In these last couple of weeks I have attempted practicing what I have written. Whenever I catch myself angry or attached I stop and look at it. Usually the feeling disappears so quickly that sometimes I cannot even know what it was about. I will get a sudden twinge of negativity and as soon as I pay attention to it, it is gone and I cannot even determine why or what it was about. Other times the feeling will just linger and I still cannot determine the object or what the feeling is aimed at. There is a Buddhist nun by the name of Pema Chodron who I have listened to once on a PBS special and I am currently reading one of her books. She writes we should neither indulge nor repress these feelings. So, even though I am no expert on her teaching it seems to me that what she suggests and what I have read from other Buddhists, that by just paying attention to the feelings they will, in time, subside. What happens is that slowly instead of being an angry person you become the observer of the angry person. It is as if you create a higher self. This self can eventually observe the attachment or the anger but is not attached or angry. One of the beliefs of Buddhism is that there is no soul (Anatta.) What they mean is that there is no permanent ego that has these feelings and thoughts and sensations. Instead who and what we are is the collection of thoughts and feelings and sensations we experience. We are the experience we are having. I have to admit that sometimes this is of no help at all. Sometimes the negativity just lingers there. At those times I try to take my attention off of it. One way I find effective is getting present. Most of our feelings are really about things in the past or might be in our future. There is a teacher by the name of Eckhart Tolle. I don't believe he claims to be a teacher of Buddhism but I think what he teaches is very compatible with Buddhism. He says that we ought to be in the here and now. For example, If we have a bill that is due next week; we may be worried, we may be angry with ourselves for not having already paid it we may fear that good credit rating we are attached to and so proud may be damaged and the credit company will no longer love you. It sounds funny but our thinking can be funny and distorted. Well, what if you just pay attention what is happening right now? Feel the temperature of the air. Feel your physiology, are you hungry? Are you comfortable? Look around and see what is to be seen, listen to the sounds in you environment. I have heard many Buddhists call this getting present. Usually all those thoughts and emotions that were triggered by that upcoming bill disappear. Our negativity is rarely in the here and now but often about things past and future. This is a form of calm abiding meditation in my view. I struggle whether this should rightly be called by Buddhists Right mindfulness or Right concentration. It has the affect of concentration but I can see it also as being mindful. It does not really matter to me right now. Perhaps I will study this more thoroughly later. A question comes up though that what if your worry is happening right now? Should we not become aware of it in that case. Well, now we have gone full circle. Yes, of course but I brought this up as a solution of when the negative feeling is just lingering there and it has become the case that you are simply dwelling in negativity. At that point I was suggesting getting present. The other thing one can do also is meditation. I am not going to try and teach meditation on a blog. My experience with it is that you focus on something and your mind will eventually get distracted and once you become aware of that you return to focusing. It clears the mind, some say it empties the mind. It is restful and can give moments of real mental clarity while in a non-meditative state. I am learning that if one does not get relief from that pain in a timely manner it will lead to behaviors that can be undesirable. So, I suggest you catch it early and do something quickly. I am not sure what to do about these negative feeling that don't seem to have an object. They are almost like a precursor to an actual emotion. Perhaps it is suffering itself before the mind attaches it to an experience and labels it. I can almost see how they could become positive instead of negative. They are like a knot in the pit of my stomach but could easily transform into excitement or joy. Moving on to when you can identify an object. There is another person who is not a Buddhist but I think is compatible with Buddhism. That is Byron Katie. In my view she practices a form of what might be called analytic meditation. Instead of emotion she suggests you look at the thoughts triggering your emotions. She looks at the negative thought and asks these four questions:
Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it's true?
How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without the thought?
Then she asks you to turn around the concept you are questioning, and be sure to find at least three genuine, specific examples of each turnaround.
This morning for example, the garbage can was tipped over and garbage was on my driveway. I live in a forested area. It is in city limits but is very rural and I am at the end of an 800' gravel driveway. I take the garbage can to the top of the hill for pick up and return it back to the house because if I don't a bear gets into it. Well, I did not get to it this week. My mom went ahead and walked to the top of the hill and dumped some garbage yesterday. I saw her do it and actually had the thought that I need to bring the can back down to the house. I didn't. This morning when I walked up to bring the can back down I saw the garbage on the driveway and immediately got mad at my mom. I caught myself and began to look at my feelings. I had no anger at the bear. I had no anger at myself for not bringing the can down yesterday. My only thought was to criticize and admonish my mother for being "so stupid." I laugh at it now. We are such funny people to have such thoughts. Anyway, I quickly realized that she was not "bad" or "stupid" or any other label we put on things or that my life would be so wonderful if I just did not have to contend with her ruining my life. I still had to deal with what should I do. I could say nothing. In that case I think the feeling would fester for awhile and come out later. I could choose to be angry. That is when I look at my feeling I become the observer and I am not really angry but I am in a position where I could decide to be that angry person if I wanted. I settled on simply reporting what happened without anger or criticism. Byron Katie would instead have me realize that the negative thought I had may not be true realize how I get angry when having the thoughts and that I might not be a person I am comfortable with if I did not have the thought. In other words maybe I want to be judgmental and critical. I think this is long enough. I wanted to cover Dyer and connecting to source too but maybe next time.
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