Beyond self-preservation or destruction

Today I had an interview with Soryu. Currently I’m working on the question, “What sees, what hears, what feels, what knows?” My technique that I use for that is “noting” (more about noting at the end).

The latest issue that I faced was that I had problems dealing with unpleasant thoughts that would cause emotions of shame or fear. I was struggling with not suppressing these thoughts on the one hand and not giving them too much power on the other hand.

Soryu pointed out to me some very important insights that helped me a lot with my practice. First of all, he explained that when I practiced this way, I’d either try to preserve myself or destroy myself. Both ways are obviously not helpful.

When I asked him about a way out of this trap, he helped me find a middle way to not fall into one of the extremes. He said, “The emotions that you don’t like seem to attack you, they seem to try to destroy your self. And yet, this very act of attacking yourself is what you’re identifying with as yourself.

“Noting means that when something arises, you don’t identify with it but experience it completely. How to do it? You focus on it while letting go of it.”

That really struck me because, until this point, I had observed all these different sensations and tried not to engage with them, but I had still identified with them.