Being stuck in an in between place
Silver dishcloth - Vajradarshini
I came across this concept via my friend Kevin Schanilec. He’s referring to a passage in the suttas, quoted in full below, where the Buddha describes what it’s like to have an insight and then to lose it.
It is as if there were a well along a road in a desert, with neither rope nor water bucket. A man would come along overcome by heat, oppressed by the heat, exhausted, dehydrated, & thirsty. He would look into the well and would have knowledge of ‘water,’ but he would not be able to contact it.
Maybe you’ve had this experience? I have, and found it so painful. To see something clearly, to enter a new reality, only to lose it again, perhaps days later or even moments later. The Buddha’s image here is so evocative.
We have this overwhelming thirst, and we see the water, we know ‘water’, but we can’t contact it.
“My friend, though I have seen properly with right discernment, as it actually is present, that ‘The cessation of becoming and being (bhāva) is nibbāna’, still I am not an arahant whose āsavas are ended. It is as if there were a well along a road in a desert, with neither rope nor water bucket. A man would come along overcome by heat, oppressed by the heat, exhausted, dehydrated, & thirsty. He would look into the well and would have knowledge of ‘water,’ but he would not be able to contact it. In the same way, though I have seen properly with right discernment, as it actually is present, that ‘The cessation of becoming and being is nibbāna,’ still I am not an arahant whose āsavas are ended. ”
Seeing through delusion is not enough
Kevin explains how seeing through a delusion is not enough. We need to root the underlying tendency to delusion.
It is one thing to see how the concept of a separate “self” is illusory, but another to go in and root out the underlying tendency, such that we never think that way again. For example, one could “see” anattā or insubstantiality regarding the illusory “self”, yet not cut the root, the underlying tendency. In such a case, the belief in an insubstantial “self” will persist, and it may be that there have been those who have found themselves stuck in this in-between situation. This possibilities continues even to the end of the path.
“Breaking a fetter means that both the fetter, together with the underlying tendency to it, is abandoned.”
How do we root out the tendency to delusion?
Talking about these experiences of insight is one way of rooting out the underlying tendency to fall back into delusion. That said, chose wisely who you talk to.
Is there someone you know who may have had the same experience? If not, is there someone who can point you toward someone who has? If you still don’t know where to turn, try reaching out to someone you trust but don’t know personally. A teacher or mentor, perhaps you’ve met them on a retreat, or even just read one of their books. It’s amazing how will people are to help with a little advice or reassurance.
