Emotions as Energies

 When we break things up into discreet properties, we then label them as good or bad. Feelings are one good example. When I am feeling a certain way, there is an energy that arises in the body. I might even characterize them phenomenologically. For instance, irritability might seem prickly and easily excitable, whereas sadness seems more like a deeper or slower wave that surges through me. Tiredness may take the form of an in-between kind of state that lies somewhere between irritability and drowsiness. 

The point is that all of these are just like the different waves of the ocean. Now, if we prefer those deeper and calmer manifestations of waves, we may forget that the prickly forms of irritability and the like are also mind energies: they have the exact same source as the calmer energies, and therefore their nature is very much the same. If we look even more closely at these emotional states, we will find that they too fluctuate: there is no single discreet form that we can unilaterally label as “irritable”, “happy” or “annoyed” because these states are bound to fluctuate as well. Individual emotional states can always be broken down into still finer points of arising, abating or varying in intensity.

The point is not to try to seek out these energies or reject them but rather to change how we relate to them: as being neither inherently good nor bad, but only as temporary states of being that have an empty nature. Once we start to get stuck on these states, they start to appear as more solid and real than they truly are, which gives rise to things like “like” and “dislike” or other such judgments. By simply learning to abide in the emotions themselves, we can come to realize their interdependent and aggregated nature. Then we don’t need to push away or identify, conversely, with certain emotions. We will no longer feel so imprisoned within them.

 Another way of doing this is similar to what I described in the group practice tonight, and that is to view energies similar to the way sound hits the eardrum. If anyone is ever having an argument with you, try turning to the sound itself and directly experiencing it without layers of interpretation surrounding the sounds themselves. Then we can view these sounds more playfully, enjoying their special quality or timbre without becoming overly invested in them. This can make otherwise difficult situations more interesting.