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Thoughts vs Emotions
techie
India Veteran
Most of us blame discursive thinking for our problems.
But are thoughts the problem, or emotion?
Thoughts by themselves do not seem to cause any trouble. But when emotions are thrown in, the mind starts to bother us.
So, disregarding emotion ... is that the solution?
0
Comments
No.
Accept the emotion.
Process it.
Understand it is a temporary state. Ride it, go with it, but do not hold onto it.
Apparently, the emotional state per se is said to last a very brief period of time; some say 10 minutes, others, 15. Nevertheless, any pursuit of this emotional state, after that period of time, is our construct. That is to say we prolong the emotional state by continuing to think in that emotional way.
The clue is in observing our physical response to that emotion, and watching how it develops and then dissipates. Therein lies the solution to not 'labouring the point'.
I was going to cite the Anapanasati Sutra, which gives stages of meditation for calming feelings before examining mental formations ("thoughts"), but I like @Federica's answer better.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapanasati
Although actually I would make a distinction between beneficial or neutral feelings such as loving kindness and negative ones such as jealousy. Certainly the negative feelings drive many problems in human society, and they are worth examining in detail because they often lead back to the main ones of desire, aversion and ignorance.
Understanding negative emotions better weakens their power, but keeping good emotions is important to not having a completely flat emotional landscape.
From what I gather, a thought is energy (movement confined to the brain) and an emotion is energy in motion which are just "feelings" which in Pali is called Vedana (the 7th link in the chain of Dependant Origination)...
Thus have I also heard/read...
Gaining experiential insight into DO will go a long way in helping to break the links of the chain ie, unfetter the mind so to speak...
"Whosoever sees Dependant Origination sees the Dharma
Whosoever sees the Dharma sees Dependant Origination !"
Emotions like Thought's company...and the aim is for emotion not to be so dependant upon thought... well something like that
I find it difficult to separate them out clearly in practice, it often seems like a muddle. So a particular mood might provoke particular lines of thought, but conversely a particular line of thought might provoke a certain mood. I think the important thing is to be mindful of what is going on, hopefully understanding it a bit better, perhaps not taking it all quite so seriously. Thoughts are just thoughts, and feelings are just feelings.
Thoughts and feelings it doesn't matter which. They are all just dukkha.
Chogyam Trungpa considers them the same (thoughts and emotions)... so when I sit and a thought arises and I note that and label it "thinking" and go back to my breath, that works for me. I am doing the same w my emotions, as they arise, labeling them "thinking" and returning to esp. the outbreath. It's what I do and seems to help me.
One who simply attempts to disregard emotions usually ends up in mental health trouble over time. Learning how to identify and process emotions is key. Understanding they don't have to have power over us. Emotional intelligence is highly important. Experiencing emotions is a vital part of being human and just like thoughts, they will continue to arise no matter what we do. But we can know how to react to them appropriately. Disregarding them results in "stuffing" them and they always find a way out eventually, the more you stuff them, the more inappropriately they eventually come out, or manifest in mental illness.
You might have a point there @karasti. I had a very rough childhood where if I displayed too much emotion it was met by violence, so i suppressed a lot of my feelings which probably contributed to my mental illness. Still all that amphetamine and weed I did probably didn't help. These days I try to rest in non judgmental awareness of what rises at the sense doors. It seems to work well for me.
what has helped is the buddhist proverb,learn to respond rather than react.we all def. deal with our brain...stimuli,thoughts,a-emotions--or the buddhist vernacular,feeling tones.the practice of aware--through recollection of right view--that the brain phenomenon content has an intermintent and imperminant state as federica suggest.which leads to travellers approach to be aware of the interaction of sense stimuli and brain response.so being aware may be how we respond. as kerome suggest,thoughts and emotions can be positive and negative.so the the buddhist proverbs helps respond to negative brain states rather react.honestly,sometimes when swept away with thoughts and feelings,i forget the proverb.but practice the dharma,the meditative component--right effort,right mindfullness,right concentration helps builds our dharma...which helps our brain fitness and health,imo.
I think I feel. I feel, I think. Therefore I am
a yam.
Descarded
https://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/drawntobudd.html
I would disagree. I have experienced intrusive thoughts which have no basis in my current personal reality. They intrude into the mind unprompted, extremely negative and violent. In these instances my thoughts are the basis of my emotion...arising from a psychological imbalance. I was taken to the ER once because of them.
my mental illness is still there no matter what I do. It is difficult because many problems of thought and emotion are rooted in psychological/chemical issues outside of my control. I work hard and get marginal results that never add up
I have been frustrated lately. It is hard to conflate practice with mental illness. I feel at times I am too mentally ill to follow the dharma. I know this isn't true, but it is what I feel nonetheless.
I am going to look for Dharma pertaining to depression in particular. This might be a start
https://www.amazon.com/Mindful-Way-Through-Depression-Unhappiness/dp/1593851286
@Kannon
This may be of help...
"Mindful way Through Depression" Audiobook "Part 1"
Yes, it's important to accept how we are feeling, but there is a lot in the suttas about appropriate and inappropriate attention, focussing on wholesome thoughts rather than unwholesome thoughts.
Right Effort in a nutshell.
@Shoshin thank you so much. I will listen to this later tonight.
Uk, uk, uk....
@SpinyNorman It's debateable whether Right Effort is all you need when mental illness is considered though. Ultimately things like mindful insight can lead you to the causes, but in the meantime you may need help from a therapist, medication... it depends on how deep the hole is that you've managed to stumble into.
Sure, and I always advise people that Buddhist practice isn't a "cure" for significant mental health problems ( including the ones who have turned up at classes I have been supporting or running! ).
Generally I've found that I need to be in a reasonably good state of mind to practice effectively. But I've also found that the principles of Right Effort can be helpful when I'm not in a good state of mind, it can be as simple as thinking about something positive for a while, instead of dwelling on something negative.
I think sometimes it is true. To frame it cosmologically, the episodic nature of even chronic mental illness is a microcosm for samsara. Some episodes are like the plane of misery, too intense, overwhelming and all-consuming to follow the Dhamma. This principle is also said to be true of heavenly realms where pleasure is the culprit. This is why the human realm is considered the most auspicious for spiritual progress. It balances pleasure and pain, just enough pain to prompt us, only enough pleasure to make understanding and practice possible. In this way, even chronic mental illness can be a blessing during those auspicious times when it's not at its absolute worst.
It's my firm belief that Buddhism only helps us transcend the mind, if anything. But solving problems of the mind ... there Buddhism falls flat. Medicine alone helps because these problems, though they manifest in the mind, are essentially neurological in nature.
The solution is to do a lot of meditation practice and see them for what they really are.
Along with hospitalization, using “medicine alone” to treat serious mental illnesses was true in the past and still is in communities with too few resources or Fs to give, but recently more comprehensive treatments include various types of therapy and support systems. Certainly one’s religion may be integrated into that. For Buddhism specifically, Bhikkhu Analayo cites a few studies of metta and mental illness in his book, “Early Buddhist Meditation Studies:”
“The transformative potential of metta finds confirmation in contemporary studies in the field of psychological research, which have brought to light various beneficial aspects of its practice.[41] Studies have shown that the cultivation of metta has the potential to reduce anger and psychological distress,[42] as well as the negative symptoms of schizophrenia,[43] and to increase positive emotions and pro-social behavior.[44]
Um when thinking of meditation, I also think of Mind over Matter and "neuroplasticity" The wheeling and dealing of neuropathways ..... (Um or should that be willing and dealing
)
In Tibetan Buddhism, we work on "body, speech and mind".
And "mind" is regarded as being both thoughts and emotions. The two are regarded as being the same.
Techie (here) said that they belief that Buddhism only helps us transcend the mind.
Yes .. the "mind" as in mind AND emotion. But it takes perhaps a few decades or more for real progress to start to become apparent.
And modern cognitive-behavior psychology recognizes the importance of our self-statements and cognitive habits in changing our emotional reactions.
Medicine for mental illness ... depends a lot on the illness. Schizophrenia does not seem to respond to cognitive-behavioral (nor meditative) treatments ... but rather to pharmaceutical regimens. But even with pharmaceutical treatment, the patient still benefits from cognitive-behavioral therapy for those issues not created by brain chemisty/function. Schizophrenics have a lot of problems that result from their illness, but are not caused by the illness itself.
On the other hand, depression is better-treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy (and Buddhism is a slower, but more-global form of this). Research has found that anti-depressant medication is no more effective than placebos (sugar pills that the patient believes are anti-depressant medication).
In addition to secondary, ripple effect type problems, a study found a mindfulness-based psychoeducation program helps even with positive symptoms of schizophrenia. In the study’s mindfulness-based group a “therapist led … patients to become more aware of and relate differently to their thoughts, feelings and sensations such as hallucinations and delusions, rather than identifying with them as accurate readouts on reality.” The study found the mindfulness-based approach produced “significantly greater improvements in psychiatric symptoms, psychosocial functioning, insight into illness/treatment and duration of readmissions … when compared with the [study’s] other two groups.” From this I’d say the use of therapeutic and pharmaceutical treatment of symptoms directly caused by the illness isn’t really an either-or proposition.
Well as the forums resident schizophrenic I can definitely say that Buddhist practice has helped me deal with my symptoms. Being mindful helps me notice when my mind is spinning out into a paranoid trip and I just let go and rest in awareness. Perhaps because I suffer very few positive symptoms with meds and have a lot of insight into my condition.
My cmht is very supportive of my meditation practice and believe it is partially responsible for my rapid recovery with a minimum dose of medication.
Disregarding the mindlessness (untrained mind sense), the emotions (part of the mind in some Buddhist traditions) and bodhi body is not feasible, possible or part of the Middle Way.
We are stuck with a duck dukkha, ignorance and Sam/Sara samsara. What to do? I rather liked @Shoshin post on neuroplasticity. Body flexibility comes from yoga (the Buddha as an ex-yogi and wrestler) probably knewed about body-plasticity (knewed is a new wordling). I rather like the wholistic mind-body wholism available in some quadrants ...
Balance or the Middle Way and meditation (the jewel in the trigem) can help. Who guessed? Everyone I bet no doubt.
Here is practice that combines mind, emotions and body. Prostrations.
http://buddhaweekly.com/the-psychology-of-buddhist-prostrations-the-humble-bow-a-meaningful-method-to-connect-with-buddha-nature/
We might call it a possible solvent ...
OM MANI PEME HUM HRIH (speech rite)
When Thoughts & Emotions gang up....This can and often does happen...
Neurons fire up in the brain
Not long before "one goes insane
Emotions wait to be fed
They gobble up what one's just read
The eyes spot more words upon the screen
A sense of self now very keen
The feeding frenzy as just begun
Where thought and emotion becomes one
Opinions form and then are said
Whilst more neurons explode within the head
As finger tips now become the tongue
And words like fist are often swung
Daggers have replaced the eyes
homing in on what they despise
If only one could learn to bite ones tongue
then perhaps one wouldn't get so highly strung
Like emotion's puppet on a string
the self succumbs to anything
A little patience so they say
would no doubt help save the day
So from thoughts & emotions one must take a breather
After all..... one knows for a fact that one really is neither
Thoughts are just movement confined to the brain
But when they connect with emotions… one 'could' go insane
Um energy in motion …who would have thought…
A lot of thought & emotion has gone into this...so....when I read something that I might strongly disagree with I say to the self....
Did you write that, @Shoshin ? I like it a lot.
Thanks @silver ...Yes...I'm as guilty as any emotionally charged self can be