the reason you fight with people is because you feel them as a threat you feel you need
to defend yourself against them so even before you've met someone there is a
a deep feeling even before it is rationalized in the mind that this person that you're about to
engage with is is a threat to you and therefore you go to the meeting to the conversation
feeling that you have to protect yourself and everything that takes place in the conversation
not everything but much of what takes place in the conversation is simply a reflection of that
feeling that you have that you need to protect yourself you need to defend yourself against
the the other against the threat of the other surprise surprise the other does feel threatening
not because they really are threatening it's but because you have brought an attitude of defence to
the relationship and the other is simply appearing in conformity with your underlying feeling
so why do we have this underlying feeling that others are a threat to us it is because we have
an even deeper feeling that we are something that is objective that can be destroyed that
can be threatened that can either be diminished in relationship or a aggrandised in relationship
and therefore we enter into relationships either seeking to aggrandize ourselves
through the relationship that that's not what you're talking about or to protect ourselves
from being diminished in your case it's the latter but in both these two movements trying
to aggrandize oneself through relationship or to protect oneself from being diminished and that
really the same movement and that is its its own a way that the separate self perpetuates
itself so at the heart of this feeling that you need to protect yourself against the
hostile other is the belief that what you are is something small and limited and fragile and
that can be so easily hurt or upset or abused or mistreated or you're none of those things
how could you abuse the empties what could you do to the empty space of this room to upset it
or hurt it what could the character in the movie do to the screen to upset the screen I mean does
the screen mind if if if the couple split up who wins the match no it's totally open to whatever
happens it has nothing to defend because what it is is not an object only an object can be
defended or and ran diced so this conflict that you repetitive conflicts that you find
in relationship have got nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with your core
feeling about yourself and the place to attend to this situation in your life is not with your the
other people as you well know from your mother and it doesn't work the place to attend to it
is in yourself and and the the the most direct and effective way of dealing with it is to going
straight to what you essentially are and discover that don't spend time improving what you are not
your body or my always did that will follow suit your relationships will clear up as a by-product
of this of this understanding discover what you are and when I say discover I don't mean think
about it and talk about I mean really go in your experience until till it dawns on you yes I am
obviously this this openness this wide openness in which all experience takes place and it's a it's
not an inert openness it's a knowing openness in which my thoughts arise in which the image of my
mother arises in which the sound of my next-door neighbour arises I am just this totally allowing
openness that has no opinion about anything that has no likes or dislikes that no preferences
no agenda nothing to gain from a relationship nothing to lose from a relationship find that
mr. likes and dislike the problem is the likes in the dislikes whose likes and dislikes who
are you talking to me no you this openness that does the space in this room as each of us comes
through the door does that does the space I don't like her earrings and no I don't like
his shirts and no oh yes she's nice she can come in but no I don't like the look of him
is the space doing that no you you are this this openness this aware empty openness in
which all your thoughts all your likes and your dislikes and everything else they play your your
likes and dislikes are for thought not for you they are for thought it's thought that
does the liking and the disliking it's not you leave your thoughts alone don't pay attention to
your thoughts give yourself your attention see if you find any likes and dislikes there or whether
yourself is just wide open to experience as it is unconditionally open that's the thing to find in
yourself you it's not a thing obviously and you don't find it in yourself it is yourself that
it's to know yourself as that and I don't mean in some kind of fake kind of I mean literally
as as as concrete as as these things seem to be it's that concrete yes I am that which knows my
experience which knows my thoughts but is not itself a thought that knows my feelings but is
not itself a feeling that knows my sensations and perceptions but it's not itself up in sensation or
perception in other words I am just knowing pure knowing pure sensitivity pure openness