These are all valid points, and I would not dream of suggesting that, if suffering is meaningful to you, that you should somehow go ahead and get rid of it anyway.
Personally, however, I’ve had more than enough of it, and I want to be free, happy, relaxed, at peace, clear-headed, and able to joyfully pursue the work of helping to tend the Creator’s lovely garden without lifetimes of accumulated garbage getting in the way and making whatever I’m doing 10 to 20 times as hard as it needs to be. And my inner guidance system agrees that this is the right choice for me at this time; the learnings provided by the accumulated catalyst having been processed and internalized, they are no longer necessary to my advancement, and are simply burdens that I’m continuing to carry without benefit.
Anyway, so I have posted about how to clear accumulated emotional knee-jerk reactions; here’s what my same inner guidance system had to say about the other aspect which contributes to our emotional experience: our automatic, present-based rather than past-based reactions to events. I thought this may be of use to other like-minded individuals among us.
Q: Do you have any suggestions for how I may address my tendencies to react with negative emotion?
ANS:
Yes, that is the major topic of our current conversation because you are indeed quite proficient at this time with dealing with catalyst that has been incorporated into your astral and mental bodies and has remained there to be triggered by experience.
With regard to the conscious tendency to react negatively, there is but one solution. Do not do it. Notice yourself starting to react that way, and don’t do it. Stop. Look around. Notice what is happening – inside you most of all, because the outside is always secondary in value compared to the inside, always.
Having looked around inside and noticed that you are going off the track that you wish to be on, simply change tracks. Take a deep breath, say a prayer, and move on with clarity and purpose in the direction of your choosing, rather than one chosen by your animal instincts for you. Do you understand?
Q: I do. Is there is there any trick or mechanism – or any particular prayer – that would help me make a more efficient choice, to switch tracks more easily? It seems like switching tracks is far from a trivial thing to do, and I don’t believe I have quite picked up the knack yet.
ANS: No problem, [Stranger], that is why am here – to answer questions such as these. Yes, indeed there is a trick. The trick is to focus on the One Creator above you, and perceive his love for you, unconditionally flowing freely towards you in all that you say and do. Realize, in that moment, that you’re not falling short and that there is nothing to prove and nothing to be achieved externally; all that is worth achieving, is achieved inside you.
If you are thus able to let go of the external and let that the river of experience (image of external reality as a river, while I’m on its bank) – and that is a particularly apt metaphor, by the way – flow past you in all its turbulent majesty. If you can let go of the river and hold on to yourself instead, focusing only on being the best You that you can be – then it will be trivial to let go of negative emotion and choose to love the river, such as it is or, rather, appears to be at any given moment.
This is precisely what the Buddha intended to convey when he stated that all desire leads to suffering; he meant external desire – the wish for things to be other than they are, when, as we both know, the vast majority of those things are not and can never be under our control. You have to love the world such as it is, just as it is; there is no other way to be unperturbed by it, and that is the truth.
Personally, however, I’ve had more than enough of it, and I want to be free, happy, relaxed, at peace, clear-headed, and able to joyfully pursue the work of helping to tend the Creator’s lovely garden without lifetimes of accumulated garbage getting in the way and making whatever I’m doing 10 to 20 times as hard as it needs to be. And my inner guidance system agrees that this is the right choice for me at this time; the learnings provided by the accumulated catalyst having been processed and internalized, they are no longer necessary to my advancement, and are simply burdens that I’m continuing to carry without benefit.
Anyway, so I have posted about how to clear accumulated emotional knee-jerk reactions; here’s what my same inner guidance system had to say about the other aspect which contributes to our emotional experience: our automatic, present-based rather than past-based reactions to events. I thought this may be of use to other like-minded individuals among us.
Q: Do you have any suggestions for how I may address my tendencies to react with negative emotion?
ANS:
Yes, that is the major topic of our current conversation because you are indeed quite proficient at this time with dealing with catalyst that has been incorporated into your astral and mental bodies and has remained there to be triggered by experience.
With regard to the conscious tendency to react negatively, there is but one solution. Do not do it. Notice yourself starting to react that way, and don’t do it. Stop. Look around. Notice what is happening – inside you most of all, because the outside is always secondary in value compared to the inside, always.
Having looked around inside and noticed that you are going off the track that you wish to be on, simply change tracks. Take a deep breath, say a prayer, and move on with clarity and purpose in the direction of your choosing, rather than one chosen by your animal instincts for you. Do you understand?
Q: I do. Is there is there any trick or mechanism – or any particular prayer – that would help me make a more efficient choice, to switch tracks more easily? It seems like switching tracks is far from a trivial thing to do, and I don’t believe I have quite picked up the knack yet.
ANS: No problem, [Stranger], that is why am here – to answer questions such as these. Yes, indeed there is a trick. The trick is to focus on the One Creator above you, and perceive his love for you, unconditionally flowing freely towards you in all that you say and do. Realize, in that moment, that you’re not falling short and that there is nothing to prove and nothing to be achieved externally; all that is worth achieving, is achieved inside you.
If you are thus able to let go of the external and let that the river of experience (image of external reality as a river, while I’m on its bank) – and that is a particularly apt metaphor, by the way – flow past you in all its turbulent majesty. If you can let go of the river and hold on to yourself instead, focusing only on being the best You that you can be – then it will be trivial to let go of negative emotion and choose to love the river, such as it is or, rather, appears to be at any given moment.
This is precisely what the Buddha intended to convey when he stated that all desire leads to suffering; he meant external desire – the wish for things to be other than they are, when, as we both know, the vast majority of those things are not and can never be under our control. You have to love the world such as it is, just as it is; there is no other way to be unperturbed by it, and that is the truth.
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