Images of Self and Others

   The sharing of our meditation group tonight was around the topic of how deep-seated emotions can be faced using meditative practice, particularly when one has certain deeply ingrained, instantaneous judgments about what is happening in a situation. It somehow reminded me of when I was in my early 20s as an undergraduate, and was experiencing different kinds of emotions and reactions around the different people I had been meeting at the time. One of the issues that everyone has to face at some time or another is the role that their own emotions can play, as well as how others might react towards me.
   No matter how much we might contribute Buddhist theories and phenomenology to the study of appearances and how ideas shape our views of others, the intersubjective realm can easily become sticky and tricky. I am not only interacting with you but also with your images of me, and my image of you as well. When all of these things are put together, there is a confused mess of things to sort out, because we are seeing both the image of the person and our own projected desires and hopes on that person. I would say that the best one can do as a practitioner is not to identify too much with any thoughts or emotions that are tending to arise here. No matter whether one has pleasant or unpleasant thoughts, there is nobody standing to gain or lose from any of the transactions of daily life, as these transactions are only temporary. In that sense, one can choose to have fun with it, knowing that our images of each other are really creations of the mind which can be changed or shaped at any given time.
   If the thought of your boss or supervisor angers you, is it the actual supervisor or boss who "makes" you angry? Not really, because what triggers the suffering is not the person but the image that lingers in our mind which one relates to that person. Knowing and clearly reflecting on this, one can relax with the person, because they are no longer confusing their thoughts with an enduring self.