Initial draft…Â
Some flavors of being with experiences…
- Wanting it to stay. When attention is wholeheartedly with what is experienced, there is sometimes an accidental (and innocent) shift into wanting it to be there. It has been resisted for so long, so now that there is a wholehearted allowing and being with it, an impulse comes up to allow that to continue for a while. For instance, there is pain, resistance to it, then a shift into wholeheartedly being with it, a noticing this shift and the shift of experience itself, and then an element of wanting it (what initially appeared as pain) to stay. This element of accidentally and sincerely wanting it to stay seems to propel it on even faster. The initial experience, and even what it shifts into, moves along quickly. (Almost a form of reverse psychology.) If I notice this pattern and try to use it consciously to make something go away, it is not likely to work very well. I am only digging myself further down into resistance that way.
- As if would never go away. Being with an experience, as if it would never go away. This invites resistance to it going or staying to fall away, since it will always be there. There is just a simple being with it, as it is. Complexity, other motivations, and strategizing, tends to fall away, leaving it more simple.
- Wanting it to go away. Being with an experience because there is a wanting it to go away. This one is an identification with a belief and resistance, so the being with is half-hearted at best. There is an identification with a part of the content of experience (the belief, that which wants something to change), and a resistance to another portion of the content of experience (pain, emotions, etc.) so the split between the two seems very real. A half-hearted being with is not going to change this much. I have to be willing to let go of identification with any content, including these beliefs and identities, even if it is only for a moment. If I take myself to be one portion of content of experience, something else will be Other, there is inevitably resistance (wanting it to stay or go away) and so not a wholehearted being with of the whole field of content of experience. There can only be a wholehearted being with experience when there is a willingness to release identification with what I initially identified with.
- From the three centers...
- Head. This is a being with coming from seeing, from awake clarity. This one tends to be a dispassionate seeing.
- Belly. A felt-sense being with, one that is felt in the body. There is a felt-sense of how it is to be with that experience, and how it is when it is not seen as Other anymore.
- Heart. A loving being with, coming from the heart. When the being with includes the heart, there is a more wholehearted allowing of the content of experience as it is, without wanting or needing it to change. There is also a healing element here, allowing it to change and heal as it needs to, now in the absence of being resisted.
- All. A heart-felt being with, often starting with seeing and a felt-sense, which tends to invite the heart to join in.