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An Emotional Buddha?
Chrysalid
Veteran
What are people's thoughts on emotion and how it relates to the enlightened mind?
Did the Buddha still experience emotions like happiness and sadness, or was it just a sort of constant contentment?
Or did he still experience them, but his reactions to them were utterly different to the unenlightened mind?
To be more specific, when Gotami died, would the Buddha have felt sadness at the loss?
Did the Buddha still experience emotions like happiness and sadness, or was it just a sort of constant contentment?
Or did he still experience them, but his reactions to them were utterly different to the unenlightened mind?
To be more specific, when Gotami died, would the Buddha have felt sadness at the loss?
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Comments
Strictly speaking, I don't know the true answer to your question, Chrysalid, but based on what I have read about the historical buddha. The answer would most likely have been no. He would feel nothing, or if he did feel anything it would likely be so muted by mindfullness training as to be perceived by others as being non-existent except in instances where an act of compassion was called for.
That, of course, is just an opinion.
David Brazier has some interesting discussion of this question in his book, The Feeling Buddha.
Perhaps an enlightened being would not experience emotions in the anger spectrum as they would be understood as the result of suffering, but compassion entails sorrow as it's empathetic. That's my take anyway.
I think before that can be answered, one would first have to know if he considered it a loss to begin with.
I think we (all of us in this thread, not you particularly) need to define the term emotion.
There is emotional reactivity which I have to believe would be absent in an enlightened being, but then there is being an emotional being. To experience a lack of emotion seems impossible as there would then not even be a preference for one thing over another present. Why eat if one has no preference for living over dying? Why bathe if there is no preference for being clean over being filthy? Experiencing no emotion sounds dysfunctional, not enlightened to me.
Are we suggesting an enlightened being does not experience joy or happiness?
How about if I jump out from around a corner and yell 'boo!' Are enlightened beings immune from the flash of fear the rest of us experience?
Ignorance is turning away from pain and grasping at pleasure. Rather than aligning with the sensitivity and recognizing, honoring, and celebrating the sensitivity. Ignorance is to not recognize the space that there is. That there is room for all of this sensitivity. And we don't have to make it solid and have aggression/aversion or craving etc.
Its a little bit like the recognition that the pains in our body protect us from harm. They support us.
The pain is pain, but the awareness of pain itself is not pain. It is awareness. (just heard that on Jon Kabat Zinn tape)
- Feeling: joy, happiness, fear and anger (amongst others).
- Emotion: opposite of "reason".
Seems like I got it all wrong...
I don't think you got it wrong, I think we just needed clarification on how we were using words. I would consider feelings and emotions as synonyms under most circumstances, but I can see the distinction you are making and I think the distinction valid.
I would say a well-trained monk would not experience this flash of fear. That doesn't take much, relatively speaking. Think of the Shao-Lin. No fear, just mindful, skillful response.
What about a sense of humor though? I imagine the Buddha had to find things funny, at least amusing. If he didn't I'd spend night and day trying to get him to crack a smile if we lived during the same time. If Enlightenment means abandonment of all emotions, I would refuse to become enlightened. I just think enlightened beings have their emotions in check so much so that they "appear" to be emotionless. As in, they do not let their emotions disturb their peace.
That is just my opinion however.
I think it's moreso being in control of your emotions. If you're in control of your emotions than you can stay happy. If the time comes where sadness is called for, AKA when a family member dies, then you can let yourself be sad, but always be in control. Lose attachment even to your emotions. Emotions are simply feelings that enter into your consciousness, be aware of them but don't claim them as yours.