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A sane emotion
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
in Philosophy
It struck me the other day that most emotions appear to be insane... they are upwellings from somewhere inside, in response to an event. So is there such a thing as a sane emotion? Of course it depends what you call sane, emotions do not think so it would be too much to expect them to be rational.
So a few questions...
Do emotions carry a charge, an imperative to action?
Can an emotion be clear, not colouring your perceptions?
Is it still an emotion if it is?
I was thinking about things like peace and equanimity. You could perhaps call them emotions, and they are more sane than for instance anger or even love.
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Comments
Good question @Kerome
I can perhaps illustrate the difference between insane and sane.
When I swear at the toaster for being infuriatingly slow, I am usually crazed through lack of toast. When I praise my toast for being delicious ... wait ...
I am too crazy to answer this question
Looking foward to some inspired sanity from others ... 🤞🏼
Emotions have a way of either talking the self into doing something or out of doing something...often leaving the self in a state of limbo....I guess it is somewhat insane to talk to oneself...and we do this all the time...go figure
We are for the most part emotional creatures, more often than not driven by emotional charges...Energy in motion .... sadly at times lacking the emotional intelligence to know how to play their roller coaster game....
I don't think emotions are clear, they have a habit of clouding one's judgement...
Balance is from what I gather the key...
I tries again ...
I am a see saw. Not a see sore.
Today I think that..
Emotions are Dharmic lessons about whatever we are most likely to be unclear around.
Both the shunning or embracing of any emotion limits our ability to see this teaching.
The degree to which we can allow an emotions arrival, life and departure to transit freely beyond our conditioned impulses to cling, avoid or ignore them, is the same degree to which we can be awed by another living lesson of suffering's potential cessation.
Wot even St Greta Thunberg? Tight assed Sangha? Scientist types?
I feel this is true. It is part of our animal heritage.
The sane emotions are independent of monkey, lizard brain and physical survival.
In essence - Buddha Nature @Shoshin
We are indeed affected by our emotions. They can and often do color our perceptions. Buddha Nature is overcoming the emotional perceptions aka: controlling the lesser mind.
A wild ride, but great one.
Peace to all
As someone regularly crazed by anger, anxiety, fear of insane politicians and malevolent gurus, lack of insight, fish from other dimensions etc etc ...
I know a thing or two or several million about undisciplined emotions.
This is why I use every trick in dharma/psychology/new age/self help etc cookbook to reinforce calm, sanity and peace of mindlessness.
I need stability. It is the basis of all goodly emotions.
Even though I consider @how as describing the higher sanity, I feel it represents practice after discipline ...
Somehow this brings to mind two unrelated/related statements,
1. Question all opinions, including your own.
2. Trust but verify
As soon as you think you have "The Answer", check again.
As soon as someone gives you the facts - check the facts.
Guess there is Sanity, Higher Sanity and Reality.
Enough dancing upon the cactus
Peace to all
No worries....I have my alternative facts at the ready....
I am uncleared.
Still thoughts. Still emotions. Still body.
Arisings:
Presence of Mind
Peace of Cake
Less wobbling
Love, de motion and know surrender
https://www.lionsroar.com/the-real-source-of-happiness/
I do not think of emotions as being either sane or insane. Emotions just... are. They are Neutral in nature...
It is up to our adhering to the 8FP, as to whether we manifest and channel our emotions skilfully or UNskilfully...
Rage can be just as skilful or unskilful as Joy.
Well said @federica
That is hard to assimilate for some of us. For example it is RIGHT to rage against injustice, ignorance, racism, sexism, bad gurus and teachers etc. in the right way and at the right time. In other words skilfully.
However it is not right to fly into a rage because our chips are undercooked. In a similar way bliss bunnies and joy junkies may generate negativity. Again not skilful. Again right way and time.
It is power over these temporary states that is real. Ideally with practice we attain more equanimity and balance ...
@Shoshin has mentioned something similar ...
I’m not so sure about that. Rage often clouds your vision and drives you to do things you would not otherwise do. While joy is often more inward focussed.
But in principle either one can cloud your judgement. Transported in great joy one can also do things you wouldn’t normally do.
There I was being joyfully angry. Blissing out on pain, ignorance and karma blame shaming when ... I herd of heard immunity.
In other words I listen to The Clear, The Bright, The Dark Buddhas.
All is Her. She is Shakti Buddha.
Emotions, by their very nature, are irrational. Their purpose is to protect the part of us that we often identify as "I" or "Me" from the realities of samsara.
Let's face it; life here on this planet kinda sucks. It's so bad in fact that we've developed a keen trick of not remembering most of it. What we remember is bullet points, the highs and lows. In other words, we remember things mostly based on our emotions about them. Unless you're a political junkie you won't remember this or the last few election cycles; what you'll remember is how you felt about them - your emotions.
Are your emotions rational? That depends on who you ask and what THEIR emotions on the subject are.
Emotions often seem to have their own language.
If you understand the why behind an emotion it often disappears.
It helps you to understand the function of emotions and how they connect to the self.
Buddha emotions are rational.
https://tricycle.org/beginners/buddhism/buddhism-get-rid-of-emotions/
For example:
Long live the Maha Yana. Death to indifference.
For me, emotions are not irrational, opposed to reason, **if ** they are set in the right context of reasonableness.
So, if on Christmas day the family opens up presents, that is a time/context in which the emotions of celebration and surprise and joy, are suitable. Given that setting, those emotions make sense.
Of course, in other times the same emotions are not fitting. Say, at war, you start talking effusively about your sweetheart back home, in the midst of a hail of bullets. No....
It also matters how you organize your life in general. If you build up your life in general around the center of enjoying emotions, even high and rarefied emotions, then naturally you will have more time to retire to and appreciate them. As opposed to if you organized your life around work, or duty, or food, or drink, or whatever it may be.
Emotions can be both positive and negative, in my opinion. But I balk at classifying them as irrational. It seems to me more a matter of contextualizing them and feeling them appropriately at the right times. Though admittedly, choosing when to feel a particular emotion can be hard. This is why I believe in moral training for the individual and sublimating his emotions into higher forms.....
Indeed.
On the whole I do not find sitting with strong emotions is helpful or skilful for any but the highly disciplined. Minor emotions should be within our grasp to understand and let go of.
https://trustinginbuddha.co.uk/diet-physical-exercise-and-buddhist-spiritual-practice/
I'm not sure on this. Feelings -to me- seem perfectly conditioned and rational. They can seem irrational but that could be because the cause is hidden from us and/or our conditioned response is different than we expect.
They can for sure. Especially when Metta and compassion put an ache in our heart that only a call to action or helping can lighten.
I think it's a two way street but I think we can get to a stage where our perceptions do not take away from our calm or ease. On the other hand, if we are calm and at ease, our perception is sharper as we are more aware.
Peace and equanimity seem like foundations of love. I know I have never been clear headed and angry at the same time though.
So I guess I'm not sure how helpful it would be for me to view emotions and feelings as either sane or insane because they are perfectly conditioned responses even if we don't understand the exact conditions.
It's easier for me to look at them as either constructive or destructive and then deal with them accordingly.
Ah ha!
They have an inherent strength of being based on physical needs, attachment, instinct. They may overwhelm us.
What then? Our behaviour and human nature will exhibit.
Cushion time!
Hi,
Me, I’ve concluded that negative emotions are just as valuable as physical pain. Unless I just stumped my big toe, I want to know what the pain in my chest is all about. The same, for me, is true with negative emotions. Unless they are obvious, like I just lost a loved one, I find most of my negative emotions come from operating on what is NOT so. That is, I have a bunch of stuff that I think is so and it isn’t. And, when I use these not so(s), I run into conflict with what is and I fail. And for me failures create negative emotions and successes create feel good. At this point I usually work on these negatives, get to what is wrong, get to what is actually so, the truth, and that sets me free of those pesky negative emotions.
Pete.
Nicely put PeterJTimm
and I submit that while emotions that one deems as "negative" seem to be easier reminders of what needs to be looked at, emotions that we experience as "positive" are no lesser teachers of what should also be objectively looked at.
I have found for myself that both of these data streams are beneficial indicators of how my identity is currently interacting with phenomena and both have their greatest power to obscure clear sightedness when not fully faced for the data streams that they are.