condemning judge and jury, and be more heart centred in her evaluation of events, circumstances, people. She did one of those quiet dismissive laughs. The ones that are supposed to be 'knowing'.

 

Hmm. I dunno, do you reckon she heard the acknowledgement part? I know that being told to see things from another's POV without acknowledging mine at all has been a big source of suffering for me. So that part (the acknowledging part) I have to add in. It especially helps when the other people don't (or won't) get it. If she's still trying for acknowledgement, that could be it. If she's sort of stuck there for some other reason then I'm not sure what it could be.

[Bubbles]

Thank you Jetsun. I appreciate that you dare posting something about your inner struggles. This takes courage. I can see myself in what you are living, but you can see that I choose the easiest role in the play/this thread.

 

This also make TTB a better place to be and give us a break from all the bickering happening here about worthless things.

 

I bow to you

Edited December 15, 2012 by bubbles

[三江源]

Well, interesting isnt it. What happens if we shrug and say fuck it and move into 'let go' mode.. we breathe a big sigh of relief 'as if' the issue was solved?

Ime, what happens is the some mechanism is freed so that exactly what Bubbles defines can occur.

Ime, deciding to shift the stuckness, deciding to release the grip, allows the process to open.

 

We cant let go has to be true. In the sense that it is not an act of will.

 

We can release the grip that allows the organic letting go to occur, is also true.

 

Its a contraction and expansion movement.. 'holding on' being a contraction.. perhaps instead of letting go we can think of it as 'expansion'.. creation of some space by breathe and heart release and laughter and fuck it

 

and that becomes making love to it.. further down the line of the proccess..

 

I guess I am just trying to locate a creative starting point out of stasis, a simple, effective start.. and having begun.. all one has to do, is continue.