A Tantric Trick for Transforming Tough Emotions

[DMCubic]

Hi,

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with Tantra as practiced in Buddhism. Lots of people have heard of the sexual aspects of Tantra, and obviously we know about the energy centers and kundalini, which are a big part of it, if we've read a lot of this channeled material. But one of the main practical points of Buddhist Tantra is finding ways to take tough emotions like envy, pride, anger, and lust and bring them onto the path of love/wisdom by transforming them into something useful. I'm not "officially" a tantric practitioner but I do know the gist of it so I want to share some approaches to self-transformation I don't usually hear much about outside Buddhist circles. Hopefully this helps someone.

Tantric Buddhists have lovingly crafted untold numbers of paintings of buddha-figures which are often depicted as peaceful and loving-looking (see the links below):

Chenrezig with four arms

Manjushri with the sword of wisdom

Green Tara, embodiment of active compassion

It's a common Buddhist practice to envision yourself as one of these peaceful deities, and it's found in other religions and spiritual systems too. You know the drill: Imagine yourself meditating in a Merkaba, radiating divine light; imagine yourself as an angel of some sort; imagine yourself in a light body, et cetera. These meditations are all positive and helpful in my experience - but I can't always do them, which I will talk about in a bit.

Now there are also images of "wrathful" deities in Buddhism, which are like hideous multi-headed monsters drinking blood out of human skulls, wearing garlands of severed heads, and wreathed in destructive flame. They appear in the manner of demons (see the following):

Rahula, one ugly motherf***er who devours defiled mind-states

Maha Shri Heruka, the Mother/Father deity in wrathful form

Vajrabhairava, "The Indestructible Terrifier" (NSFW maybe, he's exposing himself.)

Why would enlightened beings be depicted in this way? One of the reasons is to remind people that the One Mind is still the One Mind, whether it's angry and consumed by negative emotion or calm and placid. It's all divine - but if you work within the Law of One philosophy, you already know that. But these beings aren't just showing us the fundamental nonduality of clean and unclean mental states, they are giving us a clue as to how we can work with painful mind states directly as they arise to actually use those negative energies themselves for practicing the spiritual path.

You're probably familiar with the situation of being really angry and feeling like it's impossible to "be spiritual" in that state. I definitely am. When I'm in that state, I have the option of trying to get myself out of it, waiting until I'm more peaceful, and then doing a spiritual practice from the basis of that peaceful state, fueling it with positive emotions which are missing while I'm angry. But this requires a delay, and in my experience, instead of just waiting to calm down naturally I am tempted to actually repress my emotions so they can come back with friends another day. But in the moment I'm angry, I can use that anger directly, in a constructive way, by visualizing myself as a wrathful deity.

So, an example: I am angry, too angry to do a peaceful visualization. So I use that anger to fuel a wrathful visualization, which I am more capable of in that situation. Suddenly I feel myself to be in a hideous, twisted body with wicked claws and horribly angry, grimacing heads sprouting off everywhere. Their mouths are filled with fangs, they're breathing fire - and this is all very crisply and purely generated because I'm not fighting my angry state. I feel like a demon, so it's very easy to visualize myself as one.

So why is this positive? Because I'm about to transform that rage. All it takes is one momentary thought of compassion to activate the hidden power in this anger. I take the single moment of compassionate intent I can find in this maelstrom and suddenly, the heads emit a piercing shriek which blasts everyone in the world to shreds! Left behind are dark, shadowy forms representing their suffering and defiled emotions. All my heads begin inhaling those forms with a massive wind and greedily devouring them in their fanged jaws, my anger now being directed positively toward the causes of others' misery, and not to them. Then when all is clear, I make a gesture or some such demonstration that I wish for their bodies to be reassembled into a new, pure state, my anger having been worked off. They are re-made without any pain or suffering whatsoever.

So if I can just find one shred of love in my angry state, that combination of pure anger energy plus that little bit of love can fuel an amazing visualization that transforms the whole situation into a source for wisdom. These visualizations, as I have experienced them, just need that one little piece of love to turn a whole terrible mind-state into something great.

I often find myself doing this in other ways. I'm a very angry person! You've probably heard of the practice of inhaling other people's sufferings as a smoky mist and then breathing light out onto them. I have so much anger to deal with that it's sometimes easier for me to imagine myself in the form of a hideous demon, chopping off their head, and violently, hungrily sucking toxic black goop out of them. The violence of the act burns off the anger, which has been subverted to a spiritual purpose. Then it's easy to imagine putting their head back on them and letting them walk away as if it didn't happen. And if I have more anger to burn off, I just think of other wrathful visualizations to use.

The general idea is to treat negative emotions as friends and not be afraid of them by tapping into their raw and powerful energy in a skillful way. This can generate very crisp visualizations, as I said, because it doesn't resist what's there or seek to change it. It just redirects it. It's also hard not to feel like a bad*ss when you're in a wrathful form. The worst energies to deal with are like nothing to a demon straight out of hell. So this can lead to some powerful changes in the energy centers because of just how much symbolic thought-matter you can chew through in a single session. And it may not be something you could have done with peaceful visualizations alone. If your anger is strong, it might be your best spiritual base to work from when visualizing.

Now I really haven't worked too much with other energies like attachment, envy, pride, et cetera using this method. But the general gist of it is, when your mind is dominated by one of those states, to somehow mix that with just a drop of compassionate intent from the part of you that's still wise and loving to channel it positively. This avoids the error of repression that is all too easy to make, which leads to problems later. So I'm sure if you have a lot of these other emotions, you can find a visualization that works to transform them, too. I'd be very happy to hear you share it.

Wrathful visualizations have helped me to become less afraid of turbulent emotion because now I'm used to the fact that it's not actually inherently destructive. It can be spontaneously transformed. Keeping in mind the fact that all mind states are part of a single One, and are therefore equal, gives us what we need to approach this confidently. It's all divine radiance, so nothing is too unholy to be turned into a spiritual tool. That, as I understand it, is the real essence of Tantra. Nothing is rejected and everything is used.

Hopefully you got something useful out of this post.

[BrownEye]

Sounds like good theory.

I used to have anger until I realized the emotion was not exactly coming from "me". More recently I experienced anger working with a machine, and it heated up enough to where it suddenly clicked that the anger was not logical. Basically the amount of anger did not connect with the object that caused the anger. That is where logic kicks in and perception starts to feel around trying to find the source of this "fuel".

At the point of my realization I laughed and said "I am aware of you", and I went to sit down and take a break. It was amazing how I felt the thing actually sit on my shoulders at that moment. It had the weight of a young child.

It looks to me like you are channeling anger, but may not be separating yourself from the fuel.

[DMCubic]

It looks to me like you are channeling anger, but may not be separating yourself from the fuel.

When the Buddhists are taught to do this, it's taught in conjunction with the kind of view Pickle expressed in his post above, where nothing is seen to be related to a separate "me." So I think the two ways have to complement each other, or things wouldn't have been taught this way since the end of the Roman Empire. It's certainly not an end in itself to do this kind of visualization - it's not doing its job unless anger on the whole decreases over time. It's a tool and nothing more. And I wouldn't use it if there wasn't a noticeable release in the energy centers afterwards that is durable and lasting. And that doesn't happen unless, as Pickle said, I separate myself from the underlying cause of the anger as the energy expends itself. The visualization is generated to expend the energy safely and expose the root for witnessing and understanding.

But here I'm talking about the ability to remove, gradually, the underlying cause of anger, not the ability to separate from the anger as it arises. Sometimes the raw energy of anger is just too strong or persistent to separate from so easily. And the ability to separate from the fuel might even be philosophically disputed as impossible - if all is one, and the present moment is all, then if anger is present, that anger just *is*, and since there is no ability to create a separate self, detachment from it is in truth impossible. Nothing more ideal or perfect could possibly be sought after as refuge. But separating from the root that generated the anger in the first place is a process in time that does happen, and I think it comes precisely as a result of not trying to escape the anger.

I also find I can run into extremes with the approach of detaching from things, where I actually fall into cherishing the view of not having a separate self - which requires the grasping mode of dualism, paradoxically, to hold in mind. That view can subtly create a sort of spaced-out nihilism which is an impermanent, transient state that isn't worth aiming for since it can't be kept hold of and takes effort to maintain. And that effort, I have always found, is based off a subtle anxiety. So cherishing the view of no-self, when that arises, I feel to be a form of uptight self-defense against normal, everyday perception, a mental wall to keep out the world. And grasping at the view of no-self can be very quick to pop in and out of one's awareness. I often lapse in and out of over-holding that view every other second when trying to balance myself around some stimulus that disrupts my system. So there's a refining process going on for me as I learn not just to detach, but to detach from detachment.

One of the other nuances of Tantra is that wrathful visualizations aren't the only way to actualize the approach of transforming negative mind-states into wise ones. The base practice of tantra is to view all moments as being manifestations of radiant divine energy, period, without deviating from that view. So anger or whatever arises, and the main thing here is it isn't being shunned or pushed out or reacted to in any way. The view of all things as divine is essentially another way of saying "don't repress negativity." This is advice we already know, for the most part, given a different wording. (It also implies not over-loving positivity.)

So I agree with you, Pickle, if you're talking about attacking anger at the root being a good thing, and I agree that this is done with awareness that breaks the cycle. We do want to ultimately separate from anger. But I wanted to also point out that in the moment, I think that is technically impossible, despite it being the outcome of a series of moments. Also, I wanted to point out (in a couple of ways) that in my opinion, over-relying on the notion that one can be distanced from such states to the point of reifying the idea of no-self can backfire. I think the real transformation is ultimately in staying with whatever arises as it arises and reacting smoothly and in harmony with it without the preconceived idea that something has to change in a particular way.

[Oldern]

Anything can be used positively. Since our emotions are not ours, it makes sense to think of them as channeled/evoked archetypes or whatever picture floats one's boat. If used for positive purpose, anger can be one of the greatest tools - and Pain has been stated as a good catalyst for making great efforts as well.

[C-JEAN]

Hi.

When I read:

Since our emotions are not ours. . .

or

. . .nothing is seen to be related to a separate "me."

it makes me show to you other fine ways of thinking/doing things:

QA Sample - Dealing With Anger, Resistance and Pessimism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqX5IFKYF...re=related

. . .the "pain body" is a strong idea of him !
. . .he talks about dealing with our "higher self". . .
. . .The ***ego*** is our ennemy !!

Eckhart Tolle deepest truth in human existance
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...2837009943

There are nice things to see there too:
http://endless-satsang.com/

Blue skies.

[BrownEye]

My view is still,"use your will or something will use it for you."

---

To be clear i did enjoy this post. Conversion tactics can be extremely useful in some instances. My angle is just to consider if what makes you angry really does make you angry as opposed to a button being pushed "behind the scenes".

[godwide_void]

DMCubic, I believe the techniques and concepts you've postulated above to be very good advice as any approach that would result in the transmutation, deconstruction and/or substitution of lower vibrational negative emotions with their positive antithesis or counterpart is beneficial to implement.

Though I would like to address your notion in regards to an acquiescent disposition and identification of self as having no identity, in that if one is able to consciously and subconsciously detach themselves from the temporary form they are present in but with the simultaneous acknowledgement that one is not descending into emptiness but rather emulating the full peaceful equanimity and void stillness of the undifferentiated pure ground of being then this would predispose one to more passive and calmer states of being; emotions, experiences, circumstances, beliefs, mental formations, aversions, desires, ideas of how things should or should not be, these are secondary facets that arise within one's consciousness and at that moment of manifestation the notion of a choice appears, as to sustain and be strung along by these states or to allow them to fade. Distortions of any kind are just that, distortions of various natures and their existence is optional and determined by and dependent upon the origin and ground that allows these distortions to play out: us, or more precisely, the various ephemeral forms in which the same singular being dwells within and expresses Itself through.

All moments unfold within the All/One, and all contents we perceive are manifestations of the All/One, albeit in the dimension we exist in allows for experiences and distortions which run the gamut of possibility. However, the illusion remains wholly an illusion operating upon the incessant interaction between numerous fields of consciousness, these interactions determined and synthesized by the vibrations between each field's actions, words or thoughts in relation to one another.

Thus, when these understandings remain situated at the forefront of the mind one's perceptions of 'others' is such that any and all interactions are done so with the conscious knowledge that it is the All/One who speaks the words being spoken to you, whose eyes fixate upon you, who expresses the emotions and asks of you for assistance or dismisses you, and it is the All/One whom you speak to, gaze at, help or shun, hate or love, although the majority retain the belief that it is 'them', their 'self' with a body and a name and memories and life experiences, which performs any of the aforementioned. The All/One is entirely impersonal and as such all reactionary circumstances which befall us in some way match any particular vibrational energy we had sent out into the Universe prior. With these in mind, it becomes fairly difficult to even begin to form and maintain thoughts of anger, discontent, condescending or judgmental thoughts for more than a few moments and even more impossible to actually act upon these impulses when they arise in response to some element of one's reality, and these responses become less dependent on one's prior conditioning or reflex perspectives/emotions.

I've found since my revelations that the predominate emotional charges which underline and beget my interactions with others are those of peace, kindness, understanding, compassion, a desire to be of assistance, etc., though due to the persisting detachment and dissociation which arose from my perspectives I have grown deeply humble to the point of being highly impersonal and particularly difficult to offend or rile up in any way to the point of lashing out or losing my temperament to a substantial degree, thus my disposition with any whom I meet is peaceful and friendly and rarely if ever leaves those boundaries as I am aware that any life form I interact with is animated by the Creator. Were I to direct anger or rage towards another I am entirely aware that I would be transmitting these vibrations to my Self which is All Selves. The only place anger or any negative vibrational emotion has in life now is to act as catalyst to learn and grow from which is done so quickly and efficiently.

[tonyv]

Hi All
I'm trying to find more details about the wrathful visualizations described by
DMCubic and other meditations using the energy of powerful and tough emotions.Does anyone have leads on these sort of meditations (websites books etc).

Thanks,
Tony.