A portion of what we think of as being human are effects of beliefs. It is the portion that has to do with a rigid view, reactive emotions and behaviors, and a more closed heart.

How do we relate to this part of our humanness?

Often, we defend it. We find reasons why it is right and even good. Or we may be ashamed, unable to change it much even as we see it unfold. We may blindly be in the grips of it, experiencing it and also living it out in ways we sometimes regret afterwards. We may distract ourselves from it as much as possible. We may try to stuff it, holding it back, resisting the experience or living from it.

Or we may work with it more consciously.

We can allow these parts their voice and insights, through Process Work, Voice Dialog or the Big Mind process. We can step into their perspective, and see what they have to say to our human self, what they ask of us, what their contributions are, what gifts they offer, and how our human self can relate to them in a more constructive way, and how they can help our human self in a more constructive way.

We can allow the experience fully. We can fully allow the anger, sadness, pain, frustration, or whatever it may be. Just by releasing identification with the resistance to it, a lot changes. There is a release of identification with the dynamic as a whole (whatever arises and the resistance to it), which gives a sense of freedom from it, and even an opportunity of a more conscious choice in how to relate to it and express it.

We can use it as a pointer or invitation to explore more in detail what is going on. For instance, what is the belief behind the reactiveness? Is it true? What happens when I believe that thought? Who would I be without it? What are the grain of truths in its turnarounds?

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My partner mentioned something earlier today which reminded me of the one taste of fully experiencing… It seems that whenever I fully experience something, there is a sense of fullness and expansiveness, and it is tinged with bliss. And this is there independent of what is fully experienced… pain, joy, sadness, longing, bliss, dullness, fear, anger, frustration, excitement…

What is experienced colors the overall experience, of course, but it is almost secondary to the fullness, expansiveness and quiet stream of bliss that is there when it is fully experienced…

It is another form of one taste.

One Taste of Buddhism

And it is not that different from the One Taste of Buddhism either, as fully experiencing allows Spirit to awaken to itself, to notice itself as the field of seeing & seen, inherently absent of boundaries, of I and Other, of any separate I. It releases attachment to resistance, and since resistance is what gives rise to the separate-self sense in the first place, the sense of a separate I falls away along with the attachment to resistance.

Real life

This doesn’t mean that just being with our experiences automatically pops us into full awakening. Mainly because it is very difficult (for me at least) to fully be with my experiences. There is usually some trace of resistance… of attachment to resistance… left.

But whenever I am with my experiences, quietly, without adding more stories to it, there is certainly a taste of it. A glimpse of how it is when the separate-self sense fades into the background, and the fullness of what is comes into the foreground.

It is a way to get more familiar with it, dip our toes in the water. Until there is a more clear and stable shift.