As I think about it, I think I could make the general statement that the principle role of the unconscious is protecting us from pain, and that pain is only released and endured as a result of conscious decisions. You have to ask for it. We have the internal capacity to repress virtually all emotions, or at least men do.
Blame hurts. It forces us to internalize an unattractive image of ourselves, so our unconscious always presents us with the option of opting out, of putting blame on someone else. Now, it knows the truth, but it hides us, supposedly for our own protection. Really, it is just doing its job, which is preventing an excess of misery. But it also knows that any time we WANT to know the truth that it must serve it up. You have to ACTUALLY want to know the truth. You can’t fool it.
If you think about this, the unconscious contains all pain you have suffered, but logically it ought also to contain all joy you COULD experience. Nobody creates anything: they reveal possibilities that were already there. It is like taking the cover off of naked space, revealing latent information.
Could you do better than train your unconscious to support the expression of joy and tranquility? As I think about it, the only way to do this is to relate to it constantly, and the only way to do that is to remove all the things from “storage” that it is trying to protect you from, meaning that it can be fully open to you. In effect, you need to put it out of a job by processing all your hurts completely and instantly. Then it can move on to something else.
This I think is the state called Nirvana. And what has been extinguished? The need for ongoing pain, if not the inevitability of pain itself. The Buddha was momentarily sad when his parents were killed, but it was like a cloud passing by, covering the sun for a moment, then it was gone.
I think this is some good shit. Holy shit. (Remember, you’re supposed to kill the Buddha. He would think that is funny, I think). I do, in any event.