Emotions, From All Four

Fear, anger, excitement, . . . it's been quite a ride lately, and a marvelous opportunity to practice Gil's recent teaching on The Four Foundations of Emotions. Many times I took a mindful pause, and took turn watching from each of four places. 

First, the body. 

Heat rising up to the head, down all the way to each fingertip. Anger.

Butterflies dancing . . . It's getting cold. Fear.

Flesh effacing. No blocks. Only gladness.

Second, the feeling.

That one usually comes easily into awareness.

Unpleasant, unpleasant, unpleasant, 

testing my ability to bear.

Third, the state of mind.

Noticing aversion, lots of it,

and never far behind, its close cousin: 

greed for what cannot be had.

Fourth, getting into the subtleties.

Which story is being whispered

by deluded mind,

that's causing all the trouble?

The words popped up at once. "Can't be trusted." I felt anger towards myself as I recognized the familiar voice, that threatened to take me down once more. Only this time, I heard it loud enough that I could talk back, and say "No, not buying it." and I could think of a million reasons why I could count on myself.

What is your story? How do you approach your emotions, particularly the difficult ones?

Can Emotions Be Changed?

A Look at the Nature of Emotions, and How to Work with Them From Buddhist Psychology Perspective.

Thanks to one of my Dharma friends from Tathagata Center, I have discovered another Burmese gem. This time, it is U Jotika, an elusive Theravada monk, whose monastery I have not been able to locate yet. I have heard he spends most his time traveling all over Burma and Southeast Asia. U Jotika's balanced approach reminds me of Ajahn Chah. Today, I contemplate his teachings on the whole notion of 'changing emotions':

In some books I read about mental states and consciousness and wisdom and they say that you can change your anger into love; that is impossible! You cannot change your anger into love, into metta, you can’t change dosa (hatred, aversion) into metta; dosa arises and passes away as dosa. Loving kindness (metta) arises as loving kindness and passes away as loving kindness; it cannot change its nature. Its unique, natural characteristic does not change. It only arises and passes away; that is why it is impermanent (anicca). There is a lot of confusion even among meditators about this point; some people think that they can change one thing into another. In a definition of anicca they say that paramattha does not change. There is a Pali sentence that says that paramattha does not change. Some people are confused about the meaning of this. If reality, paramattha does not change it means that it is permanent. No, it doesn’t change its nature, but it arises and passes away. Arising and passing away, impermanence and not changing nature does not contradict. This is a very important point especially for those who are potential teachers.

~ from 'Map of the Journey', by U Jotika ~ 

To be contrasted with Ayya Khema's view on same topic:

Some [feelings] are pleasant, some are unpleasant, some are neutral, but our reactions don't have to be preplanned, impulsive, instinctive. We can look at them with mindfulness and put the brakes on. Substitution is much easier than just dropping what is in the mind. Although dropping is the perfect way to get rid of clinging, it is more difficult because it is a letting-go aspect. In the beginning, substitution is a necessary response . . . When aversion, rejection, resistance, anger, jealousy, pride, greed, or craving arise within, we can take a moment to look at them mindfully. When we recognize their burdensome impact on us, we understand that we need not continue to let them exist. We can substitute compassion, or the idea that they are not important, or the understanding of impermanence, or corelessness. This is particularly true of anger, which makes life so very unpleasant for oneself and others. When we get angry with a person, we can ask ourselves first of all, "What am I getting angry at? Is it the hair, the nose, the eyes, or what? Am I getting angry at his words? If it is really unpleasant speech, it means the other person is unhappy. "Why should I get angry, then? Why can't I be compassionate?" If we can change our anger to compassion, we will feel good, the other person will feel good, and we will have taken a step forward on our spiritual path. 

~ from 'When the Iron Eagle Flies', by Ayya Kkema ~

 And also Mingyur Rinpoche:

If emotion is too overwhelming, 1) go back to other objects of meditation, such as sounds, smells, forms, breath, etc . . . or, 2) make a different emotion, eg, anger instead of panic (gossipy neurons will join anger group instead of panic group)

~ my notes from Rinpoche's recent Joy of Living Retreat ~ 

Three teachers, three different approaches that may seem contradictory on the surface. Upon closer examination, however, the differences may have to do more with semantics.  In the end, it all has to do with the power of the mind to not react, and to insert itself in the midst of powerful emotions. Situations cause feelings that cause thoughts, that cause emotions, that cause feelings, that cause emotions, etc . . . Of course emotions are what they are, and cannot be changed. Their demise can be hasted however, with mindfulness about their effect on us, and the cause and effect relationship between thoughts and emotions. 'Changing' emotions actually involves letting go of defilement, and cultivating instead a wholesome mind state, including wholesome thoughts and emotions. 

This is my take. What do you think?

The Lynchpin of Emotional Awareness

Sitting this morning, I was able to clearly see the 3 steps of being with emotions. It goes like this:

1. Awareness of sense experience
2. Awareness of emotional reaction to sense experience
3. Awareness of feeling about emotional reaction

A simple translation of Mingyur Rinpoche's 'Step Back' instruction for 'emotion meditation', and Gil Fronsdal's talk on 5 Hindrances. 

I find step 3 to be the lynchpin of complete emotional awareness, the part in the whole process that can get easily overlooked, and yet holds the greatest transformative power.

This morning, for instance, I 'saw' my annoyance with discomfort in the body from persistent cough. Harder to become aware of, was my dislike of the annoyance. Left untracked for a while, the dislike caused me to evade present moment, going into planning mode and thoughts about the future. As soon as I placed my attention on feeling about annoyance, I was instantly brought back to the now, and could stay there, no problem. The same thing applies to positive emotions, and the natural tendency to cling to what feels good. I found that whenever that happens, inevitably, my mind takes over sooner or later, this time in the form of fantasies about the pleasant emotional experience.

Mingyur Rinpoche's Playing Tricks With Monkey Mind

Last weekend, Mingyur Rinpoche taught us how to deal with 'monkey mind', the crazy, restless part of our mind that causes us so much suffering. Making ample use of paradox, Rinpoche explained how to use monkey mind to free ourselves from monkey mind. I was reminded of structural family therapist Salvador Minuchin's clever paradoxical interventions with families.

Mingyur Rinpoche's Monkey Puppet

Below, my notes from the day, unedited . . . 

How to meditate with sixth consciousness, mental consciousness (monkey mind), is most important.

We know two kinds of dukkha (suffering/dissatisfaction/discomfort):

• self, or mind created - 95% of dukkha 
• natural

One example is fear of dying which is a lot worse than death itself.

Rinpoche's story, to illustrate how to use problem as antidote:

When I was in training in the monastery, I once got water stuck in my ear. The sound from water swishing around drove me crazy. I went to my teacher and asked him what should I do? He told me to pour more water into my ear. I did, and that way was able to get all the water out.

Same with monkey mind. Use monkey mind to free monkey mind.

We usually have two responses to monkey mind:

• "Yes, Sir" - being controlled by monkey mind, monkey mind as our bad boss
• "Get out!" - aversion to monkey mind, monkey mind as our enemy

Instead, we need to make friend with monkey mind - "Hello!"

When we put our awareness on monkey mind, monkey mind becomes a support for our awareness.

Monkey mind is made up of thoughts and emotions and entails three things:

• Images
• Words
• Body sensations 

Images and words are most connected with thoughts, and sensations with emotions.

Emotions, particularly long time developed emotions are more difficult to use as support for meditation, at least at first. That is because it is difficult to get out of habits. Hence, one should start by learning first how to use thoughts as support for meditation. 

Thought meditation:

• Having thoughts is not a problem
• If one runs into expectations about thoughts, use these as support for meditation
• When watching thoughts there are two possible experiences, maybe you can see them, maybe not - if you cannot see, you are into open awareness, like being at a bus stop waiting for the bus - if you can see thought, then awareness of thought as object - either way, two great meditation experiences.
• If you want to use thought as support for meditation you can - using them just like sounds, or breath - watching them come and go
• Like watching "inner television" - only problem is program is quite old - that's ok, keep on watching same program, the result of watching will be different each time - analogy of swimming, only five strokes, but experience of Olympic swimmer is quite different from person who is learning how to swim.
• When watching thoughts, it is important to be uncontrived - whatever happens, happens.

Emotion meditation:

• Difficult with long time held emotions, because of very strong habits of fighting or surrendering
• It is very important to talk about emotions, as first step before meditation
• There are four steps for emotion meditation.

Four steps of emotion meditation:

1. Main practice, with two parts: 1) recognize emotion, which often means feeling it more fully - mountain analogy: when you see the mountain, that means you are out of the mountain, but at first, it may seems as if mountain is bigger, 2) don't ask question, only be aware of three aspects of emotion - audio (verbal), video (images), body (sensations)
2. Try something different: if emotion is too overwhelming, 1) go back to other objects of meditation, such as sounds, smells, forms, breath, etc . . . or, 2) make a different emotion, eg, anger instead of panic (gossipy neurons will join anger group instead of panic group)
3. Take a break: if 1) and 2) don't work, or if you feel too exhausted, like a computer running out of battery, don't meditate - instead, rest, do physical exercise, get a cup of coffee, appreciate being alive . . . 
4. Step back: look at booster of emotion, which is often stronger than emotion itself, eg, fear of panic, dislike of anger, expectations about emotion, etc . . .  and turn it into object of meditation.

Brilliant, simple, practical. A breath of fresh air in Dharmadom . . . For more teachings from Mingyur Rinpoche, you may want to read his two books: The Joy of Living, and Joyful Wisdom, and also visit his website.