Emotions are the path

[S:C]

How can we best adapt to changes of intensity on the path? 
 

Do we always have to feel the contrast of what we have felt before, like a hidden pendulum swinging back to an equilibrium? 
 

After extreme agitation must follow extreme calm? After focus must follow dissipation/distraction? 

[steve]

6 minutes ago, S:C said:

How can we best adapt to changes of intensity on the path? 
 

Do we always have to feel the contrast of what we have felt before, like a hidden pendulum swinging back to an equilibrium? 
 

After extreme agitation must follow extreme calm? After focus must follow dissipation/distraction? 

I think there is a naturalness and inevitability to what you describe. If you feel anything extreme there comes a time when that feeling subsides, it cannot sustain itself indefinitely. When you experience that release or change, the new feeling will naturally be in contrast to what came before. This is an explicit expression of yin/yang in our experience. I think a good way to deal with it is to embrace it, to allow ourselves to feel it fully. The more open we are to the extremes and especially the transition, the more we come to understand the nature of our experience and ourselves.

[Mark Foote]

On 11/1/2023 at 1:19 PM, S:C said:

How can we best adapt to changes of intensity on the path? 
 

Do we always have to feel the contrast of what we have felt before, like a hidden pendulum swinging back to an equilibrium? 
 

After extreme agitation must follow extreme calm? After focus must follow dissipation/distraction? 
 

In the Pali sermons, Gautama described his way of living as "the intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing".  The intent concentration consisted of sixteen thoughts, applied or sustained in the course of an in-breath or an out-breath.  

 

According to Gautama, the "intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing" was his way of living most of the time, especially in the rainy season.  The "intent concentration" was his way of living, before ("when I was as yet the bodhisattva") and after ("the Tathagatha's way of living") enlightenment. 

He said that he returned to concentration after his dharma talks.  That, and his acknowledgement that the "intent concentration" was only his way of living "most of the time", is an indication that he swung in and out of concentration.  

Gautama speaks of a longing for the states of concentration, and identifies such a longing as a hindrance.  The states are attained, he declared, through lack of desire, by means of lack of desire. 

He understood that the states were not permanent, he chastised monks who took an oath of silence during retreat and created a rule against it for his order, in spite of the loss of concentration that accompanies "determinate thought" in speech. 

The first three of the further concentrations were "the excellence of the heart's release" through the extension of compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity throughout the four quarters of the world, above and below.  The extension of compassion in daily life was a draw greater than concentration for Gautama, as reflected in his dedication to teaching the dharma at the apparent expense of his preferred "way of living".

Highs of concentration, the experience of suffering in various guises outside of concentration.  Answer to your questions from the framework of Gautama's teaching in the Pali sermons, I would say is yes, but that there is a natural escape from agitation, dissipation, distraction--priceless!
 

 

Edited February 9 by Mark Foote

[S:C]

On 1.11.2023 at 10:06 PM, Mark Foote said:

The intent concentration consisted of sixteen thoughts, applied or sustained in the course of an in-breath or an out-breath.  

I have had no instructions on the Pali Sermons, yet. When you speak of concentration, it seems to have a different meaning than in colloquial language? @Mark Foote Do you mean meditative states? Meditative states where senses are left behind? That’s what you mean with “there is a natural escape from agitation, dissipation, distraction--priceless!”?

Do I understand it correctly, that he followed a rule of thought during every breath, and among those sixteen in the process?
 

Edit: it actually is a method of sixteen steps, - not in one breath, but over a series of breaths, that can be read up here: https://encyclopediaofbuddhism.org/wiki/Anapanasati

 

Dissipation, distraction and decay is a scary thing to fully embrace, imo, as is passivity and planlessness or lack of drives. @steve It seems kinda sad, too. Need for trust in the process to reverse itself again, at some point. 

 

Edited November 3, 2023 by S:C
Adding and deletion. No offense, just hadn’t heart about the 16steps before

[steve]

20 minutes ago, S:C said:

Dissipation, distraction and decay is a scary thing to fully embrace, imo, as is passivity and planlessness or lack of drives. 

Notice that these are all simply examples of the moving mind ruminating over things that may be in the future or have been in the past; projections, expectations, assumptions and so on. That does not need to be embraced. Look at what you are actually feeling here and now - in the body, the emotions, the sense of self. Who is it feeling these things? That is what you embrace, not the ideas, not the creation of the mind. I hope that distinction makes some sense.

 

Quote

@steve It seems kinda sad, too. Need for trust in the process to reverse itself again, at some point.

That sadness and the sense of me feeling that is what we can open to and embrace with kindness and care. And it will reverse itself. This is part of the meaning of impermanence. No matter how bad things are, they will get better… no matter how good things are, they’ll get worse. Take care of the one struggling with the extremes and the transition.

[Mark Foote]

On 11/1/2023 at 3:02 PM, S:C said:

I have had no instructions on the Pali Sermons, yet. When you speak of concentration, it seems to have a different meaning than in colloquial language? @Mark Foote Do you mean meditative states? Meditative states where senses are left behind? That’s what you mean with “there is a natural escape from agitation, dissipation, distraction--priceless!”?

Do I understand it correctly, that he followed a rule of thought during every breath, and among those sixteen in the process?
 

Edit: it actually is a method of sixteen steps, - not in one breath, but over a series of breaths, that can be read up here: https://encyclopediaofbuddhism.org/wiki/Anapanasati

 

I would take issue only with the notion that they were necessarily consecutive steps, although they may unfold in that manner.  Gautama described the sixteen as his way of living, and divided them into sets, four each for the body, the feelings, the mind, and the states of mind.  Without cessation, though, the set has no axis.

Excerpts from a post on my own site, that I hope give a better idea:

 

There can… come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence.

 

There’s a frailty in the structure of the lower spine, and the movement of breath can place the point of awareness in such a fashion as to engage a mechanism of support for the spine, often in stages 

... When “doing something” has ceased, and there is “not one particle of the body” that cannot receive the placement of attention, then the placement of attention is free to shift as necessary in the movement of breath. (At such a moment,) the flow of “doing something” in the body, of activity initiated by habit or volition, ceases ....  Instead, activity is generated purely by the placement of attention, and the location of attention can flow.

... The difficulty is that most people will lose consciousness before they cede activity to the location of attention.

... Applying and sustaining thought would appear to be a preparatory practice, but in Gautama’s “intent concentration” (the mindfulness described in Anapanasati Sutta), the thought comes out of necessity in the free placement of attention in the movement of breath. The free placement of attention only occurs with clarity in the fourth concentration, but... such freedom is inherent in human nature.

... When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration:
 

… there is no need to depend on teaching. But the most important thing is to practice and realize our true nature… [laughs]. This is, you know, Zen.
 

(Shunryu Suzuki, Tassajara 68-07-24 transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)
 

 

(sentences taken from Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages, emphasis added)

 

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Mark Foote

[S:C]

Thank you, @Mark Foote, I am getting closer to understanding your perspective , even though the foreign concepts are hard to grasp, yet I can come up with some comparisons, that are more familiar to me. Very much appreciated. It did get clearer. 

[Mark Foote]

On 11/4/2023 at 3:36 PM, S:C said:

Thank you, @Mark Foote, I am getting closer to understanding your perspective , even though the foreign concepts are hard to grasp, yet I can come up with some comparisons, that are more familiar to me. Very much appreciated. It did get clearer. 
 

Thanks, S:C, for reading my write and for your appreciation.

The six senses are definitely present, when "doing something" in feeling and perceiving cuts out.  Here's Gautama's description of the moment he attained "the cessation of feeling and perceiving":

 

…[an individual] comprehends thus, ‘This concentration of mind … is effected and thought out. But whatever is effected and thought out, that is impermanent, it is liable to stopping.’ When [the individual] knows this thus, sees this thus, [their] mind is freed from the canker of sense-pleasures and [their] mind is freed from the canker of becoming and [their] mind is freed from the canker of ignorance. In freedom is the knowledge that [one] is freed and [one] comprehends: “Destroyed is birth, brought to a close the (holy)-faring, done is what was to be done, there is no more of being such or so’. [They] comprehend thus: “The disturbances there might be resulting from the canker of sense-pleasures do not exist here; the disturbances there might be resulting from the canker of becoming do not exist here; the disturbances there might be resulting from the canker of ignorance do not exist here. And there is only this degree of disturbance, that is to say the six sensory fields that, conditioned by life, are grounded on this body itself.”

 

(MN III 108-109, Pali Text Society III p 151-152)

 

The sixth sense being the mind.  His enlightenment, his insight into dependent causation, apparently followed his attainment of "the cessation of feeling and perceiving".

 

Can I recommend the full context of my previous post?--that would be here:  Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages. 

 

Took me from 1975 to write that, an explanation of the role of "the cessation of inbreathing and outbreathing" in daily life, based on Gautama's teachings.  In plain English, that cessation is the cessation of "doing something" in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation while conscious of inhalation and exhalation, the cessation of both volition and habit in "doing something".  

 

#Apech is right, that finding a way to understand not only the terms of the Pali sermons, but the role of the donkey in daily living (see the aforementioned post), does not really take away from the necessity to swim in the sea of emotions that is our humanity.  At least, that's the way I see it.  So much to learn, so little time.

 

Edited February 9 by Mark Foote

[blue eyed snake]

bump

 

[Apech]

13 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

bump

 

Thanks bumper

[Maddie]

It's a good title. Emotions are THE thing that got me started on the path and THE thing that keeps me on the path. 

[S:C]

What effect, if any, has focus (not insight) meditation on the equilibrium and/or intensity of emotions? Does it help or does it stir things up?
Is there even a causality at play? What’s your experience?
 

What methods are there, to feel emotions in order to let them go? (They make me tired!)

 

At times they come back aprupt and I am surprised why now - and WHY so energized? (Could blame it on the planets though…)

 

Has anyone had experience with Mrs. Byron’s four questions, does it help, it seems like a lot of time for writing and analysis? 

Edited March 4 by S:C

[snowymountains]

23 minutes ago, S:C said:

What effect, if any, has focus (not insight) meditation on the equilibrium and/or intensity of emotions? Does it help or does it stir things up?
Is there even a causality at play? What’s your experience?
 

What methods are there, to feel emotions in order to let them go? (They make me tired!)

 

At times they come back aprupt and I am surprised why now - and WHY so energized? (Could blame it on the planets though…)

 

Insight meditation is a rather incomplete tool for the purposes of working on emotions.

 

The best "tool" for this is therapy, by a long shot.

By all means do insight meditation, it's a good practice, but the real work will happen in therapy, which is the only thing that will get you to the core of it.

 

They could make you tired for all sorts of reasons, observe eg if you gain some muscular tension after experiencing emotions ( ie neck area ), if your breathing pattern changes, if you engage a lot in thoughts around emotions.

But observation alone and maybe changing a pattern won't change the core of it.

Only therapy will change the core.

[S:C]

If there’s a technique for oneself to do alone (!), I should have clarified the question!

And I don’t do insight meditation. I just focus a lot anyways (if life is kind to me) - and tried to improve it by sitting and focusing on just the moment and the feels and perceptions in essence.

 

and I hate it if one quotes me before I am done editing  but hey, thanks for your input. sigh.

 

Edited March 4 by S:C

[snowymountains]

6 minutes ago, S:C said:

If there’s a technique for oneself to do alone (!), I should have clarified the question! 

And I don’t do insight meditation. I just focus a lot anyways (if life is kind to me) - and tried to improve it by sitting and focusing on just the moment and the feels and perceptions in essence.

 

Alone you can try mindfulness' RAIN, the mindfulness technique for absorbing emotions through the breath, insight meditation, the four immeasurables are good practices on emotions too.

 

Also there are two Buddhist techniques for emotions transformation, one is more or less described here: https://www.livinglifefully.com/flo/flobetransformingfeelings.htm .

The other one is also one that Thay advocated, it's also good, maybe it's also posted somewhere online.

 

These are all good practices but have limited scope only therapy can go deep, the rest scratch the surface.

[S:C]

The surface is fine, thank you!

[Mark Foote]

1 hour ago, S:C said:

What effect, if any, has focus (not insight) meditation on the equilibrium and/or intensity of emotions? Does it help or does it stir things up?

Is there even a causality at play? What’s your experience?
 

What methods are there, to feel emotions in order to let them go? (They make me tired!)

 

At times they come back abruptly and I am surprised why now - and WHY so energized? (Could blame it on the planets though…)

 

Has anyone had experience with Mrs. Byron’s four questions, does it help, it seems like a lot of time for writing and analysis? 
 

Last question first, never heard of Mrs. Byron's four questions.  I googled and found them, interesting. 

By the way, I would not go to the website "thework.com" for the questions--within a few seconds, I got a screen saying my version of the Chrome browser needing updating, and informing me that if the update did not start directly, I should click a button prominently displayed on the page.

Chrome updates automatically, so this was clearly bogus, the button an invitation to malware hell.

My latest post (on my own site) is not intended to be a rejection of the examination of emotions, far from it, although it might read that way.  I guess for me, the question is more how to proceed to open my experience, of emotions, of dreams, and of daily living.  Here's the post:
 

 

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.
 

(Carl Jung: The Philosophical Tree; Collected Works 13: Alchemical Studies. Paragraph 335)

 

Shunryu Suzuki described the true practice of seated meditation as “just sitting”, meaning that “doing something” in the act of sitting has ceased.  I believe, as Gautama the Buddha said, that the cessation of “doing something” in speech, body, or mind is a contact of freedom.
 

I don’t think the integration of childhood memories, pre-speech memories, and inured emotional responses can take place apart from that cessation of “doing something” in the body and mind and that contact of freedom.
 

I practice more now, as I see that the cessation I experience in “just sitting”  helps to provide a sense of timing in my life, a sense of timing that seems related to a whole beyond what I can know.
 

I’m not looking to become enlightened, or to make the darkness conscious.
 

… time, just as it is, is being, and being is all time.
 

(Dogen:  “Uji (Being-Time)”; “The Heart of Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō”, tr by Waddell, Norman; Abe, Masao. SUNY Press. 2001. p 48)

 

 

(The Practice of Time)

 

[Apech]

2 hours ago, S:C said:

What effect, if any, has focus (not insight) meditation on the equilibrium and/or intensity of emotions? Does it help or does it stir things up?
Is there even a causality at play? What’s your experience?
 

What methods are there, to feel emotions in order to let them go? (They make me tired!)

 

At times they come back aprupt and I am surprised why now - and WHY so energized? (Could blame it on the planets though…)

 

Has anyone had experience with Mrs. Byron’s four questions, does it help, it seems like a lot of time for writing and analysis? 

She walks in beauty  , like the night?

[Apech]

14 hours ago, S:C said:

What effect, if any, has focus (not insight) meditation on the equilibrium and/or intensity of emotions? Does it help or does it stir things up?
Is there even a causality at play? What’s your experience?
 

 

I would say that from my experience focus intensifies because by your attention you are introducing more energy into the 'zone' or more presence perhaps.  I know that in TCM emotions are viewed as disturbing factors and sometimes disease causing energy when they interact with specific organs and so on.  But in qi work I think emotions should be viewed differently.  They are aspects of consciousness which while they may be disturbing they also open us up to the full spectrum of consciousness itself (Spirit if you prefer).  In tantra for instance the main emotions like anger and so on are seen as reflexes of types of wisdom (prajna) - and wisdom in this case refers to direct 'experience' or knowing of consciousness.

 

14 hours ago, S:C said:

What methods are there, to feel emotions in order to let them go? (They make me tired!)

 

You need to build an understanding of your relation to emotions and what lies behind them.  What lies behind them is your true self, God or buddha-nature - depending on how you want to put it.  The trick is to feel the emotions as fully as possible without identifying with them or becoming submerged.  How to do this I think is quite idiosyncratic in that there isn't a formula but just repeated experience of being thrown into the water (so to speak) and learning how to swim.  Sit with the feeling of tiredness and try to feel where the energy has gone.  Emotions are strong energy flows at base - and that energy is life energy - which is what you are (if that makes sense).

 

14 hours ago, S:C said:

At times they come back aprupt and I am surprised why now - and WHY so energized? (Could blame it on the planets though…)

 

Sometimes we are overwhelmed and all we can do is sit back and conserve energy till they pass.  They are phasic I think so 'the planets' is valid here.  If you see the world alchemically then we do exist in dynamic field.  Rather like the weather they come and go rather unpredictably I think.

 

14 hours ago, S:C said:

Has anyone had experience with Mrs. Byron’s four questions, does it help, it seems like a lot of time for writing and analysis? 

 

Do you mean Byron Katie?  When you said Mrs. Byron I could help thinking of the poem I quoted above  

 

I don't know anything about her but I do think keeping a journal is helpful as it helps organise thoughts and spot patterns.  I have to admit I am not very good at this myself and only do it in patches.  But I think  daily journal would help.

 

Just my thoughts as ever!

 

 

[manitou]

4 hours ago, Apech said:

What lies behind them is your true self, God or buddha-nature - depending on how you want to put it. 

 

 

And this would be your luminous blob!!  Apech, what you've said here is so profound, and I know that people just gloss right over it.  I guess it isn't until the time is absolutely right, when one realizes self-realization, that the truth is found.  Enlightenment is a funny thing.  You know you're there when there's absolutely no place else to go....

[manitou]

On 3/4/2024 at 2:19 PM, S:C said:

What methods are there, to feel emotions in order to let them go? (They make me tired!)

 

 

 

Eliminate desire.

Figure out why they're there.  Look at the source and understand it.  It will resolve itself once you become aware, and the emotion will lessen more and more over time.

If someone has a problem with too much emotion, they're giving their power away.  Be like water.  Let all things flow through you, have no expectations on people, don't differentiate between good and bad behavior in another.

[johndoe2012]

On 5.3.2024 at 12:12 AM, S:C said:

If there’s a technique for oneself to do alone (!), I should have clarified the question!

And I don’t do insight meditation. I just focus a lot anyways (if life is kind to me) - and tried to improve it by sitting and focusing on just the moment and the feels and perceptions in essence.

 

and I hate it if one quotes me before I am done editing  but hey, thanks for your input. sigh.

 

 

Energy healing can do it. 

 

One of energies I have access to is a energy / consciousness that make it feel safe / more open to feel emotions, as if you are much bigger than the emotion, so no matter the intensity of the emotion you are always capable of containing it. Thus you can release it so easily compared to all the various meditation techniques I have tried. 

 

Basically you are accessing a higher state of consciousness than the state your current system can handle, so basically you are upgrading yourself that way. 

[johndoe2012]

8 hours ago, manitou said:

 

 

Eliminate desire.

Figure out why they're there.  Look at the source and understand it.  It will resolve itself once you become aware, and the emotion will lessen more and more over time.

If someone has a problem with too much emotion, they're giving their power away.  Be like water.  Let all things flow through you, have no expectations on people, don't differentiate between good and bad behavior in another.

 

Eliminate desire is a bad strategy, without desire you are dead and have no energy due to shutting down your own system, suppression and repression. 

 

Eliminate grasping instead. Desire is natural, just look at life changing all the time. 

 

Edit: See what Buddhism says about desire https://www.buddhanet.net/4noble13.htm

Edited March 6 by johndoe2012

[manitou]

Did you know what I was talking about?

[S:C]

On 6.3.2024 at 3:13 AM, johndoe2012 said:

without desire you are dead and have no energy due to shutting down your own system,

there's something to it. Emotions are like a compass - without them you are lost and without goals. Focusing on own empirical sense data and calm (instead of in depths concepts) might enlarge those to some degree, - I will watch that for a while, thanks.

 

@manitou, thank you, yes, I hope so, yes, maybe I get stuck in the analytic part and don't get to feel or the aware part

Quote

Let all things flow through you, have no expectations on people, don't differentiate between good and bad behavior in another.

This part seems difficult, when you strive to live a 'functional' life and have to 'work' with this. It did get better lately with some approaches, again, habitual feelings might just get enlarged even though there's no reason for it. 

 

@Apech, yes, I mistook her first name for her last name, - Mr. Byrons poems however are a classic! Something you mentioned about 'overwhelmed' reminded me of a dream of my own, - - thanks.

 

@blue eyed snake, something you mentioned, about intensified energetics in the body via 'practice'  (I never practiced, it was a current) resembling a feeling of 'being in love' recently, somewhere (cannot find it right now) rings a bell and explains - some - for me, thanks. 

 

@Mark Foote, I am sorry, that there was a scam on the site, - I hadn't visited it, and I don't use google chrome. I'm glad you find a better sense of timing through meditation, however I get confused about the difference of 'the cessation of doing' and 'the cessation of breath' (which is not a thing one should get confused about) and I admire your dedication to the classical writings. 

 

@snowymountains, thanks, the link might be of help!

thanks @all for the input! 

Edited March 8 by S:C