Self-Inquiry Guide to the Ninth Fetter
Introduction
The Buddhist tradition describes three characteristics we naturally tend to seek in daily life, especially concerning ourselves, yet we can never actually find or experience them. We want there to be an aspect of experience that is enduringly or permanently owned, controllable, and “in here”, but with the falling of the eighth fetter we know that simply isn’t available. We want what we experience about ourselves to be real, tangible, and substantial, by which what we observe and experience inherently “is what it is”, yet we now know that is clearly not available either. Finally, we want to always feel good, but by this stage of the path that still isn’t the case. However, that doesn’t mean we have let go of wanting and even expecting these three things!
As it turns out, it is these three unrealistic expectations that have caused the anguish and suffering in our lives, and with the ninth fetter we can finally start to examine them. Moving forward involves regularly reminding ourselves that what we seek simply isn’t available, taking care to avoid trying to confirm the opposite (for example, trying to confirm that “impermanence” is true, as opposed to simply observing that “permanence” isn’t available). That these three items are reminders about what we can’t find, rather than describing the way things really are, is discussed in more detail here.
While these three reminders are primarily concerned with what we want to observe and know about ourselves, we also have the same expectations regarding everything else we experience. And yet, we are only chasing concepts. To see this, please look at an inanimate object such as a cup: what do you directly observe by simply looking at it, without having to resort to thinking about it? For example:
The Ninth Fetter
With the shift of the 8th fetter, a lot has changed: all sense of identity, “I” and “me” is now gone, as is the experience of there being an inner (and thus outer) aspect to experience. The ninth fetter can be described as continued searching for the qualities that you have always sought and even expect which your identity seemed to provide, such as a sense of stability and security, an apparent means of feeling good, or something that was definite and knowable. Or, your identity may have given you a sense of having control. Because of this, there is still a mismatch between what you expect (such as reliability, always feeling good, etc.) and what you actually get. You therefore still search for a different version of what is currently happening, though because you no longer can point to examples or manifestations of what you seek, something seems wrong, or at least not right.
Our natural tendency is to not just resist this mismatch, but to rise up against it. The sense of “rising up” is the basis of the traditional term for the ninth fetter (uddhacca). This rising up manifests as restlessness (because something seems wrong) and also seeking to compensate for your lingering expectations (because surely you can’t be wrong here!): these two terms are how the fetter may be translated, and the form your resistance and "rising up" takes.
The suggested approach is, as with other fetters, a two-step process:
(1) determine what you expect to find; and
(2) verify whether or not you can find it.
However, rather than looking for something (such as a reactivity "button") that you assume exists based on the fact that you react, here you will look for something (such as predictability or always feeling good) that you assume exists even though you have no apparent proof that it exists. Instead, there is a fundamental belief, and therefore expectation, that daily life could or should be that way: it's simply something you want to be true. The ninth fetter is also not a self-referent fetter: you won’t be looking “in here” for anything, since all sense of inside (and thus outside) have fallen away, by which the looking will take place everywhere in experience.
There have been warnings all along to this point regarding potential effects of the awakening process. One of the primary purposes the sense of an identity served was to provide both a context for and example of the qualities which you want to experience. For example, the sense of "me" or "I" can seem to offer a sense of predictability, control, stability, permanence, knowing-ness and a means by which you can always feel good. As a result, a perceived identity can be helpful in managing and even compartmentalizing trauma. Without that identity, unresolved trauma stored in the body can now fully and freely emerge, which can lead to a surprising amount of suffering. For many if not most, this can be quite mild, if it happens at all, but for some it can be fairly intense. While I am not aware of anyone for whom this did not resolve in a matter of days or weeks, rather than immediately pressing on with the unfettering process, it may be best to first seek professional help to address such trauma.
Step 1 – Why Do You Rise Up?
The first step is to clarify what, in general, you are looking for. It is the not-finding of it which leads you to be restless, and to seek to compensate for an unrealistic expectation rather than giving it up, Identifying what exactly it is you are looking for can be a little tricky, since it doesn’t involve identifying a particular thing that you want (such as a relationship, financial security, etc.), but your desired experience of that particular thing.
To start, you can silently drop in the Three Reminders from the Buddhist tradition, one at a time:
As you silently drop each of these in, perhaps every few seconds, notice if and to what degree there is a response, and even reaction to them. For example, you might notice a certain degree of resistance or denial, as if it couldn’t or shouldn’t be true. Or, it might resonate as something you often look for in daily life, or strike you as the aspect or quality of what you experience that you would most like to be true. Or, there might be something of a “but I thought…” response, corresponding to a belief or expectation that you have held to be true. You can also use (for example) “permanence is not available” - does that seem more fundamentally at odds with what you tend to want or seek?
There are also some variants of those three reminders, including:
The Buddhist tradition describes three characteristics we naturally tend to seek in daily life, especially concerning ourselves, yet we can never actually find or experience them. We want there to be an aspect of experience that is enduringly or permanently owned, controllable, and “in here”, but with the falling of the eighth fetter we know that simply isn’t available. We want what we experience about ourselves to be real, tangible, and substantial, by which what we observe and experience inherently “is what it is”, yet we now know that is clearly not available either. Finally, we want to always feel good, but by this stage of the path that still isn’t the case. However, that doesn’t mean we have let go of wanting and even expecting these three things!
As it turns out, it is these three unrealistic expectations that have caused the anguish and suffering in our lives, and with the ninth fetter we can finally start to examine them. Moving forward involves regularly reminding ourselves that what we seek simply isn’t available, taking care to avoid trying to confirm the opposite (for example, trying to confirm that “impermanence” is true, as opposed to simply observing that “permanence” isn’t available). That these three items are reminders about what we can’t find, rather than describing the way things really are, is discussed in more detail here.
While these three reminders are primarily concerned with what we want to observe and know about ourselves, we also have the same expectations regarding everything else we experience. And yet, we are only chasing concepts. To see this, please look at an inanimate object such as a cup: what do you directly observe by simply looking at it, without having to resort to thinking about it? For example:
- Is the cup visibly changing and thus “impermanent”? Alternately, from what you see, is it obviously “permanent”? Or, are “impermanence” and “permanence” merely concepts that define each other but point to nothing in particular?
- Is the cup “substantial” based solely on what you see: do you observe the “cupness” that makes it what it inherently is? Alternately, do you see the “insubstantial” nature of it, as a quality that you can directly discern? Or, are those also mutually-defined concepts that you can only think about and infer, such as by invoking the additional concept of “impermanence” above?
- Is the cup inherently satisfying and pleasing, there being something about it that always leads to happiness? Alternately, is the cup obviously or inherently unsatisfactory to you or anyone else? Or, are those polar opposite concepts that have nothing to do with the cup itself?
The Ninth Fetter
With the shift of the 8th fetter, a lot has changed: all sense of identity, “I” and “me” is now gone, as is the experience of there being an inner (and thus outer) aspect to experience. The ninth fetter can be described as continued searching for the qualities that you have always sought and even expect which your identity seemed to provide, such as a sense of stability and security, an apparent means of feeling good, or something that was definite and knowable. Or, your identity may have given you a sense of having control. Because of this, there is still a mismatch between what you expect (such as reliability, always feeling good, etc.) and what you actually get. You therefore still search for a different version of what is currently happening, though because you no longer can point to examples or manifestations of what you seek, something seems wrong, or at least not right.
Our natural tendency is to not just resist this mismatch, but to rise up against it. The sense of “rising up” is the basis of the traditional term for the ninth fetter (uddhacca). This rising up manifests as restlessness (because something seems wrong) and also seeking to compensate for your lingering expectations (because surely you can’t be wrong here!): these two terms are how the fetter may be translated, and the form your resistance and "rising up" takes.
The suggested approach is, as with other fetters, a two-step process:
(1) determine what you expect to find; and
(2) verify whether or not you can find it.
However, rather than looking for something (such as a reactivity "button") that you assume exists based on the fact that you react, here you will look for something (such as predictability or always feeling good) that you assume exists even though you have no apparent proof that it exists. Instead, there is a fundamental belief, and therefore expectation, that daily life could or should be that way: it's simply something you want to be true. The ninth fetter is also not a self-referent fetter: you won’t be looking “in here” for anything, since all sense of inside (and thus outside) have fallen away, by which the looking will take place everywhere in experience.
There have been warnings all along to this point regarding potential effects of the awakening process. One of the primary purposes the sense of an identity served was to provide both a context for and example of the qualities which you want to experience. For example, the sense of "me" or "I" can seem to offer a sense of predictability, control, stability, permanence, knowing-ness and a means by which you can always feel good. As a result, a perceived identity can be helpful in managing and even compartmentalizing trauma. Without that identity, unresolved trauma stored in the body can now fully and freely emerge, which can lead to a surprising amount of suffering. For many if not most, this can be quite mild, if it happens at all, but for some it can be fairly intense. While I am not aware of anyone for whom this did not resolve in a matter of days or weeks, rather than immediately pressing on with the unfettering process, it may be best to first seek professional help to address such trauma.
Step 1 – Why Do You Rise Up?
The first step is to clarify what, in general, you are looking for. It is the not-finding of it which leads you to be restless, and to seek to compensate for an unrealistic expectation rather than giving it up, Identifying what exactly it is you are looking for can be a little tricky, since it doesn’t involve identifying a particular thing that you want (such as a relationship, financial security, etc.), but your desired experience of that particular thing.
To start, you can silently drop in the Three Reminders from the Buddhist tradition, one at a time:
- "There is no such thing as permanence and predictability"
- "There is no such thing as satisfactoriness and feeling good all the time"
- "There is no such thing as substantiality and knowing what things are"
As you silently drop each of these in, perhaps every few seconds, notice if and to what degree there is a response, and even reaction to them. For example, you might notice a certain degree of resistance or denial, as if it couldn’t or shouldn’t be true. Or, it might resonate as something you often look for in daily life, or strike you as the aspect or quality of what you experience that you would most like to be true. Or, there might be something of a “but I thought…” response, corresponding to a belief or expectation that you have held to be true. You can also use (for example) “permanence is not available” - does that seem more fundamentally at odds with what you tend to want or seek?
There are also some variants of those three reminders, including:
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Feel free to explore these or other terms, and perhaps even crack open a thesaurus. Whatever "it" is, it’s what you’ve always looked for, and continue to look for: if it was reliably available then all would be well. Don’t chide or belittle yourself for looking for or wanting this: you’re simply at the point where you can explore it.
Whether by silently dropping in the fact that there is no such thing as one or more of these, or just going about daily life and noticing when resistance arises, try to pin down or isolate what in general you are looking for in life. Again, it is a general quality or aspect of a given experience that you want, rather than a particular thing such as a relationship. What is it?
As you do this, avoid focusing on an emotional response such as happiness, contentment, peace or joy. As desirable as these are, they are how you would feel if you could reliably find what you are truly looking for, such as predictability or always feeling good.
Also avoid attempting to confirm the availability of the supposed opposite of what you seek, such as by dropping in "impermanence is all that is available" or "life is suffering". Particularly for Buddhists, these may have been ostensible "truths" that you were taught and have essentially drilled into your head, and they can be surprisingly difficult to let go of. Here you can start to see that these were essentially consolation prizes, something to hold as true because what you sought (permanence or always feeling good) wasn't to be found. More on how these can be seen as reminders rather than stand-alone truths can be found here.
As you isolate what it is you are looking for, knowing what restlessness and compensation look like (i.e., how it is you rise up) when you don't find "it" can be very helpful, since it will alert you to when the ninth fetter is once again manifesting. As you silently drop in the fact that “there’s no such thing as…” or “...is not available”, or are reminded of this fact in daily life, what do you do or seem to do? There can be a sense of panic as you once again are confronted with this fact. There can be some obvious physical effects, such as an energy upsurge, fluttering sensations or nausea. An urgent train of thought might arise, as if you are responding to a threatening situation. There may be tension, disorientation, disappointment or fear. Or, it may seem as though you are trying to do something in particular, such as casting a net in order to snare something, or searching for a place to land. Whatever it is, try to become a connoisseur of how it is you rise up, and what restlessness and compensation typically look like for you.
Please don’t move on until you have a good sense of what it is you are regularly looking for, as well as how it is you “rise up” against the fact that what you seek isn’t reliably found.
Step 2 – Accepting the Truth
Once you have identified what it is you are looking for in daily life that you cannot find, the task is to simply remind yourself, as and when you start to rise up and resist the uncomfortable fact that you cannot find it, that there is no such thing or that it is not available. Resistance to this fact is due to an underlying belief that what you seek could or should be reliably found. However, rather than becoming restless and starting to compensate for that belief (i.e., reacting), the goal is to recognize when you start to react, bring that uncomfortable fact to mind, and gradually come to accept that what you seek will never be found.
In other words, there can be a “gap” between starting to react and actually reacting, similar to when you worked with fetters 4 and 5. For both inquiries, the urge to react comes about by either dropping in a certain fact or simply going about your day and encountering situations that trigger the unrealistic belief about what could or should be the case. However, with fetter 9, the incipient reaction is not due to what is or isn’t happening around you, but is due to how you experience it, regardless of what is or isn’t happening. For example, while you may no longer insist that your partner or friend be a certain way, your experience of their behavior nevertheless still causes suffering because you don't accept that experience.
The inquiry process is therefore quite straightforward:
To find and stay in the “gap” between experience and reaction, you essentially stop short of concluding there is something wrong with what is happening. You can catch yourself, in other words - there may be a slight hesitation as you start to resist, which hesitation you can become attuned to.
When you do catch yourself, allow the body to relax as you are able, and whatever thoughts that have started up to calm down. Yes: you thought things were or could be different than they are, but what you seek is “not available”. You will quickly realize that it’s a fact you already know at a certain level - there may be no need to look around to see if it’s true or not. You can look around to see if you are nevertheless safe in a given situation, and start to really come up against why you suffer because you’re trying to put some very unrealistic conditions on what is happening. In other words, don’t just let your urge to react calm down without naming why it is you started to react in the first place: take advantage of that urge.
As you gradually explore this fact, don’t apply it to something in particular, such as with “relationships are not predictable”. Whether relationships are a certain way may or may not be true, but the focus here is on what you expect to experience in response to relationships or anything else, such as predictability. A phrase such as “nothing is predictable” should also be avoided: again, the focus is on your expectation regarding your lived experience, not on what anything or anyone else might or might not be. Similarly, a more specific statement such as “that relationship is not predictable” can tend to leave open the possibility that other relationships are predictable.
You can drop in “why react?” as you dwell in the gap: can you find the reason you are starting to resist and react? As with fetters 4 and 5, it may seem as though there is (for example) a “predictability button” or similar which gets triggered, it can seem like a radar comes up, or some kind of arm reaches out whenever unrealistic expectations start to manifest. If so, it may be that decisively not finding whatever the reason to react seems to be will cause your unrealistic expectation to fall away in fairly short order. However, perhaps because this sort of expectation is so fundamental and ingrained, it seems that most people aren’t able to quickly dispel it, but instead must simply exhaust the urge to rise up and to react over the course of many days, weeks or even months.
Things to Keep in Mind
This is not about merely instilling in yourself the belief that what you seek isn't available. Instead, it is about plainly seeing and knowing that it isn't available in daily life. If you find yourself thinking about it, such as trying to convince yourself that it isn't available in order to stop reacting, please let go of all words other than the fact which you are focusing on.
If you have mild to severe unresolved trauma, it may be that getting into the “gap” is difficult or even impossible when memories or reminders of the traumatic event arise, at least initially. For example, it may be that when the memory of the traumatic event comes to mind, your reaction is so fast and strong that catching yourself simply isn’t possible. If so, rather than trying to find the “gap” with this issue or seeing your inability to engage with the inquiry as a failure, just know that this is an area of your life that you will come back to. Once the reactions to that traumatic event have calmed down, you can then engage with the inquiry with less provocative events in your life, and you can work your way back to engaging with the traumatic experience at some point in the future. It may also make sense to seek professional help, such as EMDR therapy, to come to grips with this unresolved trauma.
As you start to notice your urge to rise up against and resist what happens in life, it may become obvious that there is more than one unrealistic expectation that you have, which is very common. For example, if you identified the expectation of predictability in life as your primary belief, you may soon see that you also expect to be able to fully know what and who you are currently perceiving (by which life would be more predictable) and/or that you believe that you should be able to feel good all the time (which is what you want to predictably experience). Because of this, stay open to the various ways in which you place expectations on daily life, and be prepared to augment or change what it is you remind yourself about as you start to become restless and attempt to compensate for those expectations.
As with previous stages of the unfettering process, don’t overdo it: stay focused on the uncomfortable fact, but not obsessed with it. Watch for if and when you are starting to become desensitized to the fact you are focusing on, and take a break whenever it is helpful, rather than focusing on it all the time. Instead of placing yourself in a constant state of starting to react, which can be exhausting, try to find a “sweet spot” where you keep your unrealistic expectation generally in mind and are open to when it will start to manifest in the coming minutes or hours. If reacting is akin to a boiling pot of water, allow the pot of water to simmer and occasionally start to boil, rather than keeping the heat fully on.
At this stage of the path, you have come to realize that neither you nor anything or anyone else is as “real” as it once seemed, and that all you have are insubstantial images coming and going in experience. Because of this, “what” it is that you experience no longer has any apparent reality, and you may find yourself starting to deconstruct what is happening, or telling yourself that if nothing is real then there should be no reaction to it. In essence, working with the ninth fetter is a matter of coming to accept that this is all you have EVER have experienced, and it may be that your primary unrealistic expectation is that you can or should be able to know exactly what and who everything/everyone is. It can be helpful to bring to mind the piece of advice from the Zen tradition that, as we awaken, the mountains and rivers that once seemed so solid and “real” are no longer so. However, in the end, mountains are once again mountains, and rivers are once again rivers, even though they are not the same version of mountains and rivers we once experienced. In other words, as you go through this inquiry into whether what you seek is available, allow the people and things you encounter in daily life to “be” whatever it is your memory and experience says they are, without questioning or deconstructing them. Again, the focus is on what you expect your experience of them to be, rather than what their nature is (or is not).
Exploring and defusing this fetter can take weeks and months, rather than days. Consider how deeply held your unrealistic expectations are, how many decades you have had them, and how you seek to apply them to every experience: you can’t (also) expect that letting go of them will be a quick and easy process(!). Instead, you can become more and more attuned to when the expectations starts to manifest, and as resistance starts to rear up, you can note that “wow, there I go again” as a recurring refrain, which may eventually morph into “oh, come on… really???” as the urge to react starts to wane. In other words, give yourself time to allow the expectations to manifest and work themselves out.
You may get to the point where your initially-identified expectation no longer applies, and/but another expectation or two becomes obvious. In that case, embrace the fact that you’ve apparently worked through one, and now have the opportunity to explore another. Or, you may find that you don’t need to identify and remind yourself of the expectation: instead, you can simply respond to the arising of the “but I thought…” reaction with “there’s no such thing”, without stating what it is you thought you would find or experience. This can undercut your tendency to have unrealistic expectations in the first place, regardless of what that expectation might be.
Finally, please notice if there is a bit of chiding yourself, disappointment, etc. around this inquiry, perhaps as if you can't believe how you've duped yourself. What happens if you just smile each time you are reminded of your unrealistic expectation(s)?
The Holding Pattern
As with any fetter, there can be something of a “holding pattern” where you clearly see that what you seek is not to be found, and yet the underlying expectation doesn’t shift or otherwise lessen its grip. If so, possible approaches include:
The Eventual Shift
Eventually, perhaps after weeks or months of reminding yourself of uncomfortable facts, you’ll notice that you have stopped casting about, reaching out, popping up your radar, or however it is you “rose up” against what was (not) happening in life. You may not be thrilled that what you seek cannot be found, but you are no longer fighting it. In other words, restlessness and the perceived urge to compensate will be gone.
This is typically not a major change in experience, and it may be that one day you’ll notice that you haven’t resisted what is happening for several days. It may seem as though you’ve “agreed to disagree” with your daily experience of life, or come to accept that what you want to have simply isn’t on the menu. Since the underlying expectation is still in place, your response may be a somewhat resigned “Fine…” to the uncomfortable fact.
As something of a check, you can drop in the most provocative version of your uncomfortable fact(s): is there that sense of “rising up” and resisting this fact, or is there a sense of acceptance? You can also notice what happens if you bring to mind a particularly traumatic event, or find yourself in a typically triggering situation in daily life: suffering may still be occurring, but is there an underlying insistence that what is happening be otherwise?
Whether by silently dropping in the fact that there is no such thing as one or more of these, or just going about daily life and noticing when resistance arises, try to pin down or isolate what in general you are looking for in life. Again, it is a general quality or aspect of a given experience that you want, rather than a particular thing such as a relationship. What is it?
As you do this, avoid focusing on an emotional response such as happiness, contentment, peace or joy. As desirable as these are, they are how you would feel if you could reliably find what you are truly looking for, such as predictability or always feeling good.
Also avoid attempting to confirm the availability of the supposed opposite of what you seek, such as by dropping in "impermanence is all that is available" or "life is suffering". Particularly for Buddhists, these may have been ostensible "truths" that you were taught and have essentially drilled into your head, and they can be surprisingly difficult to let go of. Here you can start to see that these were essentially consolation prizes, something to hold as true because what you sought (permanence or always feeling good) wasn't to be found. More on how these can be seen as reminders rather than stand-alone truths can be found here.
As you isolate what it is you are looking for, knowing what restlessness and compensation look like (i.e., how it is you rise up) when you don't find "it" can be very helpful, since it will alert you to when the ninth fetter is once again manifesting. As you silently drop in the fact that “there’s no such thing as…” or “...is not available”, or are reminded of this fact in daily life, what do you do or seem to do? There can be a sense of panic as you once again are confronted with this fact. There can be some obvious physical effects, such as an energy upsurge, fluttering sensations or nausea. An urgent train of thought might arise, as if you are responding to a threatening situation. There may be tension, disorientation, disappointment or fear. Or, it may seem as though you are trying to do something in particular, such as casting a net in order to snare something, or searching for a place to land. Whatever it is, try to become a connoisseur of how it is you rise up, and what restlessness and compensation typically look like for you.
Please don’t move on until you have a good sense of what it is you are regularly looking for, as well as how it is you “rise up” against the fact that what you seek isn’t reliably found.
Step 2 – Accepting the Truth
Once you have identified what it is you are looking for in daily life that you cannot find, the task is to simply remind yourself, as and when you start to rise up and resist the uncomfortable fact that you cannot find it, that there is no such thing or that it is not available. Resistance to this fact is due to an underlying belief that what you seek could or should be reliably found. However, rather than becoming restless and starting to compensate for that belief (i.e., reacting), the goal is to recognize when you start to react, bring that uncomfortable fact to mind, and gradually come to accept that what you seek will never be found.
In other words, there can be a “gap” between starting to react and actually reacting, similar to when you worked with fetters 4 and 5. For both inquiries, the urge to react comes about by either dropping in a certain fact or simply going about your day and encountering situations that trigger the unrealistic belief about what could or should be the case. However, with fetter 9, the incipient reaction is not due to what is or isn’t happening around you, but is due to how you experience it, regardless of what is or isn’t happening. For example, while you may no longer insist that your partner or friend be a certain way, your experience of their behavior nevertheless still causes suffering because you don't accept that experience.
The inquiry process is therefore quite straightforward:
- Notice if and when you are starting to “rise up” and resist (or are already doing so) in response to what is happening in life.
- Pause and clarify what quality or aspect of experience that seems wrong or is missing, for example the fact that predictability or feeling good is not happening.
- Gently but firmly remind yourself that there is no such thing and/or that it is not available, and inquire into the entirety of experience to see if this is in fact true. Is what you are looking for anything more than a concept?
To find and stay in the “gap” between experience and reaction, you essentially stop short of concluding there is something wrong with what is happening. You can catch yourself, in other words - there may be a slight hesitation as you start to resist, which hesitation you can become attuned to.
When you do catch yourself, allow the body to relax as you are able, and whatever thoughts that have started up to calm down. Yes: you thought things were or could be different than they are, but what you seek is “not available”. You will quickly realize that it’s a fact you already know at a certain level - there may be no need to look around to see if it’s true or not. You can look around to see if you are nevertheless safe in a given situation, and start to really come up against why you suffer because you’re trying to put some very unrealistic conditions on what is happening. In other words, don’t just let your urge to react calm down without naming why it is you started to react in the first place: take advantage of that urge.
As you gradually explore this fact, don’t apply it to something in particular, such as with “relationships are not predictable”. Whether relationships are a certain way may or may not be true, but the focus here is on what you expect to experience in response to relationships or anything else, such as predictability. A phrase such as “nothing is predictable” should also be avoided: again, the focus is on your expectation regarding your lived experience, not on what anything or anyone else might or might not be. Similarly, a more specific statement such as “that relationship is not predictable” can tend to leave open the possibility that other relationships are predictable.
You can drop in “why react?” as you dwell in the gap: can you find the reason you are starting to resist and react? As with fetters 4 and 5, it may seem as though there is (for example) a “predictability button” or similar which gets triggered, it can seem like a radar comes up, or some kind of arm reaches out whenever unrealistic expectations start to manifest. If so, it may be that decisively not finding whatever the reason to react seems to be will cause your unrealistic expectation to fall away in fairly short order. However, perhaps because this sort of expectation is so fundamental and ingrained, it seems that most people aren’t able to quickly dispel it, but instead must simply exhaust the urge to rise up and to react over the course of many days, weeks or even months.
Things to Keep in Mind
This is not about merely instilling in yourself the belief that what you seek isn't available. Instead, it is about plainly seeing and knowing that it isn't available in daily life. If you find yourself thinking about it, such as trying to convince yourself that it isn't available in order to stop reacting, please let go of all words other than the fact which you are focusing on.
If you have mild to severe unresolved trauma, it may be that getting into the “gap” is difficult or even impossible when memories or reminders of the traumatic event arise, at least initially. For example, it may be that when the memory of the traumatic event comes to mind, your reaction is so fast and strong that catching yourself simply isn’t possible. If so, rather than trying to find the “gap” with this issue or seeing your inability to engage with the inquiry as a failure, just know that this is an area of your life that you will come back to. Once the reactions to that traumatic event have calmed down, you can then engage with the inquiry with less provocative events in your life, and you can work your way back to engaging with the traumatic experience at some point in the future. It may also make sense to seek professional help, such as EMDR therapy, to come to grips with this unresolved trauma.
As you start to notice your urge to rise up against and resist what happens in life, it may become obvious that there is more than one unrealistic expectation that you have, which is very common. For example, if you identified the expectation of predictability in life as your primary belief, you may soon see that you also expect to be able to fully know what and who you are currently perceiving (by which life would be more predictable) and/or that you believe that you should be able to feel good all the time (which is what you want to predictably experience). Because of this, stay open to the various ways in which you place expectations on daily life, and be prepared to augment or change what it is you remind yourself about as you start to become restless and attempt to compensate for those expectations.
As with previous stages of the unfettering process, don’t overdo it: stay focused on the uncomfortable fact, but not obsessed with it. Watch for if and when you are starting to become desensitized to the fact you are focusing on, and take a break whenever it is helpful, rather than focusing on it all the time. Instead of placing yourself in a constant state of starting to react, which can be exhausting, try to find a “sweet spot” where you keep your unrealistic expectation generally in mind and are open to when it will start to manifest in the coming minutes or hours. If reacting is akin to a boiling pot of water, allow the pot of water to simmer and occasionally start to boil, rather than keeping the heat fully on.
At this stage of the path, you have come to realize that neither you nor anything or anyone else is as “real” as it once seemed, and that all you have are insubstantial images coming and going in experience. Because of this, “what” it is that you experience no longer has any apparent reality, and you may find yourself starting to deconstruct what is happening, or telling yourself that if nothing is real then there should be no reaction to it. In essence, working with the ninth fetter is a matter of coming to accept that this is all you have EVER have experienced, and it may be that your primary unrealistic expectation is that you can or should be able to know exactly what and who everything/everyone is. It can be helpful to bring to mind the piece of advice from the Zen tradition that, as we awaken, the mountains and rivers that once seemed so solid and “real” are no longer so. However, in the end, mountains are once again mountains, and rivers are once again rivers, even though they are not the same version of mountains and rivers we once experienced. In other words, as you go through this inquiry into whether what you seek is available, allow the people and things you encounter in daily life to “be” whatever it is your memory and experience says they are, without questioning or deconstructing them. Again, the focus is on what you expect your experience of them to be, rather than what their nature is (or is not).
Exploring and defusing this fetter can take weeks and months, rather than days. Consider how deeply held your unrealistic expectations are, how many decades you have had them, and how you seek to apply them to every experience: you can’t (also) expect that letting go of them will be a quick and easy process(!). Instead, you can become more and more attuned to when the expectations starts to manifest, and as resistance starts to rear up, you can note that “wow, there I go again” as a recurring refrain, which may eventually morph into “oh, come on… really???” as the urge to react starts to wane. In other words, give yourself time to allow the expectations to manifest and work themselves out.
You may get to the point where your initially-identified expectation no longer applies, and/but another expectation or two becomes obvious. In that case, embrace the fact that you’ve apparently worked through one, and now have the opportunity to explore another. Or, you may find that you don’t need to identify and remind yourself of the expectation: instead, you can simply respond to the arising of the “but I thought…” reaction with “there’s no such thing”, without stating what it is you thought you would find or experience. This can undercut your tendency to have unrealistic expectations in the first place, regardless of what that expectation might be.
Finally, please notice if there is a bit of chiding yourself, disappointment, etc. around this inquiry, perhaps as if you can't believe how you've duped yourself. What happens if you just smile each time you are reminded of your unrealistic expectation(s)?
The Holding Pattern
As with any fetter, there can be something of a “holding pattern” where you clearly see that what you seek is not to be found, and yet the underlying expectation doesn’t shift or otherwise lessen its grip. If so, possible approaches include:
- Regarding what it is you expect to find but cannot, silently drop in “it could be like that… but it’s not”. Does acknowledging the unrealistic expectation like this make a difference?
- Notice if you feel safe without what it is you seek: is it actually OK that what you seek isn’t available? Are you just rising up, and becoming restless and starting to compensate, out of habit?
- Drop in “there is no need for things to be other than how they are” - does that resonate as being true?
- Drop in "No, really! There's no such thing!", which is more of a directive than a reminder. What effect does that have?
- After dropping in (for example) "there's no such thing as satisfactoriness", also drop in "... so what?" a few moments afterward, as if to insist that the reason that fact isn't OK show itself. Does it show itself?
- What exactly is it (predictability, reliability, etc.)? Are you looking for anything real, or just a mental interpretation?
The Eventual Shift
Eventually, perhaps after weeks or months of reminding yourself of uncomfortable facts, you’ll notice that you have stopped casting about, reaching out, popping up your radar, or however it is you “rose up” against what was (not) happening in life. You may not be thrilled that what you seek cannot be found, but you are no longer fighting it. In other words, restlessness and the perceived urge to compensate will be gone.
This is typically not a major change in experience, and it may be that one day you’ll notice that you haven’t resisted what is happening for several days. It may seem as though you’ve “agreed to disagree” with your daily experience of life, or come to accept that what you want to have simply isn’t on the menu. Since the underlying expectation is still in place, your response may be a somewhat resigned “Fine…” to the uncomfortable fact.
As something of a check, you can drop in the most provocative version of your uncomfortable fact(s): is there that sense of “rising up” and resisting this fact, or is there a sense of acceptance? You can also notice what happens if you bring to mind a particularly traumatic event, or find yourself in a typically triggering situation in daily life: suffering may still be occurring, but is there an underlying insistence that what is happening be otherwise?