As Pema Chödrön says, there is a wisdom in no escape.
We notice that content of experience is what it is, right now, and that identifying with resistance to it only creates drama and suffering, so I may as well fully allow it, in a wholehearted way, as it is, as if it would never change.
And we may also notice that the sense of no escape is created from wanting to escape, in three ways.
First, without the thought of escape, there is no thought of no escape.
Then, by identifying with the thought of wanting escape, we try to escape, and realize it cannot be done.
And finally, identifying with the intention of escape is exactly how we are trapped in a sense of no escape.It brings identification firmly within content of experience, in this case the thought and intention and attempts of escape, so our identification is trapped within content of experience. We take ourselves to be an object in the world, at the mercy of the whims of a world living its own life.
Yet, as soon as identification is released out of this identification, there is an escape. When we fully allow experience as it is, including resistance to experience, there is a release of identification out of content of experience.
We find ourselves as that which experience happens within, to and as.
We find ourselves as that which is inherently free from any experience, allows all experience, and that all experience happens within, to and as.
We find ourselves as that which doesn’t need to escape. It is already free from it, so there is no need to escape that which does not bind. And it is already any content of experience happening, so there is no need to escape that which is not Other.
So to summarize:
- The wisdom of no escape is to realize that what is, is. The content of experience, here now, is what it is. Trying to escape it only creates drama and suffering. Fully allowing it invites in a sense of peace and clarity.
- The sense of no escape is created in three ways.
- Without the thought of escape, no thought of no escape.
- It is the trying to escape, which brings us to notice that there is no escape.
- And it is the identification with that thought of escaping which traps us in the first place. It brings identification firmly within the world of form, so we are trapped within it and the whims of this world of form.
- As soon as we fully allow content of experience as it is, as if it would never change, identification is released out of content of experience. We find ourselves as that which content of experience happens within, to and as. As that which is already free from content of experience, because there is no identification with the thought of escape, because it is that which the ever changing world of form happens within, to and as, and because content of experience is not Other.