Emotions are the path

[old3bob]

Excellent post, very well said Apech!   

Edited May 12, 2023 by old3bob

[Mark Foote]

On 5/12/2023 at 8:28 AM, Apech said:

 

My experiences of non duality were characterised by certain feelings and sensations(probably not the right word but bear with me). A feeling of inner unity which focusses in the heart, immense clarity as if one's eyes had opened for the first time, the loss of any gap between the perceiver and the perceived, a flood of 'light' – although not physical light but super awareness and a joy which could be called love. Love without an object of love and unconditioned.

 

 

“…I have seen that the ceasing of the activities is gradual. … Both perception and feeling have ceased when one has attained the cessation of perception and feeling.”
 

(SN IV 217, PTS vol IV p 146)

 

"... certain feelings and sensations (probably not the right word but bear with me)..."

"Feelings and perceptions", maybe? 

"The cessation of perception and feeling", also translated as "the cessation of feeling and perceiving"--that would be, the cessation of "determinate thought", or volition, in the actions of feeling and perceiving.  Might fit with your description:  
 

A feeling of inner unity which focusses in the heart, immense clarity as if one's eyes had opened for the first time, the loss of any gap between the perceiver and the perceived... 

No gap because the agency in perception, the "do'er", has ceased.

I don't know.  Can't say I've had that experience, flat out.  Don't know what the "flood of light" would be, although in Gautama's recipe for psychic power, the final part is:

 

“Thus with wits alert, with wits unhampered, he cultivates his mind to brilliancy” 

(Sanyutta-Nikaya V 263, Pali Text Society vol 5 p 235)
 

 

Gautama explained that line by saying that "(one) cultivates (one's) mind to brilliancy” when one's “consciousness of light is well grasped, his consciousness of daylight is well-sustained.”  Something to do with the pineal, there?

"The cessation of feeling and perceiving" is marked by a happiness, but maybe not the kind most people think of.
 

… the situation occurs, Ananda, when wanderers belonging to other sects may speak thus: ‘The recluse (Gautama) speaks of the stopping of perceiving and feeling, and lays down that this belongs to happiness. Now what is this, now how is this?’ Ananda, wanderers belonging to other sects who speak thus should be spoken to thus: ‘Your reverences, (Gautama) does not lay down that it is only pleasant feeling that belongs to happiness; for, your reverences, the Tathagatha (the “Thus-Gone One”, the Buddha) lays down that whenever, wherever, whatever happiness is found it belongs to happiness. 

(MN I 400, Pali Text Society MN Vol. II pg 69)

 

Gautama amazes me for the consistency of his road map.  Because his concern is the cessation of volition, first in speech, then in the body (particularly in inhalation and exhalation), and finally in the mind (particularly in feeling and perceiving), he's not going to say, "do this, do that"--at least not when it comes to the states of concentration. 

Instead, he says the states of concentration are attained through "lack of desire, by means of lack of desire", and he points out the features of the landscape.

For me, the main concern has been how to relinquish “latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’ in regard to this consciousness-informed body” and still be a functional part of society.  

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Apech]

16 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

“…I have seen that the ceasing of the activities is gradual. … Both perception and feeling have ceased when one has attained the cessation of perception and feeling.”
 

(SN IV 217, PTS vol IV p 146)

 

"... certain feelings and sensations (probably not the right word but bear with me)..."

"Feelings and perceptions", maybe? 

 

I don't know as I associate 'perception' mostly with seeing and there were no visual images and so on, except the normal world.

 

 

 

16 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

 

"The cessation of perception and feeling", also translated as "the cessation of feeling and perceiving"--that would be, the cessation of "determinate thought", or volition, in the actions of feeling and perceiving.  Might fit with your description:  
 

A feeling of inner unity which focusses in the heart, immense clarity as if one's eyes had opened for the first time, the loss of any gap between the perceiver and the perceived... 

No gap because the agency in perception, the "do'er", has ceased.

 

An absence what you might call private volitional thoughts or actions, more like a sense of completion, where the need to act from a private intention ceases.  Maybe.  Hard to express properly.

 

 

16 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

 

I don't know.  Can't say I've had that experience, flat out.  Don't know what the "flood of light" would be, although in Gautama's recipe for psychic power, the final part is:

 

“Thus with wits alert, with wits unhampered, he cultivates his mind to brilliancy” 

(Sanyutta-Nikaya V 263, Pali Text Society vol 5 p 235)
 

 

Gautama explained that line by saying that "(one) cultivates (one's) mind to brilliancy” when one's “consciousness of light is well grasped, his consciousness of daylight is well-sustained.”  Something to do with the pineal, there?

 

I think it is simply that the immediate brilliance of awareness is noticed and unobscured.

 

16 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

"The cessation of feeling and perceiving" is marked by a happiness, but maybe not the kind most people think of.
 

… the situation occurs, Ananda, when wanderers belonging to other sects may speak thus: ‘The recluse (Gautama) speaks of the stopping of perceiving and feeling, and lays down that this belongs to happiness. Now what is this, now how is this?’ Ananda, wanderers belonging to other sects who speak thus should be spoken to thus: ‘Your reverences, (Gautama) does not lay down that it is only pleasant feeling that belongs to happiness; for, your reverences, the Tathagatha (the “Thus-Gone One”, the Buddha) lays down that whenever, wherever, whatever happiness is found it belongs to happiness. 

(MN I 400, Pali Text Society MN Vol. II pg 69)

 

Gautama amazes me for the consistency of his road map.  Because his concern is the cessation of volition, first in speech, then in the body (particularly in inhalation and exhalation), and finally in the mind (particularly in feeling and perceiving), he's not going to say, "do this, do that"--at least not when it comes to the states of concentration. 

Instead, he says the states of concentration are attained through "lack of desire, by means of lack of desire", and he points out the features of the landscape.

For me, the main concern has been how to relinquish “latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’ in regard to this consciousness-informed body” and still be a functional part of society.  

 

 

I would say this 'one pointedness' is key - but it does not mean that you focus on one 'thing' - although that might be an exercise - but that your mind is unified and this is something to do with the heart (not so much the head) but ultimately all of you of course.  Sitting with still focus and letting go into that immediate here-now presence is what it is about.

 

Thank you for your reply

[Mark Foote]

9 hours ago, Apech said:

 

I don't know as I associate 'perception' mostly with seeing and there were no visual images and so on, except the normal world.

 

You're welcome.

I think Gautama was referring to the role of volition in what we see, speaking to the cessation of volition in what we see.  The normal world, sans "I am the see'er, mine is the see'er".  
 

Quote

 

An absence what you might call private volitional thoughts or actions, more like a sense of completion, where the need to act from a private intention ceases.  Maybe.  Hard to express properly.

 

 

Beautifully said.

 

Quote

 

I think it is simply that the immediate brilliance of awareness is noticed and unobscured.

 

 

the awareness of daylight, maybe, in first person experience.

 

Quote

 

 

I would say this 'one pointedness' is key - but it does not mean that you focus on one 'thing' - although that might be an exercise - but that your mind is unified and this is something to do with the heart (not so much the head) but ultimately all of you of course.  Sitting with still focus and letting go into that immediate here-now presence is what it is about.

 

Exactly.  From my current, in-progress piece:

 

In my experience, the “placement of attention” by the movement of breath only occurs freely in what Gautama described as “the fourth musing”:
 

Again, a (person), putting away ease… enters and abides in the fourth musing; seated, (one) suffuses (one’s) body with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind.
 

(AN III 25-28, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg 18-19, see also MN III 92-93, PTS pg 132-134)

 

The “pureness of mind” refers to the absence of any intent in the observation of the activity of the body. Suffusing the body with “purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind” is widening awareness so that there is “not one particle of the body” that cannot become the location where attention is placed. 

I would say that the placement of attention by the movement of breath is actually a common experience for everyone, if at no other time, then in falling asleep.  Why would Gautama teach the practice of a common experience? 

 

Fundamentally speaking, the basis of the way is perfectly pervasive; how could it be contingent on practice and verification?  The vehicle of the ancestors is naturally unrestricted; why should we expend sustained effort? Surely the whole being is far beyond defilement; who could believe in a method to polish it? Never is it apart from this very place; what is the use of a pilgrimage to practice it?
 

(Eihei Dogen, “Koroku Kukan zazen gi”, tr Carl Bielefeldt, “Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation” UC Press 1988 p 175)   

Dogen’s questions are rhetorical, but I nevertheless believe they have an answer:  there’s a particular frailty of the human body that can require practice to overcome, at least for some people....

(I go into some detail, starting with Feldenkrais's observation that some people sometimes hold their breath while getting up out of a chair, and his surmise that they do so to avoid shearing stresses on the lower spine).

... Gautama taught a way to sit down and establish the “one-pointedness” of mind that can shift as though in open space. 

 

... Gautama taught the practice of a common experience, perhaps because the ability to return to such experience, although seemingly necessary for optimal health for many, is not common....

 

Common sense turns out to be uncommon--how do we correct that, when we can't lift a finger.  Ah, yes.

 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Bindi]

 

“Buddhahood is attained through the gradual process of transforming oneself into the body of perfect enlightenment by overcoming and finally eradicating one’s destructive emotions that are veils concealing one’s true nature."

Venerable Chöje Lama Phuntsok

http://www.dharmadownload.net/pages/english/Natsok/0014_Leksheyling_teaching/leksheyling_teachings_0012.htm

 

If we can agree that this is the aim, then the only debate is how to go about eradicating the destructive emotions. To me there’s a certain clarity of thought and emotion required to eliminate the fundamental need for destructive emotions, and they quietly disappear when the fundamental need for them is destroyed. I am tentatively calling that fundamental negative essence ego, a core element that can only be addressed IMO when we have attained the utmost clarity of mind that we can, for in the end it has to be my minds decision to kill my ego.
 

If I have unresolved issues that require me defending my sense of self, then I can’t wholeheartedly destroy my well and reasonably constructed self-defence network, but if I can in any moment perceive the lynch pin that holds the whole construction together and destroy it, then I have achieved everything I personally need to achieve. 
 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Bindi

[Cobie]

All emotions are needed; they balance each other out.

 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Cobie

[Bindi]

24 minutes ago, Cobie said:

All emotions are needed; they balance each other out.

 

 

It might be a matter of the negative (and self-defensive) emotions that were used to shield an emotional wound being left on, so that we operate from that place instead of from a neutral place where the appropriate emotion is free to come and go. So more destroying the shadow of old negative emotions, not the ability to feel any and all emotions fleetingly in the right time and place. 

[steve]

8 hours ago, Bindi said:

If we can agree that this is the aim, then the only debate is how to go about eradicating the destructive emotions.

 

I disagree with both the aim and premise, with all due respect to you and Venerable Chöje Lama Phuntsok.

Emotions are not inherently destructive or constructive, they are simply transient flows of energy.

It is our relationship to emotion and the associated actions that can be destructive or constructive.

And "destructive" and "constructive" need to be defined, either can be functional or dysfunctional. 

In my view, the aim of practice is not to eradicate emotions, even "destructive emotions," but to reduce and ultimately eradicate the over-identification with emotion that results in dysfunctional reactivity. 

This is why the central focus of understanding and practice are related to the nature and experience of self.

[Bindi]

53 minutes ago, steve said:

 

I disagree with both the aim and premise, with all due respect to you and Venerable Chöje Lama Phuntsok.

Emotions are not inherently destructive or constructive, they are simply transient flows of energy.

It is our relationship to emotion and the associated actions that can be destructive or constructive.

And "destructive" and "constructive" need to be defined, either can be functional or dysfunctional. 

In my view, the aim of practice is not to eradicate emotions, even "destructive emotions," but to reduce and ultimately eradicate the over-identification with emotion that results in dysfunctional reactivity. 

This is why the central focus of understanding and practice are related to the nature and experience of self.

Is authentic compassion not inherently positive? Can hate ever be constructive because you have the right relationship to it? 

[Invisible Acropolis]

53 minutes ago, Bindi said:

Is authentic compassion not inherently positive? Can hate ever be constructive because you have the right relationship to it? 

 

 anyone who studies Buddhism in an authentic way should be able to realize the fallacy of anything whatsoever being "inherent"... as in:

Quote

Pratītyasamutpāda (Sanskrit: प्रतीत्यसमुत्पाद, Pāli: paṭiccasamuppāda), commonly translated as dependent origination, or dependent arising, is a key doctrine in Buddhism shared by all schools of Buddhism. It states that all dharmas (phenomena) arise in dependence upon other dharmas: "if this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist". The basic principle is that all things (dharmas, phenomena, principles) arise in dependence upon other things.

 

The doctrine includes depictions of the arising of suffering (anuloma-paṭiccasamuppāda, "with the grain", forward conditionality) and depictions of how the chain can be reversed (paṭiloma-paṭiccasamuppāda, "against the grain", reverse conditionality)

 

but again, im speaking of AUTHENTIC Buddhism, rather than any of the various countless commercialized products which are derived from the teachings in some way or another... and most often in name only, rather than being related to any sort of "wisdom" which came from the Tathagata, and instead focused on some sort of personal gain unrelated to buddhadharma... (and not just piles of gold and jewels and artifacts) 

[old3bob]

The Self is inherent, eternal, non-changing and source of all PRANA and life, if not so then we are all S.O.L. 

 

Btw, I'd say that any Buddha in any system is not a lost or dependent soul upon anything other than that inherent Self.   Which some may also call "Buddha nature"...

Edited May 15, 2023 by old3bob

[old3bob]

11 hours ago, Bindi said:

 

“Buddhahood is attained through the gradual process of transforming oneself into the body of perfect enlightenment by overcoming and finally eradicating one’s destructive emotions that are veils concealing one’s true nature."

Venerable Chöje Lama Phuntsok

http://www.dharmadownload.net/pages/english/Natsok/0014_Leksheyling_teaching/leksheyling_teachings_0012.htm

 

If we can agree that this is the aim, then the only debate is how to go about eradicating the destructive emotions. To me there’s a certain clarity of thought and emotion required to eliminate the fundamental need for destructive emotions, and they quietly disappear when the fundamental need for them is destroyed. I am tentatively calling that fundamental negative essence ego, a core element that can only be addressed IMO when we have attained the utmost clarity of mind that we can, for in the end it has to be my minds decision to kill my ego.
 

If I have unresolved issues that require me defending my sense of self, then I can’t wholeheartedly destroy my well and reasonably constructed self-defence network, but if I can in any moment perceive the lynch pin that holds the whole construction together and destroy it, then I have achieved everything I personally need to achieve. 
 

 

Can one somehow empower an ego thinking it will somehow kill an ego?  Me thinks not.   Anyway If we would really do karma yoga then ego is weakened, and keep doing so along with other yoga's then ego will continue to be weakened (via it getting less energy and attention)  resulting at some point in it dropping away, sure there will be major and hairy ass  battles with ego/mind but still it will drop away and then Spirit will regain it's rightful place as Master.  On a different note I'd add that it takes a will to surrender a will, as elder brother Jesus so well demonstrated.

Edited May 15, 2023 by old3bob

[Bindi]

51 minutes ago, old3bob said:

 

Can one somehow empower an ego thinking it will somehow kill an ego?  Me thinks not.   Anyway If we would really do karma yoga then ego is weakened, and keep doing so along with other yoga's then ego will continue to be weakened (via it getting less energy and attention)  resulting at some point in it dropping away, sure there will be major and hairy ass  battles with ego/mind but still it will drop away and then Spirit will regain it's rightful place as Master.  On a different note I'd add that it takes a will to surrender a will, as elder brother Jesus so well demonstrated.

I don’t equate ego with the mind, I imagine ego as a construct of the mind that was created to serve a purpose. I don’t think the mind has to die, merely the constructed part of the mind that is unnecessary once the ego’s reason for existence is removed. 
 

To me the Self educates the mind to recognise ego, but it is the mind that once recognising ego chooses to kill it. 
 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Bindi

[Bindi]

58 minutes ago, Invisible Acropolis said:

 

 anyone who studies Buddhism in an authentic way should be able to realize the fallacy of anything whatsoever being "inherent"... as in:

 

but again, im speaking of AUTHENTIC Buddhism, rather than any of the various countless commercialized products which are derived from the teachings in some way or another... and most often in name only, rather than being related to any sort of "wisdom" which came from the Tathagata, and instead focused on some sort of personal gain unrelated to buddhadharma... (and not just piles of gold and jewels and artifacts) 

I did use a Buddhist quote but my thinking doesn’t conform to Buddhist ideas in any way as I am not Buddhist, and I don’t assume Buddhist philosophy is true. 

[Invisible Acropolis]

15 minutes ago, Bindi said:

I did use a Buddhist quote but my thinking doesn’t conform to Buddhist ideas in any way as I am not Buddhist, and I don’t assume Buddhist philosophy is true. 

 

well first you need to understand ACTUAL Buddhist concepts, instead of making something up in your own uninformed mind and calling it "Buddhist" 

 

otherwise you wont be able to discuss the ACTUAL truth about it, and instead you will just ramble on incessantly about your own uninformed and inaccurate views which have no relation to it

 

anyone can make up anything they want and argue against their own personal creation all day long, typically this is referred to as a "straw man" argument because its not legitimate in any way whatsoever, but rather simply evidences the psychology of the person instigating it

 

Quote

To be a spiritual warrior, one must have a broken heart; without a broken heart and the sense of tenderness and vulnerability that is in one's self and all others, your warriorship is untrustworthy. -- Chögyam Trungpa

 

Chogyam Trungpa, the Tibetan meditation master who introduced the Shambhala teachings in the West, famously coined the phrase "idiot compassion," which is an interesting thing for a Buddhist teacher to come up with. One of the central tenets of Buddhism is compassion in all its forms, relative and absolute. In many ways, the entire point of all the practice and study that we do is in order to become more compassionate. This compassion is meant for all beings: the people you love, the people you like, the people you don't know, and the people you hate. All of them are worthy of your compassion and in each case, we are to find a way to express it.

 

If it is always appropriate to express compassion, what then could "idiot compassion" be?

 

https://charterforcompassion.org/spirituality/idiot-compassion-and-the-power-of-sorrow

 

 

[Apech]

3 hours ago, steve said:

 

I disagree with both the aim and premise, with all due respect to you and Venerable Chöje Lama Phuntsok.

Emotions are not inherently destructive or constructive, they are simply transient flows of energy.

It is our relationship to emotion and the associated actions that can be destructive or constructive.

And "destructive" and "constructive" need to be defined, either can be functional or dysfunctional. 

In my view, the aim of practice is not to eradicate emotions, even "destructive emotions," but to reduce and ultimately eradicate the over-identification with emotion that results in dysfunctional reactivity. 

This is why the central focus of understanding and practice are related to the nature and experience of self.

 

Is this really your position @steve ?  Does your family find you a little ... unworldly?  I suppose yes, at some level everything is a flow of energy - whatever that means.  But there is still, if there is energy, movement.  And in this case there is movement to construct (lit.  heap or put together) or destruct (tear apart).  It is the movement of the world.  And many major emotions are destructive aren't they?  Anger, hate, jealousy ... anything violent - which we know karmically regenerates its own nature into future situations.  The world turns on this stuff whether I like it or identify with it or not.  Or does it?  Aha!

 

What is this self which identifies with emotions or doesn't?  What is it exactly?  Because the ego, normally speaking is just a heap of emotionally charged memories - is it that which is doing the identifying?  I don't think so.  And when we have reduced our identification with these emotions - what are we like?  Do we have feelings and passions?  Do we have love or faith?  Are we kind or cruel?  Or are we intelligences without these things?  Hmmmm.

[old3bob]

2 hours ago, Bindi said:

I don’t equate ego with the mind, I imagine ego as a construct of the mind that was created to serve a purpose. I don’t think the mind has to die, merely the constructed part of the mind that is unnecessary once the ego’s reason for existence is removed. 
 

To me the Self educates the mind to recognise ego, but it is the mind that once recognising ego chooses to kill it. 
 

 

Sounds like a reasonable take but I see it differently, to me  the mind and that is all of the mind from the subtle/pure to not subtle/impure is still but a THING, like a thing that one can hold in their hands and turn this way and that, thus a tool and indeed a great and powerful tool that can be used well in all realms...but ego can only exist like you say as construct in the mind thus the mind can not kill it. Only Spirit can see ego drop away into dust or less than dust and then Spirit regains it's place as Master and ruler over mind which as you say or imply to me does not have to die or disconnect to some abstraction.

Edited May 15, 2023 by old3bob

[Apech]

26 minutes ago, Invisible Acropolis said:

 

well first you need to understand ACTUAL Buddhist concepts, instead of making something up in your own uninformed mind and calling it "Buddhist" 

 

otherwise you wont be able to discuss the ACTUAL truth about it, and instead you will just ramble on incessantly about your own uninformed and inaccurate views which have no relation to it

 

anyone can make up anything they want and argue against their own personal creation all day long, typically this is referred to as a "straw man" argument because its not legitimate in any way whatsoever, but rather simply evidences the psychology of the person instigating it

 

 

 

Invisible (may I call you that?),

 

You come across as a little preachy and quite cross in this post.  Are you a qualified Buddhist teacher?  There isn't an orthodoxy here at DaoBums I'm afraid.  We are all free to post our thoughts on here - which is why it is enjoyable and not sterile like so many forums.  I suggest you go with the flow a little.

[Invisible Acropolis]

22 minutes ago, Apech said:

You come across as a little preachy 

 

same to you, friend

[liminal_luke]

6 hours ago, Bindi said:

Is authentic compassion not inherently positive? Can hate ever be constructive because you have the right relationship to it? 

 

The best way to gain or lose anything, perhaps the only way, is to come from a place of neutrality.  Otherwise our efforts contain the seeds of their own defeat.  Contemporary society overflows with haters of hate -- and what has all the gnashing of teeth bought us?  Precious little.  Chasing seemingly positive virtues like compassion is a similarly ill-fated endeavor.  I used to give massages for a living and, naturally, I wanted my clients to relax.  What I discovered was that my very desire to change my clients got in the way of the change I sought.

 

All this is confusing and perverse but I didn't make the rules.  It's the Buddha's world; I just live in it.

Edited May 15, 2023 by liminal_luke

[Invisible Acropolis]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

All this is confusing and perverse but I didn't make the rules.  It's the Buddha's world; I just live in it.

 

speaking of such crises and wonders in unequal doses:

 

Quote

...And, O Brahmana, whatever is obtained by men by the practice of truth, charity, ascetic austerities, and peace and harmlessness towards all creatures, and such other handsome deeds, is obtained because of my arrangements. Governed by my ordinance, men wander within my body, their senses overwhelmed by me. They move not according to their will but as they are moved by me.

 

— Mahabharata

Quote

Vast indeed is the tactical net of great Indra, mighty of action and tempestuous of great speed.

By that net, O Indra, pounce upon all the enemies so that none of the enemies may escape the arrest and punishment.

This great world is the power net of mighty Indra, greater than the great.

By that Indra-net of boundless reach, I hold all those enemies with the dark cover of vision, mind and senses.

 

- Atharvaveda 

 

[Bindi]

3 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

The best way to gain or lose anything, perhaps the only way, is to come from a place of neutrality.  Otherwise our efforts contain the seeds of their own defeat.  Contemporary society overflows with haters of hate -- and what has all the gnashing of teeth bought us?  Precious little.  Chasing seemingly positive virtues like compassion is a similarly ill-fated endeavor.  I used to give massages for a living and, naturally, I wanted my clients to relax.  What I discovered was that my very desire to change my clients got in the way of the change I sought.

 

All this is confusing and perverse but I didn't make the rules.  It's the Buddha's world; I just live in it.

A taught and forced neutrality is one possible solution but not for me. This is not Buddha’s world any more than it is Allah’s world or Jesus’s world. I neither hate hate nor love compassion, I see hate and compassion as merely the consequence of who runs the show, ego or unfettered mind. 

[liminal_luke]

3 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 This is not Buddha’s world any more than it is Allah’s world or Jesus’s world. 

 

Touche!  I'm not particularly Buddhist myself though I do think there's value in some of the teachings.  I wanted to make the point that seemingly harmless aversions and attachments can subtly tie a person to an undesired outcome.  I think this happens a lot with addictions: a person's desire to stop doing something can paradoxically fuel the cycle.  

 

In hindsight, I wouldn't of tethered this observation to your post as my comments don't really have that much to do with what you wrote.  Just something I wanted to say.

[Mark Foote]

Forcing me to my bookshelf, people.  Thanks, I think...

From Daniel Goleman's introduction to the 10th anniversary edition of "Emotional Intelligence":

 

In Illinois, for instance, specific learning standards in SEL ("social and emotional learning") abilities have been established for every grade from kindergarten through the last year of high school.  To give just one example of a remarkably detailed and comprehensive curriculum, in the early elementary years students should learn to recognize and accurately label their emotions and how they lead them to act.  By the late elementary years lessons in empathy should make children able to identify the nonverbal clues to how someone else feels; in junior high they should be able to analyze what creates stress for them or what motivates their best performance.  And in high school, the SEL skills include listening and talking in ways that resolve conflicts instead of escalating them, and negotiating for win-win solutions.

("Emotional Intelligence", Daniel Goleman, p X)

 

We should all have been so fortunate as to have had some of the Illinois curriculum in our background!

Meanwhile--Goleman's main theme:

 

The most ancient root of our emotional life is in the sense of smell, or more precisely, in the olfactory lobe...

 

From the olfactory lobe the ancient centers for emotion began to evolve, eventually growing large enough to encircle the brain stem...

With the arrival of the first mammals came new, key layers...  roughly like a bagel where the brainstem nestles into them.  ... this part of the brain... was called the "limbic" system... 

As it evolved, the limbic system refined two powerful tools:  learning and memory.  ... The homo sapiens neocortex, so much larger than any other species... allowed the addition of nuance to emotional life.

... (The) higher centers do not govern all of emotional life; in crucial matters of the heart--and most especially in emotional emergencies--they may be said to defer to the limbic system.

... The hippocampus and the amygdala were the two key parts of the primitive "nose brain". 

... More than affection is tied to the amygdala; all passion depends on it.  Animals that have their amygdala removed or severed lack fear and rage, lose the urge to compete or cooperate, and no longer have any sense of their place in their kind's social order...

LeDoux's research explains how the amygdala can take control over what we do even as the thinking brain, the neocortex, is still coming to a decision.

(ibid, p 13-15)
 

 

Goleman goes on to discuss how the amygdala is responsible for moments when impulsive feelings overcome the rational.  A lot of it, he concludes, is early memories stored in the amygdala.  Emotional explosions, he says, are neural hijackings.  Also finding a joke uproarious.

 

... this leads Dr. Damasio to the counter-intuitive proposition that feelings are typically indispensable for rational decisions; they point us in the proper direction, where dry logic can then be of best use.  ... the old paradigm held an ideal of reason freed from the pull of emotion.  The new paradigm urges us to harmonize head and heart.  

(ibid, p 28-29)
 

 

[blue eyed snake]

Not a buddhist but reading some nice things here

 

8 hours ago, steve said:

I disagree with both the aim and premise, with all due respect to you and Venerable Chöje Lama Phuntsok.

Emotions are not inherently destructive or constructive, they are simply transient flows of energy.

It is our relationship to emotion and the associated actions that can be destructive or constructive.

And "destructive" and "constructive" need to be defined, either can be functional or dysfunctional. 

In my view, the aim of practice is not to eradicate emotions, even "destructive emotions," but to reduce and ultimately eradicate the over-identification with emotion that results in dysfunctional reactivity. 

This is why the central focus of understanding and practice are related to the nature and experience of self.

 

I do sort of like that although lately I've tended to see emotion as information ( or flow of information)

that information ( or energy) imprints itself in both body and uh, the thinking mind. Thinking mind is meant here as thinking mind, not ego perse. The part of us that makes shopping lists so to say.

 

maybe imprint is not the right word, its like emotions sort of wind themselves through body and thinking mind.

like connective tissue does in the body, or the circulatory system, it's everywhere.

 

Long did I think that indeed, the ego is formed/has shaped itself around all the shit we perceived in life et cetera.

which is still true but there might be more to it.

 

Becoming aware how the old reaction-patterns can wake up, ' me' looking at it happening, becoming aware of body reactions ( like heartbeat going faster) and mind reactions , like "hey this person touches old pain" and thinking on how to respond to that. But it's all a bit detached so to say, so...eh....the same reaction is happening, the ingrained defending of  "the ego" but somehow the fire has diminished/gone out a bit. The emotion still following the old ingrained pathways, but sort of diminished.

It's interesting

 

and about destructive emotions, in my time girls were brought up to be nice and helpful and obedient, loving, sweet, caring et cetera ad infitum. All such good traits uh, woman should be compassionate

When you sink in/identify with that society-induced role it happens to be that all those "good traits" are pretty destructive and disgusting.

Where unloading yourself from anger or sadness ( ooh, a woman screaming, bad emotions) can be healthy to regain balance.

 

ah well, just rambling a bit