The Tenth Fetter
My Experiences
Based on what arose working through the ninth fetter, it seemed pretty clear that the final inquiry for me would have something to do with knowing, certainty, reliability and predictability. I knew these descriptors could only be accomplished via thought, rather than being found anywhere in daily life, but I still wanted them. This was despite the fact that I knew that just because I could create the sense of (for example) certainty, it didn’t actually work.
At first it seemed like thinking and thought was the issue, and that life could and even should be lived via “just knowing” on a purely non-conceptual basis. And yet, one cannot get through daily life without cobbling together an ostensible “world” in which to live that life. A compromise of sorts was that I could think if I had to, but know that nothing in particular is known. I knew that I knew what I needed to know, and that was enough.
Keying off the name of the tenth fetter, I started to look at things from the perspective of “not-knowing”, the result of the belief that something definite, real, existing or tangible is known, but it actually is not. Not-knowing masquerades as knowing, but there isn’t any true knowledge associated with it. It’s simply an illusory mode of existence that, to that point, has been so convincing. However, not-knowing only masked or obscured true knowing, and provided the false sense of certainty and predictability I thought I needed.
It also struck me that relying on thinking was living life in an entirely indirect way. It allowed me to ornament my experience with what wasn’t actually true, which I was so used to doing. Thinking was like turning on a car engine: it would simply keep going as long as there is fuel in the tank.
As a result, I saw that thinking is fine, as long as I didn’t believe my thoughts. That lesson was initially learned when working through the first fetter, and realizing that the separate “Kevin” I was experiencing was just a concept. By the time I was working with the tenth fetter, not only supposedly tangible things like tables and chairs were finally seen to be mental constructs, but also more abstract things such as “certainty”, "predictability" and “knowledge”.
The day before the final shift happened, I started to search for whatever it was that seemed to reconcile reality with the content of thought, or whatever it was that translated between what I was simply experiencing and the version of it that had my various delusions piled on top. It seemed to compensate for not-knowing, and make it seem viable and even validate it. What and where was this translator?
The next morning, I sat and meditated a bit, asking myself if the indirect and interpretive framework in which I tried to live my life was valid, and if there was any reason not to take “No” for an answer to that question. It also became clear that my drivers in life had always been certainty and predictability, and I assumed I could find them. Not being able to find them, it seemed as though something was wrong.
While crossing the street an hour later on my way to work, the penny finally dropped. While my underlying assumption in life was that aspects of experience were certain and predictable, it’s not true, and it doesn’t need to be true. It didn’t seem to help that I was reminded a jillion times a day that this assumption wasn’t true: it was like I needed to fully accept that it was also unnecessary for it to finally disappear.
Prior to that, rather than accept I was wrong, I made up a compensatory version of what was happening, by which quasi-predictability was possible, even amidst all the evidence to the contrary. As a result, each time I was reminded it isn’t true, there was always a slight (or substantial) agitation, and even panic, along with the inclination to compensate, and to try to reconcile what I believed with what is actually true. It was as though I needed to translate what was happening into another language, such that I liked what I heard. I preferred to validate my beliefs rather than challenge them.
In the past few days I had been exploring what was actually and simply happening in experience to see if my assumptions held up, asking questions like:
While up to this point the answer was "Yes", or at least “I think so” or “I want it to be that way”, suddenly the answer was a definite “No”.
I finally realized that if I couldn’t take “No” for an answer, the probing and reaching out for consolation would simply continue, which was the basis for the restlessness of the ninth fetter that had recently faded away.
I saw that there was no reason to compensate for any view I might have: it’s just a view, and life goes on just fine without it. There’s no reason to be afraid of the truth.
There’s nothing in experience, no mechanism or anything else which was triggered by the unsettling disconnect between what was happening and what my conceptual framework called for. There was no need to keep trying to verify something that I knew wasn’t true.
It’s not true, and it doesn’t need to be true. Once I got across the street, it became clear, and I had to stand at the corner and laugh. And then I kept walking to work.
The next morning, I found myself at a loss: what to do? what to write? All I could muster was “um… this is new”.
It was odd that nothing needed to be true any longer. Nothing needed to add up, make sense, be known or even be. The phrase “in the seen, there is simply the seen” seemed obvious now.
There was no longer the inclination to “know” anything, and no inclination to put any conditions on life, such as that it be permanent, substantial or satisfying, or certain and predictable. And with that, there was no longer something left to do “spiritually” - there was a definite sense that this was “the end of the line”.
I no longer felt I needed to monitor what was happening, nor did I need to resort to thinking to provide assurance or predictability.
All resistance to life was gone: suffering had stopped.
At first it seemed like thinking and thought was the issue, and that life could and even should be lived via “just knowing” on a purely non-conceptual basis. And yet, one cannot get through daily life without cobbling together an ostensible “world” in which to live that life. A compromise of sorts was that I could think if I had to, but know that nothing in particular is known. I knew that I knew what I needed to know, and that was enough.
Keying off the name of the tenth fetter, I started to look at things from the perspective of “not-knowing”, the result of the belief that something definite, real, existing or tangible is known, but it actually is not. Not-knowing masquerades as knowing, but there isn’t any true knowledge associated with it. It’s simply an illusory mode of existence that, to that point, has been so convincing. However, not-knowing only masked or obscured true knowing, and provided the false sense of certainty and predictability I thought I needed.
It also struck me that relying on thinking was living life in an entirely indirect way. It allowed me to ornament my experience with what wasn’t actually true, which I was so used to doing. Thinking was like turning on a car engine: it would simply keep going as long as there is fuel in the tank.
As a result, I saw that thinking is fine, as long as I didn’t believe my thoughts. That lesson was initially learned when working through the first fetter, and realizing that the separate “Kevin” I was experiencing was just a concept. By the time I was working with the tenth fetter, not only supposedly tangible things like tables and chairs were finally seen to be mental constructs, but also more abstract things such as “certainty”, "predictability" and “knowledge”.
The day before the final shift happened, I started to search for whatever it was that seemed to reconcile reality with the content of thought, or whatever it was that translated between what I was simply experiencing and the version of it that had my various delusions piled on top. It seemed to compensate for not-knowing, and make it seem viable and even validate it. What and where was this translator?
The next morning, I sat and meditated a bit, asking myself if the indirect and interpretive framework in which I tried to live my life was valid, and if there was any reason not to take “No” for an answer to that question. It also became clear that my drivers in life had always been certainty and predictability, and I assumed I could find them. Not being able to find them, it seemed as though something was wrong.
While crossing the street an hour later on my way to work, the penny finally dropped. While my underlying assumption in life was that aspects of experience were certain and predictable, it’s not true, and it doesn’t need to be true. It didn’t seem to help that I was reminded a jillion times a day that this assumption wasn’t true: it was like I needed to fully accept that it was also unnecessary for it to finally disappear.
Prior to that, rather than accept I was wrong, I made up a compensatory version of what was happening, by which quasi-predictability was possible, even amidst all the evidence to the contrary. As a result, each time I was reminded it isn’t true, there was always a slight (or substantial) agitation, and even panic, along with the inclination to compensate, and to try to reconcile what I believed with what is actually true. It was as though I needed to translate what was happening into another language, such that I liked what I heard. I preferred to validate my beliefs rather than challenge them.
In the past few days I had been exploring what was actually and simply happening in experience to see if my assumptions held up, asking questions like:
- “Is permanence true?”
- “Can I predict or control what happens?”
- “Is my interpretive framework valid?”
- “Can I understand what is happening conceptually?”
While up to this point the answer was "Yes", or at least “I think so” or “I want it to be that way”, suddenly the answer was a definite “No”.
I finally realized that if I couldn’t take “No” for an answer, the probing and reaching out for consolation would simply continue, which was the basis for the restlessness of the ninth fetter that had recently faded away.
I saw that there was no reason to compensate for any view I might have: it’s just a view, and life goes on just fine without it. There’s no reason to be afraid of the truth.
There’s nothing in experience, no mechanism or anything else which was triggered by the unsettling disconnect between what was happening and what my conceptual framework called for. There was no need to keep trying to verify something that I knew wasn’t true.
It’s not true, and it doesn’t need to be true. Once I got across the street, it became clear, and I had to stand at the corner and laugh. And then I kept walking to work.
The next morning, I found myself at a loss: what to do? what to write? All I could muster was “um… this is new”.
It was odd that nothing needed to be true any longer. Nothing needed to add up, make sense, be known or even be. The phrase “in the seen, there is simply the seen” seemed obvious now.
There was no longer the inclination to “know” anything, and no inclination to put any conditions on life, such as that it be permanent, substantial or satisfying, or certain and predictable. And with that, there was no longer something left to do “spiritually” - there was a definite sense that this was “the end of the line”.
I no longer felt I needed to monitor what was happening, nor did I need to resort to thinking to provide assurance or predictability.
All resistance to life was gone: suffering had stopped.