Get to the Root

 

If you want a tree to grow it won't help to water the leaves. You have to water the roots.

Thich Nhat Hanh.

To that I add, if you want to remove a weed (a so-called problem) you have to get to the root and remove that. If you pull the surface leaves away, the weed can still grow; the garden has not been cleaned up; and we just have a temporary and shallow 'appearance' of a tidy garden. The problem, however, has not been solved. 

When we find external bandaid solutions to our so called problems or experience of suffering by finding something "out there" to cling to...or by pushing away something out there that we feel might disturb us...we are not solving anything. This is not the solution. It will actually lead to more suffering.  We need to get to the root and the root is desiring things to be a way other than what they are.

Desire is the root of all suffering

The Buddha

Singer tells us that waking up means that you recognize that the problem is inside.

A person who thinks the problem is outside of them is not a spiritual person; a person who recognizes that all problems are inside is a spiritual person. 

The thing is, just as the weed doesn't go away because we no longer can see it when we cut off the leaves, problems do not go away when we stuff them down and away from conscious awareness as we do with our clinging and averting.

Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.  

Sigmund Frued

This process of pushing down and away so emotions remain unexpressed, we know, is not only unhealthy, it keeps us stuck in suffering patterns. We hear the word suppression a lot in both psychology and yogic terminology.

Frued was really the definer of repression, more so than suppression. Frued defined repression (the defense mechaninism that leads to samskara formation and that which he focused on in his research) as "turning something away and keeping it a distance from the conscious". 

Later in the field of psychoanalysis, repression was considered an unconscious and automatic act while suppression was defined as "the conscious effort  to avoid or block distressing thoughts, feelings and impulses from conscious awareness." It was the deliberate pulling away of unpleasant leaves from the mental garden so they are not seen. 

That is why yogis may focus more on avoiding the act of suppression, seeing that we have conscious control over that process. Healing and living is all about getting to the root. 

What is the root of your action, chronic thought pattern, or emotional response? 

A samskara: a stuffed and stored emotional energy that is not dealt with is at the root of suffering. Samskara is what activates the desire for superficial relief through gaining or pushing away something from the external world. This is what the Buddha meant by "desire".

Healing, then, is not an external endeavour. Seeking and clinging to outside events to make us feel better is not the answer. It offers only a very conditional, temporary, and superficial solution to the weed problem.  We need to get to the root!

The first stage of waking up is noticing that it is a mess in there, [and then we begin]looking for a way to be better in there. 

We become inspired to work on ourselves at the root. We begin going deeper to pull out our weeds at the root. This equates to the purification process. Of course, we do not aggressively reach down and pull out everything we suppressed or repressed over the years. We allow Life to tug and pull at those hidden emotional energies a bit and we allow which we suppressed to come up onto the surface of our awareness when it is ready.  We experience and deal with samskaras and then we allow the wind to blow them away.  We actually have to do little gardening, little weeding.  Life will do most of it.  We just need to allow Life to do what it does and to feel and experience what it exposes. Allowing Life to do what it does, is the opposite of desire.

Once we remove what is in the way, other Life affirming things can grow. We begin to allow shakti to grow and flow within us...like an amazing tree that expands toward the heavens. And just as we removed the problem at the root we nurture this natural, healing solution to all so called problems at the root. We trace the mighty trunk of this tree back to its Source.

All is well.

Michael Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( September 11, 2025) The Mind Isn't the Problem-It's That You Are Listening To It. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH6JoZJmm38