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Already Free by Bruce Tift

Already Free by Bruce Tift

by Parker · 94 things on Twos

Our lives are not problems to be solved
If we want to be free, then we can’t have walled off pockets of experience that we spend our life avoiding
If we can face our worst fears, then maybe they won’t continue to secretly run our life
Where does real confidence come from if not from knowing that we can handle whatever experience comes our way?
“Embodied immediacy” - in whatever moment we find ourselves, in the immediacy of this moment, we experience our physical sensations without analysis or interpretation. And we stay with it
The western view is to improve ourselves and our circumstances
The Buddhist view is not primarily to improve our experience; instead, it is to invite a shift in perspective so that we are willing and able to fully relate to any experience we might have, regardless of what it may be
“Enlightenment is an accident—but meditation makes us accident-prone.” - Baker Roshi
It makes sense to be kind to oneself, to everyone
The experience of freedoms arises not from acquiring our preferred lifestyle and our preferred state of mind but from a willingness to stay with ourselves—to be completely committed to experiencing our lives—regardless of circumstance
There is a larger sense of self—a larger life—that we could be living, if only we were able to drop our unconscious identification with this past character and become curious about who we might be right now
If we start to believe that the past is causing our present circumstances, then we’ve positioned ourselves as powerless victims
For a month, drop any claim that there’s something wrong. No more complaints, resentments, or blame
What am I feeling right now that I don’t want to feel
Stages of dissolving our internal divisions
Awakening out of taking our experience at face value and seeing what’s really been going on
Investigate and begin to increase our tolerance for fear and disturbances
It’s not our fears that are perpetuating our avoidant strategies but our efforts to not be aware of these fears
Accept and say yes to ourselves and the truth of our experience
Move towards what’s difficult, the disturbance starts to feel more manageable
Welcome our disturbance
We want to feel these feelings because they’re us
Commit completely to the truth of our experience
Love our worst fears
We’re doing our best to bring unconditional kindness into our familiar, conditioned experiencing
What a relief to be unconditionally kind to the messy, confused human that we are
The past profoundly shapes what arises in this present moment, and how we engage in this moment profoundly influences what arises in the future. But our experiencing is only found in each present moment
We are already free. Nothing needs to change for us to feel complete and at peace except our own perception of reality
Our immediate experience is the whole point from the beginning. Being present in every moment
It’s not about improving the content of our experience. Instead, it’s about creating a shift in how we relate to the experiences we are having at any moment
Basic breathing meditation: begin by paying attention to your breathing, without commentary. Once you feel settled, attend to any experiencing that arises. Maintain a sense of open curiosity and awareness. If you become fascinated with some drama or dialogue, return to your breathing as a way to return to embodied immediacy. Practice with a sense of nothing to accomplish, only appreciating your irresolvable and unending stream of experiencing
Awareness is said to be without bias. We’re just as aware of feeling happy as we are of feeling sad; we’re just as aware of being healthy as we are of dying. Awareness doesn’t have preferences. It’s always there, regardless
Our work is holding the intention to relax, over and over again, into what is already present
Every experiences arises in a larger experience of awareness. When viewed from the perspective of awareness, our preferences fall away. We no longer have a bias toward joy and away from depression. Regardless of circumstances, our experience is one of freedom. Resting in awareness is resting in a freedom that is not dependent on any conditions. We begin to see that, in the present moment, nothing is incomplete. There’s no deficit; there’s nothing missing. Everything is just what it is, with no comparisons possible until we introduce interpretations
Life is incredibly complex, always changing, and not under our control
We’re always projecting our preferences onto our experience and assuming our interpretations are a reliable measure of what’s really going on
“What we resist, persists”
It’s rare that you can suddenly achieve a goal. But you can always commit to a practice that you hope will move you in that direction
What would it be like if this is it, if life never gets any better than it is at this moment?
As we become less identified with our interpretations about our experience, and participate more in our experience, we may find no inherent evidence that anything we experience is actually about us
For those of us who want to wake up for the benefit of both ourselves and others, it’s important to remember that part of being of benefit is to clean up our own act
The sense of well-being is forever present—we just have to remember to discipline our attention
A good state of mind is always available. Nothing is required. We don’t have to do anything at all except look for it, because it’s always there
We have a collective societal fantasy that we’re not supposed to feel anxious. We relate to our experience of anxiety as evidence that there must be something wrong with us or our lives
Absent a central struggle, we have no center to our life at all. We just show up each moment and deal with our life as it happens
Develop a confidence in our willingness and ability to experience our fear, anxiety, and negativity and to work with whatever may arise at any moment
What more open experience am I refusing to participate in right now?
Until we’re ready to be present, embodied, and kind toward the truth of our experience, we will have an investment in maintaining neurotic struggle
Struggle is an incredibly complex and effective way to present to ourselves that we’re dealing with our lives without really doing so. It allows us to believe we’re trying to solve our problems, while simultaneously guaranteeing that no change will really take place
Bringing repressed material into awareness allows us to feel more integrated, less divided
The point is to stay present with all of my experiencing with no agenda of understanding, healing, or resolving; just participating in whatever arises with awareness
I relate to whatever arises with awareness, embodied immediacy, and unconditional kindness, cultivating a resilient relationship with all experiencing
As we gradually allow our various hopes and fears to coexist, we find there is, in fact, no resolution necessary. Experiencing our worst fears doesn’t kill us, and experiencing our greatest hope doesn’t save us. Both are only transient energies. Being willing to consciously participate in negative and positive feelings equally, we begin to cultivate an attitude of nonbias
Not knowing who we are does not make us dysfunctional. On the contrary, it gives rise to the experience of freedom, unconditional confidence, and openheartedness
Bring our attention out of interpretation and into sensation. When we do this, we are bringing our attention out of our history and into what is most true in the immediate moment
Relax into awareness as being experienced through the body, to allow our conscious minds to surrender into the experience of what it means to be an embodied being, right now
Focusing on bodily sensations can be a powerful practice in both dissolving unnecessary neurotic suffering and in inviting more frequent moments of open awareness
7 fundamental states of affective arousal: anger, happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, anxiety, and surprise
Physicality comes first, followed by emotionality, and then the capacity to use thoughts and symbols. From this point of view, sensations are very reliable, very human, and basically impersonal—that is, they aren’t heavily shaped by personal history. Interpretations, on the other hand, are often deeply shaped by our patterned, conditioned history
By training ourselves to remain present with our anxiety, we have the opportunity to discover that it’s our avoidance of our core vulnerabilities that gives them the appearance of being a threat; there is nothing inherently harmful in these vulnerabilities themselves
When we find no actual problem in what’s most true in our immediate experience, we gradually develop a trust that it’s safe and workable to stay in relation with this experience
The attitude of being willing to feel flooded with intensity at any moment actually gives rise to a very strong confidence—confidence in our capacity to be present and engaged and to keep our hearts open
There’s no “I” being mindful of our body, there’s only our embodied experiencing happening
Pure awareness is an absolute experience, while everything else is relative
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Buddhists believe our sense of basic disconnection is illusionary, maintained out of awareness, moment by moment, with great effort and creativity
All life forms must have both the qualities of separateness and of connection. Any life form must compete for resources and defend itself. And any life form is completely interconnected with its physical and biological environment
The energy of separation includes a capacity to rest in one’s existential aloneness, to have boundaries, to asset needs, to allow other people to have their own lives, to not feel inaccurately involved with others, to resist influence from the environment, and to maintain a familiar structure over time
The energy of connection includes the awareness that we’re all interdependent. It’s characterized by the qualities of empathy, accommodation, support, a willingness to welcome influence from our environment, and continual change
No relationship will work well if we lose touch with our fundamental aloneness and compromise our integrity
In relationship, it works best to lead with our experience of connection when things are friendly, going well, cooperative
When both partners are leading with connection, it’s the time for sharing our vulnerabilities, risking discussions about sensitive issues, exposing aspects of ourselves that we usually keep private
Every balanced relationship includes both togetherness and separation
So many people who desire more intimacy and closeness with their partners would actually benefit from stepping back and getting comfortable with feeling alone
When no one is really available or interested in the child, the last thing that child will do is not I assert any separateness. As an adult, this person might mysteriously end up with a partner who is emotionally unavailable—because that’s the kind of relationship the adult knows and understands
It’s difficult to acknowledge the truth of separateness. It feels like we’re risking loss of the relationship
Traditionally women have been taught that their worth as persons comes from relationship, from their ability to be sensitive to the needs of others
Men are taught that their worth comes from their ability to stand up as separate people. If a man shows too much dependency or emotional sensitivity, he’s often criticized as not being manly enough
Just as personal neurosis can have incredibly damaging effects on one’s sense of self and confidence in the world, so codependency can slowly kill the love between two people. The more each of us blames and feels blamed, without taking care of ourselves, the more damage is caused
When we’re taking good care of ourselves—paying attention to our own needs and not expecting our partners to do it for us—we are still affected by our mates, but their behavior doesn’t occur as a survival-level threat
Taking care of ourselves includes setting boundaries and communicating them to our partner
“The awakened mind is that mind intimate with all things.” - Dōgen
I love you, but I’m not here on the planet to be who you want me to be or to take care of your feelings for you. And I guess you’re not here to be who I want you to be or to take care of my feelings
Behave as if your partner were your best friend, was on your side, as if you were appreciated of their trying their best
Whenever you realize you’re interpreting your experience of your partner as a familiar complaint, practice new ways of understanding that present their behavior as an expression of their health and their good intentions
Focus on what you appreciate about your partner, on all of the evidence that doesn’t support your complaint
You actually have powerful investments in enabling and continuing exactly the problems you like to complain about
If we were taking really good care of ourselves, we would not have complaints. We’d be taking such good care of ourselves that we wouldn’t need our partners to be any different than they already are
Whatever complaint you have about another person is actually an indication that somehow they have not taken effective responsibility for your own well-being
When we do not take good care of ourselves in relationship, we almost always contract into a state of self absorption
The most satisfying life is one that is fully lived, rather than one in which we’ve accumulated the most positive experiences
Ignoring is the most basic cause of unnecessary suffering
As we dissolve the vivid appearance of self-absorption, what we experience gradually becomes less about “me” and more about the experience itself
Discard nothing, appreciate everything. Look for freedom in every moment of our life. If you look for what’s already there, you are likely to find it. The experience of freedom is already there