I seems to be facing a block which I cannot get past. By its feeling, I believe I have encountered it many times, and in many ways, through the past ten years. Perhaps more. But certainly ever since believing in the Bahá’í Faith, and hopefully asking questions about things I had not believe in before.
The block occurs whenever I try to shift my consciousness fully into the immediate present. At such times I encounter a particularly paralyzing way, which at the same time produces a suspension in my gut. As though I were trying to be in the moment by “holding on”, as if for fear of losing it if I let go. But I cannot let go. This only produces more of the same feeling in a slightly different context. Am I afraid of losing myself to the wash of what’s around me? Can I lose myself?
I have also called this barrier the “boredom point” before. It occurs whenever I am not driven or excited to do anything else. And I have had great difficulties with boredom all my life. Is it a fear that communicates to me through this sense of impeding tedium? A proven way of diverting my attention into another direction?
In the past I have ended the suspension by fantasizing myself away from where I am, and usually becoming interested in something else at that point, like friends or a movie. But I have always been interested to know what lies on the other side of the boredom point. Which seems like it would be a very unhurried appreciation of wherever I happened to be at that moment.
Only, why the long-term psycho-somatic effects? When it is not plain restlessness leading me there (toward that barrier) it is often a philosophical realization that kindles my desire to come to terms with my immediate self. In those cases, I don’t let go so easily. As a result, I may suffer abdominal tensions, acid and indigestion for more than a week before seeking release in some other form of absorption. Why does my own self turn me away? Force of will has never broken the barrier, and insight alone offers only temporary reprieve.
It has always felt to be an impossible problem with a definite. If only I could find the way that offers no trace, and answer the question that refuses to be asked [the koan problem].