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Buddhism and autosuggestion

yangster58yangster58
edited September 2012 in Buddhism Today
"Buddhism advises you to not implant feelings that you don't really have or to avoid feelings that you do have." If this is the case, would it be wrong to say positive things to myself? I always affirm to myself that "I am confident and able to handle any challenge I'm faced with." Do positive thinking and mindfulness contradict eaachother?

Comments

  • OneLifeFormOneLifeForm Veteran
    Will you post some material where it advises that please?

    I don't think I've heard anything like that before.
  • BhanteLuckyBhanteLucky Alternative lifestyle person in the South Island of New Zealand New Zealand Veteran
    edited September 2012
    yangster58 said:

    ...or to avoid feelings that you do have." If this is the case...

    Who said that!?
    This is not the case. Buddhism never ever teaches to avoid feelings you do have. Never.
    Observe those feelings, yes. Avoid acting unskillfully on those feelings, yes.

    (And now, my personal feeling about Positive Thinking, is that it is good... so long as you are not deluding yourself with positivity, not persuading yourself to believe something that isn't true. But it can be useful to counter a negative habit, I guess. As long as you don't fall into the trap of always doing Positive Thinking, instead of Realistic Thinking. Realistic thinking is closer to mindfulness than positive thinking. But if you need positive thinking to get through the day, ok. Just know that positivity isn't the way things really are.
    The first noble truth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths#First_truth:_dukkha
  • yangster58yangster58
    JamestheGiant I think you read the quote wrong, buddhism advises not to avoid feelings that you do have. Anyways, this quote was from the book Mindfulness in Plain English in the beginning of the section entitled Dealing with problems.
    http://www.urbandharma.org/pdf/mindfulness_in_plain_english.pdf
  • BhanteLuckyBhanteLucky Alternative lifestyle person in the South Island of New Zealand New Zealand Veteran
    @yangster58 , Doh! Oops, I totally read that quote the wrong way.
    My apologies. That's a great book by the way.
  • evolveevolve Explorer
    hello, i think the quote is basically saying to be honest with yourself. don't force any feeling or avoid any feeling. if you want to encourage positive qualities and thoughts, then that's a form of honest practice and honest feelings for yourself and works out great. if you don't honestly feel any relation or connection to that form of positive thinking, then it's not beneficial and you need to try something else. I think that's what the quote is saying, be honest and do what works without implanting practices/feelings which create difficult understanding or such distances with how we truly are
  • OneLifeFormOneLifeForm Veteran
    ;) I read the quote wrong as well
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