I just discovered that Buddha said we discover the world through "The Eight Worldly Concerns, in gain and loss, praise and blame, pleasure and pain, happiness and unhappiness. And what I found intriguing was the term "terrible twins" which relates to each one arriving with its opposite as we experience them.
This term I have not heard related to Buddhism before, but of course I have heard the whole twin term related to the twin flame pathway. The Buddhist idea is what makes more sense to me now, only because I understand both sides more aware and in balance of being more integrated more complete in feeling.
I was reflecting on how often in my own process I would dive into things head first as a seeker, the more open I became the more I was fuelled to just let go and let the whole experience just open me in everyway. I suppose in most instances of this, I almost always received the extreme end so the pain body was always first to get hit hard. Mainly because my pain body was leading me first and foremost at that stage and so I felt it all and it all hit hard in me to grow this way.
So naturally all the old patterns and behaviours associated came up in this way in everyway of this immersion, and it usually landed me on my butt over and over to see more, feel more. So in some way my balance was learned the hard way more often than not. Just immersing in it all and often rising up and crashing, then falling down and crashing. So in some ways, the perception and feelings became more like a constant fall ongoing for me. Just one big fall in the pleasure and the pain as one source. Even in my spiritual awakening and dark night being in the extreme immersion of fear and terror in myself, I couldn't fully experience what was all there through any view but that of fear. I was immersed once more complete in it all and again the pain body crashed me hard, and kept me falling over and over to break those fears down and apart in everyway.
So for me both pleasure and pain as an example was more all housed in fear, there really wasn't a great deal of pleasure involved. :)
Walking as an experiencer in this way, I did gain a deeper awareness of much of the pain body and not a great deal of joy in this process, but I liken this kind of experiencing as I choose, as building, building deeper understanding and connection in myself to build the middle path more complete. I see this now.
I create a more complete balance where I do not avoid myself in this way of immersion. The terrible twins were really terrible in my case, but I do feel that they will serve me more in joy of being now without fear consuming the entirety of the spaces.
Today I see more clearly what these terrible twins endured and had to undertake for a richer and more passionate feeling of being and living my life. I wouldn't change it for the world but walking through I would have..
When I was walking through my dark night of the soul, where I had to face myself more deeply, I realized the one thing that showed in this space, was a deep inner knowing and drive in me to live. When you are so afraid of life at the core and of death, you don't fully realize how much you want to live, and how you can live and how you want to be in life. And of course what becomes important to you in the whole stream of past needs and desires, becomes much less in this moment of transitioning back into life less consumed by conditioned mind and fear, and just being me. :)
So this feeling unknown in me hidden by fear and terror, I see became the reason I immersed so deeply into life, somewhere in me wanted it so badly. Somewhere in me I couldn't know, till I let go fully to see it and feel it more complete as I am.
So now I guess I can recreate those terrible twins in me now as a source of Eight worlds without concern as much as just being more aware of them, and knowing what they taught and teach me ongoing as life in this way of being and becoming more complete with all life as one.
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail. -Confucious
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