01-10-2012, 12:19 PM
(01-10-2012, 11:58 AM)yossarian Wrote:(01-10-2012, 10:46 AM)ShinAr Wrote: What you are addressing is the coming to awareness and understanding of the cause and reason for that shame or guilt. It is understanding it which allows one to eradicate it and move away from it. What you are proposing is living in the extremity of it as though it is doing you some benefit. It is not!
Based on your writing, the understanding I'm gleaning from my experience of negative emotions is that I should look for understanding in them.
When trying to balance a negative emotion like shame, how do you avoid repressing it?
I can always just repress a negative emotion and generate a positive one to cover it up. This takes a lot of energy. Is that what you're proposing?
For me I can see two clear ways to deal with negative emotions
(A) Feel them fully when they arise, put my attention on them, try to understand, try to see the creator, try to see the love in the moment
(B) Use muscle or psychological tension to repress the feeling and then more tension to generate a positive feeling in replacement.
It seems you wouldn't recommend (B), but the (A) path tends to lead to a lot of negative feelings, but I do believe that eventually the (A) path leads to a kind of parting clouds and a relief, a lightness.
We usually relate to our thoughts in two ways. We obey our thoughts as our boss, or we create enemies with our thoughts. One thinks "Im hungry", and instantly you feel hungry. Another time you think "I don't like this sound, or smell" and instantly, the senses repel.
The third way of relating to your thoughts, senses, emotions, feelings is making friends with them. If you give attention to them, that's good, but you should not revert to judgement in this state. Think of how you treat your friends. You listen to them without judgement, and hear them out. You treat them with compassion and love. Do the same with the way you react to the world- to your thoughts.
Trying to grasp either way is like closing your fist to and waving it through fog, expecting to catch some. Making friends with the world, is to open your hand to the fog, realizing the impermanence of it, but still being able to see the fog more clearly without distorting it by thrashing around, trying to catch it. Eventually the fog will clear away, and when it does, you won't be sad you didn't catch anything and wait for the next fog to roll in. You'll simply be open to whatever changes come through.
If you do this, you certainly will have a 'parting of the clouds' that leads to a more peaceful, light, joyful existence.