The Fourth and Fifth Fetters
My Experiences
Weakening
A few months after seeing through the illusion of a separate "self", I was in the midst of a fair amount of anger and frustration, writing a very negative email letter about a long-standing issue regarding a central area of my life. The issue arose fairly often, and my reactions could be very strong, because I didn’t think people were seeing what was true in a certain situation. There was no greater source of frustration and anger: this was The Big Issue for me. In my mind, there were many people who just didn’t get it, and didn’t want to get it. In essence, I wanted them to say and acknowledge something with which they would never agree.
Before pressing “Send” on the email, I caught myself, and asked “so, tell me again why I need to send this?” Sure, there were lots of reactionary words and images flying through my mind, but I really wanted to know: what and where was the underlying reason this email was necessary? Why did this have to be my response? I pulled my finger off the trigger, and just sat there for a while, searching the entirety of my experience for the reason all this had to be thought and then said. What was behind the reactions?
It was a state of dynamic tension, feeling like I should be reacting in a certain way but holding off on doing so. It felt… well, icky to hold this issue in awareness, along with the sensations it produced, and not do anything with or about it. In other words, I had wandered into the gap, and was somehow staying there. Within that gap, I simply looked for the reason to react, whatever it was within me that made the reactions necessary. Even though thoughts along the lines of “but they don’t say they agree with me!!!...” arose, I was able to simply look for why I needed to do anything in particular about that fact.
After several minutes of looking but not finding a “reason”, there was what felt like a quick blink of consciousness, and suddenly it was as if someone else was sitting in front of the computer. The issue itself immediately deflated, and I realized over the course of the day that no other issue could really get going either. Something had obviously changed.
In thoroughly looking but not finding anything, I saw with sufficient clarity that there really was no reason to send that email: there was nothing in me that rose up to meet that issue that required any sort of reaction at all. In terms of the gap, the desire and ill will that I had supposed were there somewhere bridging the gap were actually illusions. I was rather amazed at the strength of ill will that had actually been behind this Big Issue, now that I could suddenly see it; ill will was something I had fooled myself into thinking I really didn't have (hah!).
Over the next several weeks, this issue arose now and again, but with much less strength, as if at arm's length. In fact, all my “favorite” issues were much more manageable: they didn’t overwhelm or completely occupy me anymore, and many issues no longer even arose. However, the Big Issue just wouldn’t go away. At some point, it seemed pointless, and even silly, that reactions to it should keep rising and falling: there was no reason to keep up the dance of reactivity.
Breaking
Feeling a bit weary of the issue, one morning I decided to use the “why & where” approach again (i.e “why” is there reaction to that and “where” is that coming from?), trying to locate once and for all what was behind it all. The stories, emotions and sensations were there, but didn’t really distract from the inquiry. I could feel the push and pull “ready to roll”, but was able to stay with the basic experience around the fact that “they don’t say XYZ…”. I just looked (and looked) directly within what was simply happening in experience for whatever it was that was causing the reactions.
Once again, nothing was found, but after a while there was a momentary discontinuity and what felt like a much deeper reboot of consciousness. It took a couple hours to appreciate what had happened, but it was quite clear that reactivity had vanished. It was perhaps the most unreservedly joyful experience of my life, one that brought tears to my eyes. What particularly struck me was that I had always thought I somehow had a choice as to what was happening, and was entitled to insist it be different. This is of course absurd, but nevertheless something I believed.
I had also assumed that the swirling collection of thoughts and feelings around a given topic indicated something was in there, a legitimate reason or conclusion, and something to act upon and respond to: I thought somewhere underneath it all, there was a thing called “desire” that was real. This made it seem like I was entitled to a choice in terms of what was happening, and a justification to interpret what experience meant and how to respond. In reality, there is no choice as to what is happening: desire is nothing but an illusion, a distorting habit. There is simply no inherent reason to respond to anyone or anything in any predetermined way.
The image I had was that if the separate “self” was like a little person inside my head who was looking at a tablet computer, evaluating experience and calling all the shots, “desire and ill will” is the illusory tablet itself, jacked straight into sensory experience and running programmed simulations of what things are, could be and (especially) should be. It was an extensive and elaborate system of the memories, assumptions and stories about what I needed to do in response to a given situation. It was thus a complete set of ready-to-go interpretations and responses to anything encountered that, once triggered, can feed themselves, replicate and keep going. The illusion of desire and ill will is so subtle and thoroughly embedded that it happily continues even once the illusion of the “self” vanishes. No “me” is calling the shots, yet shots are still being called until all that machinery is disconnected.
As with seeing through the self, there it was, right before my eyes: desire and ill will are illusions, and it’s always been this way! I had read it many times, but it took seeing it first-hand to finally sink in. While “entitlement to choose” is how I would describe what desire and ill will looked and felt like, others would likely describe it differently, just as there are different explanations possible for what the “self” appeared to be.
Settling into this new perspective was quite natural. An ostensibly desirable person, thing, or situation could still elicit a habitual response: it was as if there were a lot of buttons related to desire that needed to get pushed at least once more to verify that no programmed response need occur anymore, a brief “Ooh, I've got a reaction to that!!... oops, never mind...”. Once reactions disappeared, so too did the suffering that went with them. There was no more feeling frustrated, tense, anxious, fearful, jealous, inconvenienced, resentful, or even irritated.
As with the self, seeing through sense desire and ill will was, in some ways, a very ordinary experience: there never was anything of the sort, and that’s that. However, there was a deep sense of peace and equanimity that seeing through self was not able to effect. There was a patient and unconditional acceptance of what is happening in experience that I could not have wrapped my head around before. Though I didn’t doubt what had happened, I let it be for several weeks to make sure, and watched as the next stages of the path, around subject/object duality, started to open up, signaling that it was time to move on.
A few months after seeing through the illusion of a separate "self", I was in the midst of a fair amount of anger and frustration, writing a very negative email letter about a long-standing issue regarding a central area of my life. The issue arose fairly often, and my reactions could be very strong, because I didn’t think people were seeing what was true in a certain situation. There was no greater source of frustration and anger: this was The Big Issue for me. In my mind, there were many people who just didn’t get it, and didn’t want to get it. In essence, I wanted them to say and acknowledge something with which they would never agree.
Before pressing “Send” on the email, I caught myself, and asked “so, tell me again why I need to send this?” Sure, there were lots of reactionary words and images flying through my mind, but I really wanted to know: what and where was the underlying reason this email was necessary? Why did this have to be my response? I pulled my finger off the trigger, and just sat there for a while, searching the entirety of my experience for the reason all this had to be thought and then said. What was behind the reactions?
It was a state of dynamic tension, feeling like I should be reacting in a certain way but holding off on doing so. It felt… well, icky to hold this issue in awareness, along with the sensations it produced, and not do anything with or about it. In other words, I had wandered into the gap, and was somehow staying there. Within that gap, I simply looked for the reason to react, whatever it was within me that made the reactions necessary. Even though thoughts along the lines of “but they don’t say they agree with me!!!...” arose, I was able to simply look for why I needed to do anything in particular about that fact.
After several minutes of looking but not finding a “reason”, there was what felt like a quick blink of consciousness, and suddenly it was as if someone else was sitting in front of the computer. The issue itself immediately deflated, and I realized over the course of the day that no other issue could really get going either. Something had obviously changed.
In thoroughly looking but not finding anything, I saw with sufficient clarity that there really was no reason to send that email: there was nothing in me that rose up to meet that issue that required any sort of reaction at all. In terms of the gap, the desire and ill will that I had supposed were there somewhere bridging the gap were actually illusions. I was rather amazed at the strength of ill will that had actually been behind this Big Issue, now that I could suddenly see it; ill will was something I had fooled myself into thinking I really didn't have (hah!).
Over the next several weeks, this issue arose now and again, but with much less strength, as if at arm's length. In fact, all my “favorite” issues were much more manageable: they didn’t overwhelm or completely occupy me anymore, and many issues no longer even arose. However, the Big Issue just wouldn’t go away. At some point, it seemed pointless, and even silly, that reactions to it should keep rising and falling: there was no reason to keep up the dance of reactivity.
Breaking
Feeling a bit weary of the issue, one morning I decided to use the “why & where” approach again (i.e “why” is there reaction to that and “where” is that coming from?), trying to locate once and for all what was behind it all. The stories, emotions and sensations were there, but didn’t really distract from the inquiry. I could feel the push and pull “ready to roll”, but was able to stay with the basic experience around the fact that “they don’t say XYZ…”. I just looked (and looked) directly within what was simply happening in experience for whatever it was that was causing the reactions.
Once again, nothing was found, but after a while there was a momentary discontinuity and what felt like a much deeper reboot of consciousness. It took a couple hours to appreciate what had happened, but it was quite clear that reactivity had vanished. It was perhaps the most unreservedly joyful experience of my life, one that brought tears to my eyes. What particularly struck me was that I had always thought I somehow had a choice as to what was happening, and was entitled to insist it be different. This is of course absurd, but nevertheless something I believed.
I had also assumed that the swirling collection of thoughts and feelings around a given topic indicated something was in there, a legitimate reason or conclusion, and something to act upon and respond to: I thought somewhere underneath it all, there was a thing called “desire” that was real. This made it seem like I was entitled to a choice in terms of what was happening, and a justification to interpret what experience meant and how to respond. In reality, there is no choice as to what is happening: desire is nothing but an illusion, a distorting habit. There is simply no inherent reason to respond to anyone or anything in any predetermined way.
The image I had was that if the separate “self” was like a little person inside my head who was looking at a tablet computer, evaluating experience and calling all the shots, “desire and ill will” is the illusory tablet itself, jacked straight into sensory experience and running programmed simulations of what things are, could be and (especially) should be. It was an extensive and elaborate system of the memories, assumptions and stories about what I needed to do in response to a given situation. It was thus a complete set of ready-to-go interpretations and responses to anything encountered that, once triggered, can feed themselves, replicate and keep going. The illusion of desire and ill will is so subtle and thoroughly embedded that it happily continues even once the illusion of the “self” vanishes. No “me” is calling the shots, yet shots are still being called until all that machinery is disconnected.
As with seeing through the self, there it was, right before my eyes: desire and ill will are illusions, and it’s always been this way! I had read it many times, but it took seeing it first-hand to finally sink in. While “entitlement to choose” is how I would describe what desire and ill will looked and felt like, others would likely describe it differently, just as there are different explanations possible for what the “self” appeared to be.
Settling into this new perspective was quite natural. An ostensibly desirable person, thing, or situation could still elicit a habitual response: it was as if there were a lot of buttons related to desire that needed to get pushed at least once more to verify that no programmed response need occur anymore, a brief “Ooh, I've got a reaction to that!!... oops, never mind...”. Once reactions disappeared, so too did the suffering that went with them. There was no more feeling frustrated, tense, anxious, fearful, jealous, inconvenienced, resentful, or even irritated.
As with the self, seeing through sense desire and ill will was, in some ways, a very ordinary experience: there never was anything of the sort, and that’s that. However, there was a deep sense of peace and equanimity that seeing through self was not able to effect. There was a patient and unconditional acceptance of what is happening in experience that I could not have wrapped my head around before. Though I didn’t doubt what had happened, I let it be for several weeks to make sure, and watched as the next stages of the path, around subject/object duality, started to open up, signaling that it was time to move on.
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