befriending our feelings

in this program

we often wonder what to do about negativity or certain troubling emotions. in the spaciousness of meditation, you can view your thoughts and emotions with a totally unbiased attitude. when your attitude changes, then the whole atmosphere of your mind changes, even the very nature of your thoughts and emotions. when you become more agreeable, then they do; if you have no difficulty with them, they will have no difficulty with you either.

Sogyal Rinpoche

in the mindfulness section we discussed being with emotion and regulating emotion. in the meditation section, we looked at how to be present with emotion (see what do we mean by presence). in this program we’ll be focusing on Buddhist views on emotion, afflicted feelings, and working with emotion. in Buddhism emotions are not seen as a separate category of experience, but rather as part of mental states, which in turn are seen as either beneficial or harmful. harmful emotions are called afflicted or destructive feelings.

emotions are our vital energy, the expression of our humanness, and no feeling can be wrong. and yet, if we do not temper our emotions, they can have destructive consequences for us and those around us. undoing this destructiveness involves becoming deeply aware of our emotions and becoming skillful in soothing or supporting them. this is what is meant by befriending our feelings.

if your everyday practice is to open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that — then that will take you as far as you can go. and then you’ll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.

Pema Chödrön

generally speaking, we can build a healthier relationship with our emotions by identifying the current emotion, realizing that it is not necessarily bad (even if it feels bad), being curious about it, learning from it, and practicing holding painful emotions. we can also recognize that our feelings do not originate from outside ourselves. in other words, other people or situations don’t cause our feelings, our interpretation of these people and situations are the real cause of our emotions. where one person lashes out in anger, another remains calm and finds a peaceful solution. where one person feels envious, another celebrates the good fortune of their friend. and where one person feels deeply disturbed by the smallest criticism, another looks for what is valuable and adopts it.

our emotions are created by ourselves, as a response or reaction to what is happening. the catalyst of the feeling may be on the “outside,” but the feeling is on the inside. as our practice deepens, we realize that nothing exists outside awareness, and it becomes much clearer how our feelings are responses to what is happening. we cannot help what we feel, but we can most certainly choose our response. it becomes our practice to keep track of what is happening in the interior, and to regulate how we respond or act.

generally speaking, we can define destructive emotions as those states which undermine our well-being by creating inner turmoil, thereby undermining self-control and depriving us of mental freedom. within this, it is also possible to distinguish between two sub-categories: those emotional states that are destructive in themselves, such as greed, hatred, or malice; and those states, such as attachment, anger, or fear, which only become destructive where their intensity is disproportionate to the situation in which they arise.

Dalai Lama

the six realms

if hate reigns supreme, it chains us to hell.
great avarice opens the gulf of eternal hunger.
dull ignorance makes us no better than animals.
growing passion ties us to the world of men.
if jealousy takes root, it leads to the realm of warring gods.
overbearing pride traps us in the land of the heavens.
these are the six fetters that chain us to samsara.
Milarepa

depending on our personality and level of trauma, our moods and states of mind change all day long. if we remain aware of this process, we’ll notice ourselves travelling from realm to realm. one moment we’re sensitively feeling, another we are in a state of dullness with no productivity or energy, and then later we may find ourselves ensnared in strong emotion.

Buddhism sees our emotional states as moving between six realms of experience. if we pay attention to our mental state, we can easily recognize the realm we find ourselves in from moment to moment. each realm has its own interpretation of reality and associated experience of life, and each state projects its emotional reactions onto the world.

if it’s painful, you become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken your heart and soften you. you learn to embrace it.

Pema Chödrön

hell realm: anger and hatred

when we’re caught in the hell realm of anger, we’re either experiencing hot, explosive, and aggressive anger, or we’re caught in the cold hell of resentment. hot anger burns into us like flames and hot steel. there is no relief, and we find ourselves in a world of running and fighting. whatever we attack simply bursts into flames that destroy us. in the cold hell of hatred, everything is frozen and unmoving. time has little meaning here. things don’t change, and the unremitting cold is unbearable. we become brittle with the cold of hatred, and feel ourselves cracking apart. in the hell realm our experience is of unending pain and destruction. everything pushes us back into the folds of hot or cold anger. we feel ourselves unable to escape. our rumination leads to more anger or deeper resentment.

hungry ghost realm: greed

in this realm we are consumed by our greed. everyone in this realm is like a ghost, thin and spindly, ever-hungry, trapped in a world distorted by insatiable desire. we live in a world of mental or actual poverty. acquisition and comparison rule our thinking. theft and deception are rampant, and the world is devoid of richness or beauty. there are only objects and experiences to be acquired, and the inability to get lasting satisfaction. we feel deprived and needy, or our needs are insatiable. even true nourishment becomes garbage, because it cannot be appreciated.

the animal realm: instinct and compulsion

in the animal realm we are reduced to our most instinctual needs: survival and avoiding pain. we feel ourselves to be part of the food chain. everyone eats and is eaten by others or the system. we are driven unconsciously by instinct, and have little discernment. we unconsciously repeat sleeping, eating, and working, like a worm, ingesting and excreting the world. there is little possibility for change, because we are essentially asleep to ourselves and the world. we are also mostly unaware of our impact on others.

imagine how confused, desperate, and finally defeated you feel when you can’t find any way to change things. all you can do is endure as best you can.

Ken McCleod

human realm: desire

the human realm is about desire and the constant drive to fulfil it. we work to get what we want, but what we want keeps changing and increasing. we persevere at this process because we believe the harder we work, the greater will be our ability to fulfil our desires. in the hungry ghost realm we cannot get satisfaction. in the human realm the satisfaction is temporary. we feel good when our needs are sated, and we work to keep it this way. we experience fear around losing what we have, and engage in endless self-protection programs. there can also be a great deal of idealism, as we strive to be with the people we hold in esteem, and avoid those we don’t want to be associated with. this cycle of constant seeking and protecting keeps us from living consciously and understanding reality.

titan realm: jealousy and envy

the titans are demigods, living in a world of strength, ability, agency, and power. they are immensely powerful, and yet they constantly strive to have what the gods have. in classic depictions of the six realms the titans tend to the tree that bears fruit in the god realm. we can easily see this pattern when we look at corporates and very rich people. there is a great deal of envy and jealousy, competition, and striving. there can also be a deep sense of paranoia. the sense of lacking what the gods have is experienced intensely despite one’s own power, fame, or beauty. through deception and loss we can easily slip from the titan realm to the hell realm.

the god realm: pride

humility does not mean you think less of yourself. It means you think of yourself less.

Ken Blanchard

those who live in the god realm feel special, like a god in their world. they live in luxury, and the hard edges of life don’t touch them. life consists of good food, traveling, and spending time with friends, and if work is necessary, it is enjoyable. everything you could want or need is available. you feel powerful, untouchable, and unquestionably right. there is complacency towards suffering as it is not known to you. and yet, this life is deeply threatened by its own impermanence, as we struggle to avoid being reminded of suffering and death.

when we experience the world through anger and hatred, everything becomes our enemy, and we find ourselves fighting our way through life. with greed, we experience reality as unsatisfying and ourselves as having an insatiable neediness. with blind instinct, we live unconsciously, and our actions are based purely on our conditioning. with desire, we experience life through the lens of potential pleasure, and pour our energy into the activities that lead to our pleasure. when we experience jealousy or envy, we have a perception of deficiency or lack. we become identified with our victories and our acquisition. finally, with pride, we feel that life is our oyster. we are superior and complacent and strive to maintain this position, finally losing it to death.

afflicted feelings

in Buddhism, all the afflicted or destructive emotions are seen as stemming from the three poisons: ignorance, desire, and aversion. we’ve also seen that ignorance belongs to the animal realm, desire to the human, and aversion to the hell realm. the hungry ghost realm adds greed, the titan realm envy/jealousy, and the god realm pride. these are the six main afflicted feelings. some systems of Buddhism add four more, so we end up with ten afflicted feelings:

these ten mental states and their associated emotions all lead to self-delusion, as they all stem from an underlying ignorance: not knowing who we truly are and not seeing reality directly. we will look more deeply into the first six below, and we will discuss anxiety and depression in another program.

ignorance

in Buddhism, ignorance is seen to be the source of samsara, of dwelling in pain. as we saw in into stillness, what we believe to be an “objective” view of reality may in fact not be very objective. our thought-self is very different from our awareness- or experiential self. from the Buddhist perspective, ignorance is the failure to recognize the large ground of awareness underlying all of the objects of consciousness. we are ignorant of the fact that everything we know happens only in awareness. the ego can only have incomplete knowledge of reality, but it convinces itself that its view is complete. everything we know is made of emptiness, but we project our perceived or interpreted “solidity” onto the world. whereas our thought-self knows objects, our awareness-self knows only perception, sensation, and feeling. our awareness-self is a boundaryless and seamless amorphous field of sensitive Knowing and Being. this is very different to the egoic view of seeing ourselves as a solid person in a world of objects.

ego in the Buddhist sense, then, is the ongoing activity of holding oneself separate, making oneself into something solid and definite, and identifying with this split-off fragment of the experiential field.

John Welwood

ignorance is also the apathy or indifference we feel towards situations that we don’t find interesting because they don’t confirm our sense of self or threaten us. or it arises in the form of desire, where we have to have in order to feel real. ignorance also arises as the anger and resentment with which we want to push our experience away.

we may never reach a point where all ignorance has dropped away, but we can become more adept at recognizing our ignorance in its varied forms, including our defenses, thinking processes, and emotional reactions. we cannot get rid of all of these, but we can be deeply aware, and care for the “self” that is egoless; that is simply aware, with no other qualities.

the antidote to ignorance is mindful or conscious living. this means that meditation has not only become a regular practice, but we live from its awareness more and more. as a result, we see our ignorance more easily, since we are less identified with thought.

anger

when a person’s speech is full of anger, it is because he or she suffers deeply. because he has so much suffering, he becomes full of bitterness.

Thich Nhat Hahn

as is true for all the afflicted feelings, anger is not a wrong feeling. in the mindfulness section (emotional intelligence), we discussed how it developed out of our fear response. two feelings underlie anger: sadness and fear. the sadness is felt for what is absent, and the fear is felt for what is present. we do not want to feel these feelings, so we try to push away the experience using aversion or anger.

when we heal from complex trauma, anger forms a necessary part of working our way through grief. when we resist our emotions, they simply persist. a healthier approach is to see our emotions as a natural extension of our own strength. emotional energy is always present, and the best approach is to identify, consider, or understand the emotional state. our emotions do not need to drive our actions. when we accept them, we have the opportunity to understand our inner life more fully, and to become skillful at navigating strong emotion.

when we learn how to pause and connect honestly with our inner experience, we are able to respond to another from our full intelligence and heart. anger and aggression are different. you can feel angry, but not react in a way that hurts others. you can feel angry and make sensible and rational choices. you can feel deep anger, and not use it as a weapon, or become bullying and intimidating.

anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

Seneca

working with anger

know your triggers: anger often takes us by surprise, so it is important to know our patterns around anger, including the situations, people, thoughts, or images that tend to evoke it. keep track of anger and frustration, and notice who was involved, what happened, when it happened, and where it happened.

distinguish anger from aggression: anger is an emotion that is typically triggered when we feel we have been wronged in some way. in and of itself, the emotion is innocent, but it is often accompanied by aggression, which is not so innocent. aggression is acting on anger. we feel hurt by something someone said to us, so we become sarcastic. or we feel rage when we get cut off in traffic, so we swear, hoot, give the person the finger, etc. aggression can manifest in action, speech, and thinking. we can easily increase our anger through aggressive speech and thinking. we don’t need to manage the feeling of anger, it only needs to be felt. we do, however, need to manage our aggression by managing how we act and speak.

the first thing we naturally do when another is experiencing a crisis (and gets angry as a result) is to validate their experience. we may say how sorry we feel for their experience, and offer support.

identify and validate your emotion: do not fight, repress, or ignore the feeling. don't grit your teeth or pretend you’re not feeling anger. in order to deal with the anger, you have to acknowledge that it is there. know how it can serve you, and how not.

take some time out: this means delaying our reaction, because we have not yet had enough time, or been able to understand fully. taking time out can be as clear as walking out of the conversation, or as subtle as holding back on our emotion.

access empathy: now we dig deep, finding empathy for ourselves and others, and seeing the pain on both sides. we can access our heartfelt response to our own pain, and try to discern the pain of the other. we can learn that our paradoxical feelings are valid. being angry does not need to mean being unkind. we can assert ourselves with deep understanding of everyone’s feelings. we can be frustrated, and yet be reflective of it. we can be furious, and still wise. our fullness does not exclude anger, it uses its energy skilfully. know who you want to be in the situation, and how you want to address it.

find commonalities or points of agreement, even if it is just that this is problematic for both of you. clarify the points of agreement, recognize the ways where you are very good for one another. you may hold different opinions, but that does not mean that you are enemies.

don’t assume: ask questions and test assumptions. watch your thinking for interpretation or judgment of others. ask questions around others’ intent, strategy, or desired outcome.

be careful with your concepts: people understand and interpret things differently, based on personality type and level of maturity. your understanding of “love,” or “discipline,” may be vastly different from others. keep clarifying your own intent, meaning-making, and feeling, for the sake of deeper understanding.

focus on your needs, rather than your thoughts. say what you feel without attacking the other. speak in the way you want to be spoken with. if you know the person, keep their personality in mind. focus on finding a solution to your needs as much as theirs.

curb expectations around outcomes: keep talking, even if it initially blows up. if you’ve become reactive, simply apologize sincerely, knowing that you will try to do it differently next time. let the person understand that even though you may feel or think differently, that does not mean the relationship is doomed.

now we can look more deeply into the softer emotions behind the anger. what is the helplessness, terror, sadness, anxiety, or hurt behind the anger? what is really going on for you? what is the need behind the anger? are you perhaps using the anger to distract you from these deeper feelings?

sometimes the issue triggering the anger is legitimate, and wants to be addressed. if so, addressing the issue is much more easily done when we’re no longer caught in the emotional energy. in other words, we can validate our anger, and manage our aggression, but in order to deal with the problem, we need to cool off first. and this is usually where we trip up. we have to let go for now, but we also need to put a concrete time and plan in place. think about a good time to talk the issue through, and suggest it. then be sure to make time for reflection before the discussion. it will be very helpful to include long-term relationship goals in your reflection.

many of the aspects of working with anger will be the same for working with other strong feelings. every painful feeling that follows requires the same dedication and mindfulness. fine tune your own strategy with your afflicted feelings. know who you want to be, and what you want to do.

greed

greed is so painful because it cannot be satisfied. even when there is gain, it cannot be fully appreciated for lack of attention, or because the mind is already focused on what is newer and better. life is a scurry from one thing to the next, from one adventure to the next, with little of it digested or appreciated. there’s always more to be had. most of the time we’re not even aware of this pattern, as it is standardized by convention and consumerist culture. in nature we see such a different picture. we see how nests are built and left behind. we see how only enough is taken. we see how everything works together to provide for health in everyone. but we see no frantic attempts to have or to hold on. the antidote to our greed lies in learning to let go, not only of our possessions, but also of our knowledge. the willingness to let go, and even more deeply, to not know.

desire

a desire, whether fulfilled or unfulfilled, leaves you in the same place.

Sri Shankar

desire is more subtle than greed. it is possible to satisfy a desire, but this does not lead to permanent satisfaction. the object either has to be had again, or another, different object has to be found. so often, this “object,” is actually a human. desire seeks to possess and to hold onto. it is energized by the memory of the previous satisfaction. and when it is mixed with our instinctual drives, it can be deadly. when we reflect more deeply on desire, it is obvious that the wanting and the expectation create pain and constant striving and dissatisfaction. it is only through uncovering the riches of this moment that we can be free of desire.

if you want to have a spiritual life you must unify your life. a life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. no man can serve two masters. your life is shaped by the end you live for. you are made in the image of what you desire. to unify your life, unify your desires. to spiritualize your life, spiritualize your desires. to spiritualize your desires, desire to be without desire.  

Thomas Merton

envy/jealousy

envy and jealousy stem from the fundamental inability to rejoice at someone else’s happiness and success.

Mattheiu Ricard

both envy and jealousy engage us deeply with the feeling of missing out, or of not getting our due. with jealousy the relationship is triangular: there are three people, and one of them feels that what they should be getting — be it time, attention, depth of connection, etc — is going to another. in the case of envy, the situation is bipolar: i envy another for getting or being what i want. as you can sense from their energies, envy and jealousy leave us with a sense of lack. Chögyam Trungpa calls this poverty mentality. we feel less than what we want to be, and we feel anger towards another for this feeling. we’re caught in our toxic narrative, and our imagination is cooking up all kinds of blame. the antidotes to envy and jealousy are generosity and building up our own being. we find what is already good or working well in us, and add to this skillset. when we’re in contact with our own agency, we can overcome envy and jealousy.

pride

it is the place of feeling that binds us or frees us.

Jack Kornfield

when we feel pride, it is difficult for us to see how identified we’ve become with a role, and even harder to see how we are turning away from vulnerability and humility. we feel so accomplished, and identify so deeply with this accomplishment, and so we feel ourselves to be more than others, be it more distinguished, more refined, more accomplished, etc. the antidote to pride is to remember impermanence. the moment of pride will slowly but inexorably turn into its opposite, and if we try to hang onto the pride, this turning will be deeply painful.

your state of consciousness, no matter what the situation, is the most important thing to keep aware of. it is the foundation of any choice or action that flows from the situation, or your response/reaction. being aware of this state continuously (or as much as possible), can bring an immediate shift from reactiveness to reflection or introspection.

Eckhart Tolle

being with emotion in meditation

let yourself be in the emotion, go through it, give in to it, experience it. you begin to go toward the emotions rather than just experiencing the emotion coming toward you… then the most powerful energies become absolutely workable… whatever occurs in the samsaric mind is regarded as the path; everything is workable. it is a fearless proclamation — the lion’s roar.

Chögyam Trungpa

when we meet emotions in a therapeutic way, we are trying to understand what lies beneath them. underneath the depression we may find a sadness for not living how we want, or not knowing what to do with our life. underneath the anger we may feel the need for connection. underneath the envy might be a few beautiful characteristics that we are not aware of in ourselves. we may also explore the field of information around the feelings, including thoughts, beliefs, plans, etc. when we do deeper work, we learn to be with the feeling more fully, so we become much more attentive to it, not as a problem to be solved, but as something that seeks to be understood and held. if you have not yet read self-awareness, self-regulation, and being with emotion, you will find more information on working with emotion there.

in our meditative practice we work with emotion much more directly. we're not oriented to the content of the feeling or its meaning. we simply practice being open to the energy of the emotion, open to the sensations and feelings in the body, letting them process by themselves, in the light of mindfulness. we let go of any form of control that we may want to exert, look deeply into the emotion, and recognize emotion as pure energy and an expression of our basic aliveness. nothing needs to be done about emotion other than recognition and learning to accommodate the energetic quality. when we can hold our own emotions well, we’re also able to hold others’ emotions well.

bringing our emotions into meditation may also help us see the thought processes around the emotions more clearly, and to begin to question and shift them, for example: “am i really this angry?” “do i need to make this into such a big deal?” “is the other person as wrong as i make them?” “can i relate to this situation in a different way?”

practicing with strong emotion in this way leads to much deeper emotional awareness. we also realize that when we are willing to stay with emotions mindfully, they dissolve by themselves.

what is the point of arguing with life as it is? when you stop trying to change the moment, the moment may change by itself.

Jeff Foster

the "best-self" practice

change the way you look at things, and the things you look at, change.

Wayne Dyer

all of us have a “best-self” concept, in the same way that we have a sense of our own self-esteem. our “best-self” is a cognitive representation of the qualities and characteristics we display when we are functioning at our best. this is the self we want to manifest in challenging circumstances, including those where intense emotions are present. if you feel that you’re not clear on your best-self, try the following methods.

ask a friend or friends

the best way to begin the exercise is to ask friends, family, or co-workers to give you some information about a time when they saw or experienced you functioning from your best-self. the stories you receive will highlight actual episodes and past behaviors, not just hopes for what might be possible. here is a possible instruction to your friend:

please think about [name] in terms of how you see their “best-self”. think about specific events where they meant a lot to you, and what they were doing at the time. tell them what they did and what it meant for you.

visualize your best-self

another complimentary practice is to visualize our best-self. to do this, we have to be familiar with the state of loving-kindness. if you’re not familiar with this state, please read our four energetic states of awareness.

imagine being with your best friend. feel a sense of loving-kindness for them. describe to yourself what you notice in your behavior, feeling, and thinking. now describe to yourself what it feels like to receive your friend’s loving-kindness. repeat the practice daily for at least one week, and use your notes to form a picture of who you are as your best-self.

writing a future best-self

when we have clarity on our current best-self, we can expand on this concept by imagining a future best-self. sit down with your journal, and imagine that in twelve months you want to be your best possible self. make notes about the areas of life that matter most to you, and the positive changes you want to see in these areas. highlight the small steps you will have to take. make sure your vision is authentic. focus on your real desires, and not what you think is expected of you. when your visualization is clear, write down the details. try to write for ten minutes continuously.

in order to develop love — universal love, cosmic love, whatever you would like to call it — one must accept the whole situation of life as it is, both the light and the dark, the good and the bad. one must open oneself to life, communicate with it.

Chögyam Trungpa