9 Direct Experience Vs Beliefs And The Anatomy Of Suffering

Listen to your self and have your own direct experience... question everyone and thing. Believe only if you don't really know. In this podcast, we are going to begin to look more deeply at our being and what motivates our thoughts. Hurt, fear, anger which are made of tension. We are stopping long enough to look for ourselves. We are suffering.... how are we making our own suffering? What do we do? To see is to be free. This is one of the first steps into clarity and awakening.

Transcript

Hello,

This is William Cooper.

Welcome to Awakening Together.

Are you doing okay today?

I hope so.

Today we're going to look at the anatomy of suffering.

Remember to see is to be free.

When we look in the corner and see that that cobra is only a rope,

Then we're free from our fear.

So we're going to look closely at suffering or at least begin the process because most of us are suffering.

Before we talk about that though,

There's a very important principle and I would like to talk to you about that.

And that's the principle of direct experience.

In India,

They say unless you have the direct experience of something,

You really don't know it.

For instance,

Unless you taste chocolate,

You really don't know chocolate.

Unless you actually jump in the water and go for a swim,

You don't really know what it's like to swim,

Even if you've read a thousand books and talked to hundreds of people about swimming.

It's the same about awakening.

Everybody's talking about it.

But unless you've actually experienced awakening and are awake,

You don't have the direct experience of it.

Well,

What about beliefs?

They say that yes,

If you believe something,

That means you don't really know it.

Beliefs are good,

They're fine,

But they highlight the fact you believe something because you really don't know it.

You haven't had the direct experience of it.

For instance,

If you doubt,

Because you doubt,

You start reading a lot of books.

It's a counteractive strategy,

Or you talk to lots of people,

Or you try to have lots of experiences.

But you're doing those things because you have a fundamental doubt.

So you're reacting against the doubt,

Even after you've read the book and you've shored up your mind because you've latched on to some beliefs.

Unless you've had the direct experience,

The doubt still remains.

All that you've done is simply trying to counteract something that still exists,

The doubt.

Okay,

Now let's look at meditation.

Meditation is a process for you to start having a direct experience of truly who you are so that you don't have to counteract and simply believe and trust who you might be.

But in the beginning,

There still are a lot of counteractive experiences that you will have and you'll work through them in the beginning of your meditations.

What do I mean by that?

Well,

Somebody that's awake is not diffused or distracted from themselves.

They are their true selves without problems.

They may have problems,

But they're not immersed and distracted by their problems.

They don't see themselves as the problem.

They might experience problems,

But they are not the problem.

So they experience themselves very purely like a radiant atomic bomb.

I mean,

And I use that word atomic bomb because it's visceral and it's explosive.

It's explosive light and bliss and wellbeing.

Very clear love and peace.

Every good thing that you've already experienced because you are being right now,

It's there and you,

There's nothing you have to do.

It's simply covered up.

For them,

It's not covered up.

That's who they are.

They don't leave that.

From there,

They flow into the world to solve problems that they're not.

To let go of old diffusions and psychologies that still might remain some traces.

But they never mistake themselves for those things.

Now,

When we first start meditating,

It's quite a different experience.

We sit down and the instructions are to just watch your thoughts,

Experience them.

But for most people,

That's almost impossible at first because we're so addicted to our thoughts.

We get sucked into them and our emotions.

We get sucked into them.

We can't put them down.

Try it.

You probably can't go five minutes without jumping into your thoughts because we're so addicted.

Did I say five minutes?

I meant five seconds.

One second.

That's how addicted we are.

Well,

Let's watch the process and I'm going to describe it to you in this podcast and the podcast to come.

Not to make it the truth,

But I'll say it and then you see your direct experience.

Is this true for me?

Because until you experience it and unless you experience it,

It's simply a belief like we just discussed.

You want the direct experience.

That's solid.

But to move us along quickly,

I'm going to describe,

I'm going to throw some light on things step by step and you check it out over time and see if it's true for you or not.

When you sit down,

The first thing to notice,

The part of you that's aware of everything is quite clear and silent.

Everything that you're aware of might be full of cacophony and problems and emotions and turmoil and lots of thoughts and clutter,

But they're really only two things.

There's that which is aware,

The true you,

And that which you're aware of.

That's not you.

That's what you're aware of.

Thoughts,

Emotions,

All these things.

As you sit there and you get sucked into these thoughts and emotions,

Quietly withdraw back into yourself,

Your true self,

Your being,

The part that's aware,

And again,

Attempt to simply watch your emotions or experience your emotions without getting sucked in.

Watch your thoughts,

Experience your thoughts without getting sucked in.

Well,

Over time,

As I mentioned before,

Awareness is curative and slowly you'll be sucked in less and less and less.

As you watch those thoughts,

Start to wonder what's motivating these thoughts.

Why do they keep coming back and back and back?

As you watch them and experience them,

You'll start to notice that they're motivated by three things.

One of three things,

Hurt,

Fear,

Or anger,

Some version of that.

She did that and I need to do that and I can't believe it,

Or I'm so afraid that I've got to lock my door at night and what if this happens and what if that happens?

Did I set the security alarm?

Oh,

I wonder if they gave me the right change at the grocery store and ah.

Fear or anxiety or there's anger.

Life is not right and I'm so unhappy and I don't have a good relationship and why is that and I can't meditate and ah,

And it's frustrating and I just try to do the simplest things and they don't work out and oh.

Hurt fear or anger,

That's motivating 95% of our thoughts,

Right?

There are 5% of our thoughts that are simply functional.

How to start the car,

How to walk the dog,

How to eat a sandwich.

All the rest are just being motivated by this incessant hurt,

Fear,

And anger.

As you look at your hurt,

Fear,

And anger,

As you drop down to that level,

What's that made of?

That's made of attention.

Simply attention.

There's something closed in you.

There's something closed in that hurt,

Fear,

And anger.

Now why are we looking at these things right now?

Because if you don't see them,

They can't release.

To see is to be free.

This is simply the first step.

I guarantee you what we've talked about now is not going to solve much at first,

But it's a beginning.

It's something for you to check out.

Is it true for you?

These things evolve,

So something that might seem true or not true now might seem different the clearer you become.

The only way to become clear,

Or I should say one of the better ways to become clear,

Is to stop stirring the water.

Stop distracting yourself.

How?

You sit down and meditate.

Meditate is another word for stop.

Stop getting involved in your addiction of thinking and emotion and activity and distraction and pleasures and trying to fulfill yourself in so many different other ways because you're in fundamental pain underneath it all.

We're going to get to this in another podcast,

But for now let's just start with your five minutes of meditation a day,

Just like we talked about in the last podcast.

Let the dust begin to settle and start to look from awareness at what's going on in your consciousness.

Remember it's your consciousness.

You created it.

What's going on in there and why can't you stop it?

If you could stop it,

You would have a long time ago.

You're helpless,

At least up until now.

Let's leave it there.

Take some time.

Start to begin to have a direct experience of what is happening inside of you,

Even if you don't like it.

Trust me,

It's all going to work out just fine.

All right.

I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Take care.

Bye.

Reviews

Sooooo good and enjoying this second go around in order! Blessings William!

Thoughts are triggered by hurt, fear and anger, ie tension. Great reminder!

Direct experience vs belief is something I will sit with. Isn’t it interesting how powerful our attention is? I can get sucked into a series of thoughts and I stop altogether hearing what you’re saying (this happened during your talk). Until my awareness notices and then I come back and am able to observe what I thought and hear you again. I just always find that so fascinating how powerful attention is. Which seems to overpower our awareness. Curious your thoughts on that. 💭🙏🏼💗

Key learning from this podcast: To see is to be free. If you allow yourself to see, you can release emotions of the past. Thank you !

I desire direct experiences to melt my beliefs. I am helpless. If I knew what to do I would have done it!
When you spoke those beliefs I laughed out loud are you in my head? I'm unaware of what my hurt, anger, and fear is made up of... until now

TY! I “think” this makes so much sense. Experiencing vs believing!

William,
Thank You 😊! I always appreciate when you layer in Eastern culture and perspective. “Direct Experience vs Beliefs” really helps. “Meditation allows us to stop long enough to know ourselves” and our suffering too - brilliant! This is my third time through. 🙏
Be Well My Friend!
Peace ☮️.
~Jennifer Lea

I’m finding myself really engulfed in your message. I appreciate the time you’ve taken to share it with us. Thank you so much. It’s all helping me shape my practice. My emotions have been misplaced for so long. I’ve never known why. But I am discovering so much through your and many others work on insight timer. Thank you. 🙏🏾🌸🙏

Thank you 🙏