Does Resistance Really Exist?

[Orb]

^

[Blessed2]

I just wondered about the same thing kinda.

 

I was downtown with my girlfriend and I was really hungry and we had some trouble finding a good place to eat. So I felt irritation and we had a bit of a fight.

 

Later I apologized and said that I was just being stupid.

 

But I wonder if I really were stupid. Is that the right word? What was I being?

 

Discordant thoughts were appearing, or discordant thoughts were believed, and irritation was felt.

 

Maybe it could be said that if I were better(?) somehow, maybe the emotional guidance would have been listened to and thought aligned with feeling.

 

But why didn't that happen? Why did it go down the fighting-route and not the alignment-route?

 

Was I being stupid, or weak, or lazy, for not listening to the guidance and aligning thought with feeling? Was I resisting? Was I unwilling? What was I being?

 

Why didn't alignment happen?

 

🤷

 

Edited August 23 by Blessed2

[MetaSage]

Depends of what we are talking about, in my view. 

 

Existentially? Who knows? But certainly you experience resistance and struggle from time to time. Whenever you fail to meet a desire or want, there has been resistance. Etc. 

 

So what is resistance again? :D 

[Phil]

Consciousness exists and is being two spheres; a world and a lens. 

Resistance is of the lens and is how thoughts, beliefs and interpretations about consciousness feel to consciousness. 

‘Getting out of your own way’ is, as, consciousness. 

[Phil]

On 8/22/2024 at 8:37 PM, Blessed2 said:

But I wonder if I really were stupid. Is that the right word? What was I being?

 

Discordant thoughts were appearing, or discordant thoughts were believed, and irritation was felt.

 

Maybe it could be said that if I were better(?) somehow, maybe the emotional guidance would have been listened to and thought aligned with feeling.

 

But why didn't that happen? Why did it go down the fighting-route and not the alignment-route?

 

Was I being stupid, or weak, or lazy, for not listening to the guidance and aligning thought with feeling? Was I resisting? Was I unwilling? What was I being?

 

Why didn't alignment happen?

It went down the (conflict) fighting-route / the emotional guidance (harmony) wasn’t ’listened to’, because thoughts about an additional second self obscured awareness. 

 

Alignment is of thought with feeling, not of a ‘small self’ with a ‘big self’, or of a finite self with its source. The self which is stupid, weak, lazy etc, isn’t a self, but is an apparent experience of thoughts about another, second, additional self.

 

Emotions which are not listened to / obscured by beliefs (thoughts about a second self) play out as actions & behaviors (the ‘fighting’). 

Emotions which are felt & acknowledged as guidance and therein unobscured, do not play out as actions & behaviors (no conflict / fighting). 

 

“I was really hungry and we had some trouble finding a good place to eat” is obscuring as a thought, a belief about there being a separate second self and separate selves, whereas pessimism is felt as guidance for the very thought. 

 

You’re creating either way. What’s desired manifests of alignment. 

The miraculous profundity is that it seems like there is mundane or ordinary, like “being hungry or trouble finding somewhere to eat”. 

[Orb]

1 hour ago, Phil said:

It went down the (conflict) fighting-route / the emotional guidance (harmony) wasn’t ’listened to’, because thoughts about an additional second self obscured awareness. 

 

Alignment is of thought with feeling, not of a ‘small self’ with a ‘big self’, or of a finite self with its source. The self which is stupid, weak, lazy etc, isn’t a self, but is an apparent experience of thoughts about another, second, additional self.

 

Emotions which are not listened to / obscured by beliefs (thoughts about a second self) play out as actions & behaviors (the ‘fighting’). 

Emotions which are felt & acknowledged as guidance and therein unobscured, do not play out as actions & behaviors (no conflict / fighting). 

 

“I was really hungry and we had some trouble finding a good place to eat” is obscuring as a thought, a belief about there being a separate second self and separate selves, whereas pessimism is felt as guidance for the very thought. 

 

You’re creating either way. What’s desired manifests of alignment. 

The miraculous profundity is that it seems like there is mundane or ordinary, like “being hungry or trouble finding somewhere to eat”. 

I don't really understand what's meant by listening to the guidance. Would you mind providing an example of someone listening to the guidance? Are you referring to allowing the emotion without pushing/pulling it?

[Orb]

On 8/22/2024 at 8:37 PM, Blessed2 said:

I just wondered about the same thing kinda.

 

I was downtown with my girlfriend and I was really hungry and we had some trouble finding a good place to eat. So I felt irritation and we had a bit of a fight.

 

Later I apologized and said that I was just being stupid.

 

But I wonder if I really were stupid. Is that the right word? What was I being?

 

Discordant thoughts were appearing, or discordant thoughts were believed, and irritation was felt.

 

Maybe it could be said that if I were better(?) somehow, maybe the emotional guidance would have been listened to and thought aligned with feeling.

 

But why didn't that happen? Why did it go down the fighting-route and not the alignment-route?

 

Was I being stupid, or weak, or lazy, for not listening to the guidance and aligning thought with feeling? Was I resisting? Was I unwilling? What was I being?

 

Why didn't alignment happen?

 

🤷

 

Yea, that background sense of resistance, that's what im talking about. It seems like its there, but is it really there?

[Orb]

20 hours ago, MetaSage said:

Depends of what we are talking about, in my view. 

 

Existentially? Who knows? But certainly you experience resistance and struggle from time to time. Whenever you fail to meet a desire or want, there has been resistance. Etc. 

 

So what is resistance again? 😄

That sense that feels like "somethings wrong" "if something arising right now in this moment disappeared Id feel a lot better". Like for example youre experiencing extreme irritation, you just can't help but resist it, you know that its only an emotion, you know that to embrace it is best, but you just can't, even while meditating and allowing the space for that emotion, deep down you wish it would go away. That is whats meant by resistance, seems to be a common experience. Im questioning if this is a real phenomenon or if its based on something illusory, as confusing as that may sound.

[Orb]

1 hour ago, Phil said:

Consciousness exists and is being two spheres; a world and a lens. 

Resistance is of the lens and is how thoughts, beliefs and interpretations about consciousness feel to consciousness. 

‘Getting out of your own way’ is, as, consciousness. 

That makes sense, but is resistance actually real? 

 

Its kind of like enlightenment, it seems really real at first, then it just fades away and is seen to have never been real.

[Phil]

1 hour ago, Orb said:

I don't really understand what's meant by listening to the guidance. Would you mind providing an example of someone listening to the guidance? Are you referring to allowing the emotion without pushing/pulling it?

Imagine standing in a kitchen with a hand on a hot stove and talking about understanding.  It’s the same with emotion. Understanding doesn’t apply and is the obscuring. 

[Phil]

2 hours ago, Orb said:

That makes sense, but is resistance actually real? 

 

Its kind of like enlightenment, it seems really real at first, then it just fades away and is seen to have never been real.

There isn’t real and not real, there’s the apparent thought that there is. Enlightenment doesn’t fade, but can seem obscured by thoughts. Just like the sun doesn’t fade, but could be obscured by clouds.

[MetaSage]

On 8/26/2024 at 4:47 PM, Orb said:

That sense that feels like "somethings wrong" "if something arising right now in this moment disappeared Id feel a lot better". Like for example youre experiencing extreme irritation, you just can't help but resist it, you know that its only an emotion, you know that to embrace it is best, but you just can't, even while meditating and allowing the space for that emotion, deep down you wish it would go away. That is whats meant by resistance, seems to be a common experience. Im questioning if this is a real phenomenon or if its based on something illusory, as confusing as that may sound.

 

It seems to me to be an activity whose author is you. So it can be not done. Kind of a difficult shift to make but it is possible. Start with a slight annoyance by letting it be completely.