Approaching the feelings instead of escaping them

banned_crab

Throughout my whole life instead of jumping straight into the feelings I find a way to escape or justify them. I naturally as a human being desire to search for a path to escape , even when I decide to myself that I what I want is to jump right in . My first reaction every time is directing my own self back into this process of suppression or escaping. So the cycle continues.I enter this process to distract myself or make comparisons hopefully to lessen the relevancy of my "problems". "No matter how far I run this self will always catch up to me"I said to myself, because it is a shadow of me.It reflects me just like my subconscious. I believed that I have maximized the possible understanding of these feelings.I realized that no amount of understanding can solve these feelings, it can only suppress them. I have judged the process of suppressing feelings as a weakness. I entered the only realization towards these feelings that I ever needed, that these feelings are not meant to be understood but just to be felt. At this point I was ecstatic about the freedom I thought that I had finally reached. I thought I figured it all out but the stranger in my head must be understood to a degree and than felt. I believe no matter how much I understand these feelings I will never be able to comprehend them, I can only feel them.

I read a book suggested by one of you and it said "you have not truly meditated until you have cried while meditating" . So my question to you is how do I approach these feelings and than cry in my meditation? I tried it in the most logical way I can think of but when I focus on anything I just enter a state of mind of no time/judgement. I want to focus on these problems without focusing on the details or ideas but instead on just the feelings.

Can you guide me?

wrathfuldeity

feelings are feelings...they don't make sense, they are not logical, don't use your head

close your eyes and drop down into your heart

listen to music and go dancing (eyes closed)...dance like a wild man, like a lover, weep wail and moan

go hug everything and everyone you can (eyes closed)...hug and feel with you heart...what does your heart tell you

banned_crab

wrathfuldeity said:

feelings are feelings...they don't make sense, they are not logical, don't use your head

drop down into your heart

listen to music...go dancing...dance like a wild man, like a lover, weep wail and moan

go hug everything and everyone you can....hug and feel with you heart...what does your heart tell you

loving is just another form of escaping

Citta

No it isn't. Its the way to embrace what you are running from.

banned_crab

Citta said:

No it isn't. Its the way to embrace what you are running from.

what

wrathfuldeity

let go...your mind is grasping...kill your head...let loose and drop...free-fall, surrender, go crazy, wallow like a pig in mud

imho Buddhism is primarily a logical psychological/mind/head/erudite process

however things like music and dancing is a heart thing...in a sense it is more direct and bypasses the cortex and operates at a deeper limbic level...its more of a visceral nature

note:
one of the things about Buddhism, if I may so grossly over-generalize, that bugs the crap out of me...is that Buddhism is this haute taute snooty kind of thing and tends to discount the visceral experience as this "darkness" or sinking into samsara. And perhaps well it is, but visceral experience must also be given its due acknowledgment and investigation...because if you don't...you ignore it...it will come back and bite you in the a$$. Perhaps deity worship/meditation up on the wrathful ones addresses this investigation and becoming "comfortable/skillful" with the visceral experience. I agree that most folks are trying to climb out of the visceral experience...but imho one must go through the visceral experience with some skillful mindfulness in order to understand it, appreciate it and skillfully use it....because it is required when we are bodhisattvas dancing amongst the jewels.
just my 2 cents

taiyaki

One thing you can do if you're really interesting is setting aside a couple hours a day and just sit. Don't do anything, don't cultivate, don't get rid of, don't manipulate. Just sit.

Then through that process you will learn everything you need to learn.

Glow

This is sort of like asking "How do I use my eyes to see?" or "How do I use my ears to hear?"

In Buddhism, the heart-mind -- citta in Pali -- is seen as a sense-organ, and emotions are the sensory input it interprets, in the same way as the eye processes visual information and the ear processes auditory information. I slightly disagree that feelings are not logical. They often have a very primal, instinctive logic about them. Just as physical pain alerts us to injury or illness, emotional pain alerts us to some sense of loss, lack of wholeness ("wholeness" being the original meaning of the word "health"), or frustrated efforts. Emotions are evolved to protect us in the face of threat or danger, such as the presence of a predator or alienation from our social unit which supports and sustains us. If you look at your emotions from this basic evolutionary lens, you will often find a very simple agenda underlying it: the desire for self-protection, or preservation of what is dear to us in the face of anicca or dukkha. Though many people try to anesthetize themselves through Buddhist teaching, the truth is that change, loss, separation, etc. are often quite painful. This human incarnation is quite vulnerable. We suffer. It hurts.

Sometimes, however, emotions are ghosts that are churned up past their ability to serve any useful function, like a ghost image left on our retinas after bright flash of light, or a ringing in the ears left over from exposure to loud noise. In these cases, the best approach is simply to let the feelings come and go, not adding anything else to them. Do not add any more fear to your fear, no more judgment to your anger, no more impatience to your sadness. I think you are saying more than you know you are when you say "these feelings are not meant to be understood but just to be felt." And sometimes, we create unnecessary suffering for ourselves through the thoughts, attachments, and values we bring to our experience. This is the meaning of those first verses of the Dhammapada:

"All experience is preceded by mind
Led by mind
Made by mind.
Speak or act with a corrupted mind,
And suffering follows
As the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox.

All experience is preceded by mind,
Led by mind,
Made by mind.
Speak or act with a peaceful mind,
And happiness follows
Like a never departing shadow."
(trans. Gil Fronsdal)

If you bring to experience the prevailing Western mindset of consumerist values, you will inevitably create much suffering for yourself if your happiness is contingent on such a fragile and superficial factors. Many people also condition their minds to experience anger by holding tightly to a certain sense of self. Whenever that fragile self-concept is threatened or shattered, they become hostile and defensive. According to the Buddha, however, there is nothing "there" to defend. In your case, I think you are bringing into your experience (inner and outer experience) quite a lot of agendas that condition you to make an enemy of your heart-mind, perhaps even internalized from Buddhist literature you've come across. That quote "you have not truly meditated until you have cried while meditating" is by Ajahn Chah. It's not about churning up your emotions artificially and wallowing in them beyond their usefulness. It's about realizing exactly what you are coming across now: life is hard, for everyone. The immense suffering woven into the nature of this existence is enough to break anyone's heart, at least temporarily before it is built up again.

misterCope

No matter how hard you try to turn away from something, you will eventually have to face it. Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about forcing yourself to deal with anything. Relax and let it come to you.

pegembara

So my question to you is how do I approach these feelings and than cry in my meditation? I tried it in the most logical way I can think of but when I focus on anything I just enter a state of mind of no time/judgement. I want to focus on these problems without focusing on the details or ideas but instead on just the feelings.

Crying is an emotional response but mental (not physical) "feeling" or vedana are more basic - pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.

Contemplation on feelings can even lead to liberation from suffering.
Here are the Buddha's instructions-

"There are these three kinds of feeling: a pleasant feeling, a painful feeling, and neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling. On the occasion when one feels a pleasant feeling, one does not feel either a painful feeling or a neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling. One feels only a pleasant feeling on that occasion. On the occasion when one feels a painful feeling, one does not feel either a pleasant feeling or a neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling. One feels only a painful feeling on that occasion. On the occasion when one feels a neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling, one does not feel either a pleasant feeling or a painful feeling. One feels only a neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling on that occasion.

"A pleasant feeling is inconstant, fabricated, dependently co-arisen, subject to ending, subject to vanishing, fading, ceasing. A painful feeling is also inconstant, fabricated, dependently co-arisen, subject to ending, subject to vanishing, fading, ceasing. A neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling is also inconstant, fabricated, dependently co-arisen, subject to ending, subject to vanishing, fading, ceasing.

"Seeing this, an instructed disciple of the noble ones grows disenchanted with pleasant feeling, disenchanted with painful feeling, disenchanted with neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling. Disenchanted, he grows dispassionate. From dispassion, he is released. With release, there is the knowledge, 'Released.' He discerns, 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.' A monk whose mind is thus released does not take sides with anyone, does not dispute with anyone. He words things by means of what is said in the world but without grasping at it."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.074.than.html

Florian

If you weep during meditation it is quite likely to be because you have realised something important about yourself, and realised that it is equally true of other people, and of all sentient beings. This may lead you to weep for your own past behaviour, or for the sorrows of a friend, or you may have glimpsed the tragedy of Samsara, as seen from a conventional perspective, and because along the way to this realisation you will have unavoidably developed some compassion for all sentient beings, you will weep. Other times you will laugh loud enough to wake the neighbours, and for pretty much the same reasons. There are always at least two ways to look at things according to the two truths doctrine. I am led to believe that the universe is potentially infinite in every respect. That is, it is infinitely sad, infinitely funny, infinitely ironic, infinitely mysterious, infinitely big, infinitely small and so on. Which it is would depend on our point of view. It would have all qualities and no qualities. True words would be paradoxical. One might say, I think, in answer to that quote about meditation and crying, that you have not explored all of meditation until have deeply laughed.

The question about feelings is interesting. I don't think we can focus properly on our feelings, 'feelings' as a generic phenomenon, without being able to stand apart from them. That is, I'm not sure that one can be 'having' a feeling and 'observing' it at the same time. It seems to be a choice. Maybe not. I haven't thought about this before.

Either way, it must be impossible to understand feelings without first understanding the 'feeler'. The feeler can stand apart from the feelings and observe them. But where can we stand to observe the feeler and the feelings at the same time? Logically we would have to be able to stand in that place to reach a right understand of feelings.

The idea of simply 'having' a feeling, as opposed to 'observing' a feeling, may be a mistake. It is dualism either way. A feeling must have a feeler. Take away either of these phenomena and there is no feeling or feeler, thus nothing to observe or even think about. When we observe anything closely enough we find it isn't there. This would go for feelings as well as atoms.

footiam

You don't have to approach or escape a feeling. You just have to be aware of it.