The short answer is: it varies — and it’s not really about the number of times you’re told, but about the conditions under which something is heard.
Why repetition seems necessary
The brain learns through reinforcement. Dopamine-driven circuits in the brain update not on the first hearing, but when something feels relevant. That’s why a teaching can be heard 100 times, but only one time will it “land.”
Stories filter perception. If a belief or identity is strong, it will distort or block a new perspective. Until that belief softens (often through life circumstances), the same words just bounce off.
Timing is everything. A phrase that once sounded abstract can suddenly feel obvious when you’re raw, tired, or cracked open by life. What changed wasn’t the phrase, but you.
What makes something “sink in”?
Direct experience. The moment you feel what the words point to, rather than think about them. That’s when the concept stops being borrowed and becomes embodied.
Repetition with freshness. Hearing the same pointer in slightly different forms can bypass the mind’s defenses. Eventually one phrasing slips through.
The collapse of resistance. Often it takes being worn down, or simply exhausted from seeking, before the teaching is finally received.
A metaphor
It’s like rain falling on dry ground. At first, the water just runs off — the soil is too hard. But with repeated rain, the ground softens, cracks open, and then one day the drops begin to sink in. It wasn’t the last drop that did it. It was all of them.
The paradox
You don’t get to choose when it “sinks in.” You can only keep showing up — hearing, looking, living. And then, sometimes when you least expect it, the words you’ve heard a thousand times sound like they were spoken for the very first time.
The Drop That Sank In
He had heard it a hundred times.
“Just be here. This is it.”
The first time it sounded nice, almost like poetry. The tenth time it felt frustrating, like being told to enjoy water when thirsty but with no cup in hand. By the fiftieth time it was background noise — words that spiritual people seemed to recycle.
He kept reading books, watching talks, joining Zoom groups. Each one repeated the same thing, with different metaphors: the finger pointing at the moon, the wave and the ocean, the eye that cannot see itself. He could recite them all. He did recite them, whenever friends asked what awakening was about.
And yet, when life pressed — when anger flared, or shame rose up, or loneliness gnawed — the words didn’t hold. He still found himself inside the storm, convinced of the story, drowning in the pull of it. He thought, If I understood more, if I practiced harder, maybe then it would click.
So he kept collecting. Concepts, teachings, techniques. Each one promising a key. Each one filed neatly into the vast library of “what I know.”
One morning, the same teaching arrived again. Not from a book this time. Just a passing comment in a group. Someone said it almost absentmindedly, as if quoting the weather:
“Notice — everything you cling to as truth is just a thought.”
He almost brushed it off. He knew that already. He’d known it for years. But then something odd happened. A small pang of anxiety was moving in his chest at that exact moment — a tightening he usually labeled as fear of failing.
And in the same instant, the words and the sensation met.
It was like two wires sparking.
The chest tightens. A thought appears. “I’m failing.”
But the tightening was just sensation. The thought was just story.
There was no proof in the body. No truth carved into the ache.
The library in his head went silent. For once, he wasn’t reaching for the concept. He wasn’t explaining it to himself. He was just staring directly at the rawness.
And he laughed. Not a big laugh, not dramatic — more like a quiet chuckle in an empty room. Because he realized: he had heard it all before. Every book, every talk, every guru had been saying exactly this. And every time, he’d turned it into knowledge. Another polished stone to add to the collection.
But here, in this small collision of words and sensation, it wasn’t knowledge anymore. It was obvious.
He saw why it had taken so long:
The repetition wasn’t a failure. It was rain softening hard ground.
Every hearing had mattered, even when it felt wasted.
What landed now wasn’t because the words were better, but because he had finally stopped insulating himself with concepts long enough to feel the rawness underneath.
There was no dramatic awakening. No halo of clarity. Just a sigh — deep, uncoiled, like a knot loosening after decades.
The tightening in the chest still pulsed. But it wasn’t “his” anymore. It wasn’t evidence. It was simply a body alive, with currents moving through.
And the thought “I’m failing”? It drifted by like an old tune half-remembered. Nothing to grab.
Later, walking home, he passed a child jumping in puddles. The splash soaked his shoes. For a split second, irritation flashed — the old story: “These shoes are ruined. Parents should watch their kids.”
But then, just as quickly, another chuckle.
The shoes were wet. The body reacted. A thought rose.
That was it. That was all.
The story could come. It could go. Nothing in it needed to be believed.
That night, he sat with his tea. The library of concepts was still in him — a thousand teachings, each one memorized. But something was different now. He no longer needed to reach for them.
Because finally, one of them had stopped being a polished stone on the shelf and had turned into living water.
And he knew — the rest might, too. Each in their own time. Each in their own way. Not because he understood them, but because life would keep offering chances until the ground cracked open.
It wasn’t about how many times he’d heard it.
It was about when he was finally still enough to feel it.
Investigative Exercise: From Concept to Contact
1. Catch the Trigger
Wait for a moment when a familiar thought arises.
Examples:
“I’m failing.”
“They don’t respect me.”
“I should be further along by now.”Don’t analyze it. Don’t reject it. Just notice: the story has landed.
2. Pause the Concept
Whisper quietly (or internally):
“This is a story.”Don’t make it into a mantra. Just an acknowledgment.
See if you can spot the difference between the words in the head and what the body is doing.
3. Drop into the Body
Ask gently:
“Where is this story felt?”Scan slowly: chest, throat, gut, jaw, shoulders.
Find the rawest spot of sensation.
Stay there. Don’t name it. Don’t interpret. Don’t fix. Just feel the texture.
4. Notice the Old Rule
The mind will try to link sensation to meaning:
“Tight chest = danger.”
“Ache in gut = proof I’m wrong.”See if you can catch that automatic leap.
Ask: “What if the sensation isn’t proof of anything?”
5. Stay With the Simplicity
Let the sensation be just: tingling, pressure, warmth, fluttering, contraction.
No narrative. No interpretation. No label like “suffering”.
Just bare contact: body alive.
6. Watch the Separation
Now notice:
There’s a thought.
There’s a sensation.
Side by side. Not fused.
The glue is only belief. And you don’t need to add glue.
7. Let It Pass
Wait. Let the body metabolize the sensation, as it always does.
Notice: it changes. Moves. Fades. Returns. Fizzles.
Without story, it never stays the same.
8. See What’s Left
After the wave passes, ask:
“What’s here now, without the story?”Usually: breath. The hum of a room. A simple ordinariness.
Optional Anchor
Each time this happens, notice one physical marker that feels steady after the storm.
Maybe the sensation of the feet on the ground, or the sound of the breath.
This can serve as a portal back the next time a story tries to take over.
✨ The point is not to “kill stories” or to “get it right.”
It’s simply this: notice the gap between concept and contact.
That gap is where freedom lives.
For more pointers and suggestions, check out this link to vince-bot using the website as its knowledge base.
Vince Schubert YouTube Channel
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