About This Course
Learning to meditate is a gradual process. Each week, this course has tweeted new techniques and facilitated new insights. The techniques either address particular problems that may arise when you meditate, or provide progressively more advanced methods which deepen your experience. It is recommended that you start by going back to week one's techniques and begin your weekly course at that time. The earlier exercises are not mere preliminaries. They are central methods in their own right to which you will return repeatedly - no matter how advanced your practice becomes.
To sign up for this course to be emailed to you weekly; click here Aro Meditation
Desire, Appreciation, & Generosity
Ravenous neediness is indiscriminate. We try to grab and consume everything to which we feel attracted. We view the world as defective in failing to provide what we want. We cannot be satisfied. We do not appreciate simple, subtle, tranquil pleasures. We want more of everything – all of the time. We try to fill emptiness by cramming in everything we can reach. Since emptiness is infinitely vast, this will never work.
In the radical aloneness of meditation, we discover our adequacy. We begin to find complete satisfaction in the enjoyment of the colour of a rug, the sound of a door closing, or the sensation of the floor against a foot. At such times, nothing seems missing or wrong. Gradually we can extend this feeling of sufficiency throughout life.
‘Avidity, repulsion, and disregard’ are often translated ‘attraction, aversion, and indifference’. However, to feel attracted is not itself a problem. Inevitably we like some things far more than others. In meditation, we separate the energy of appreciation from the accompanying thoughts. When this occurs we do not have to act on the mental advertising slogans that command us to acquire everything they claim is desirable. Freed from compulsion to consume – we can simply enjoy sensory pleasure and beauty. We can choose intelligently whether or not we act on impulses. We can select on the basis of what benefits ourselves and others, rather than how strongly we happen to feel in the moment.
Having seen our own neediness clearly, we see it in others. Naturally, we then wish to share enjoyment with them. This is ‘active compassion’ or ‘generosity’.
Depression
Although it may seem otherwise, depression generally does not just happen – it is something we do. Depression is a way of attenuating emotions we are unwilling to face. Rage, fear, and sadness are the most common targets. We clamp down on them and squeeze the energy out of them.
Unfortunately it is not possible to suppress negative feelings without also suppressing those that are positive. When we armour our hearts against pain, we also defend them from enjoyment. Killing anger or sorrow also turns us into emotional zombies.
In the downward spiral of depression, we try to use thought to address emotional pain – but this can never work. Thinking only addresses the circumstances that brought about the pain – it does not confront the pain itself. We just find thoughts running around in circles—slower and slower—as we deplete our energy. We fuzz into a state of bewilderment and—eventually—oblivious torpor.
We attempt to avoid pain by avoiding life. To shut down the bodily sensations of emotions, we must also shut down our other senses. In depression, colours wash out – everything turns grey. Music becomes mere sound. Everything tastes like cardboard.
Perversely, we may cherish some forms of pain because they confirm our identity and provide meaning. ‘I hurt, therefore I am.’ We may seek our pain to be validated and wear it proudly as a mark of worth.
Meditating with depression is difficult. We seem to have too little energy to sit and apply the technique. Shi-nè may be counter-productive: the quiet space it reveals is superficially similar to the lobotomised quiet of depression, and we may confuse the two. The method of separating thoughts from feelings does not directly apply: depression does not feel like anything—unless you count cold grey fog as ‘something’.
Depression seems endless as we approach paralysis. To address depression you must be willing to allow change; to let go of your identity as a depressed person; and to let in a little of the pain you are holding at bay. It is helpful to recognise that depression is not intrinsically a condition of too little energy but of too much. The energy of suppressed emotions is never actually destroyed – merely distanced.
The only way out of depression is to reawaken the ability to feel. The best method is to open to the senses. Be receptive to sights, sounds, textures, fragrances, and tastes. Allow yourself to uncoil gradually in sensory enjoyment. This involves overcoming inertia and the depressive damping of sensation. Physical exercise is especially useful. It breaks the slow, weak loops of depressive thought and opens you outward – thereby replenishing energy.
The value of meditation for depression is in helping uncover what is suppressed. Meditative alertness cuts the fog. It then enables you to apply the technique of separating the painful emotions that arise from their accompanying thoughts. To do this requires courage. If you have previously used the technique to transform anger or desire, you know that the pain will abate. If not, opening to pain requires a leap of faith.
Meditation allows us to strip off layers of armour – gently. Only by facing negative emotions can we relate to them intelligently – by releasing them from the straightjacket of conceptuality.
Greater willingness to feel emotionally negative gives us greater capacity to feel positivity.
Enormous creative energy is freed when we cease to employ energy against ourselves in the suppression of natural feelings.
Sadness
Sadness may be confused with depression – but they are different. Sadness is the natural response to loss – our own or others’. Unlike depression, sadness is a distinct sensation—an ache just below the ribcage—but this does not sap your energy.
Sadness is the slowest and often quietest of emotions—making it superficially similar to depression. To relate intelligently to sadness you must take the time to open to it. Depression results from refusing to experience sadness and going about your life as though it were not there. Failure to experience sadness accurately—skipping over details—can also result in its becoming a habit or solidified pattern. Just knowing that you are sad—and resigning yourself to it—is not the same as allowing it.
To be willing to experience sadness is a radical act. It is an expression of caring for loss – either our own, or others’. Voluntary vulnerability betokens an open heart. Openness to sadness—and recognition that it is as conceptually impersonal as all emotions—opens us to the suffering of others. Naturally we desire others to be free of it. This is active compassion.
Joy
Surprisingly, we are as unwilling—or more unwilling—to experience joy as we are to experience emotional negativity. We may allow ourselves to feel joy only when external conditions are exceptionally positive. To feel joy for no reason could seem precarious – as if it could lead to irresponsibility.
Meditation often uncovers joy hidden beneath other feelings. They may emerge together. It is not usual to feel sadness and joy simultaneously – but this becomes more common with experience of meditation. You may find yourself crying and laughing at the same time.
Sourceless joy is so rarely allowed that seeing it in you, may make others uncomfortable. Do not rush to squelch it for their convenience. That will do them no favours. Your joy—on the other hand—might wake them up.
Ordinary Heroism
With sufficient practice of allowing feelings, we become fully familiar with our habitual emotional patterns. They lose their power. Our illusions about ourselves die of hunger – because we stop feeding them with the energy of our emotional involvement. Gradually we unmask. We strip off the armour of identity we girded on in fear of revealing and experiencing what we are. Freed from emotional conflicts, our motivations simplify and our communication and activity become straightforward and direct.
Allowing feelings allows them to deepen. Eventually we experience all human qualities within ourselves. Then we know what it is simply to be – without reference to the personal history we once used to define ourselves.
At this point we discover ordinary heroism. We come to live with courage, gentleness, dignity, curiosity, humour, grace, honesty, spontaneity, commitment, appreciation, and authenticity.
Recommended Resources
Our web page on the purpose of meditation expands on many of the topics of this week’s email.
Aro is a not-for-profit charity dedicated to teaching meditation and a way of life that grows out from it. The Aro Friends programme is a way to support this work with a small financial contribution.
The Friends programme is also a way to learn more about the Aro path and see if it is a good ‘fit’ for you. It incorporates a variety of resources for coming to a deeper understanding of meditation in the Aro style. It also provides opportunities to experience the Aro community—and, if you choose, to participate in it—with minimal effort and no commitment.
See our meditation resources page for a range of learning methods.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Meditation Techniques - Week 12
About This Course
Learning to meditate is a gradual process. Each week, this course has tweeted new techniques and facilitated new insights. The techniques either address particular problems that may arise when you meditate, or provide progressively more advanced methods which deepen your experience. It is recommended that you start by going back to week one's techniques and begin your weekly course at that time. The earlier exercises are not mere preliminaries. They are central methods in their own right to which you will return repeatedly - no matter how advanced your practice becomes.
To sign up for this course to be emailed to you weekly; click here Aro Meditation
Greetings
How has your last week of meditation been?
You may have found that the new technique seemed to make everything worse. If so – it is because meditation has brought hidden emotions to the surface. In the short term, that might seem undesirable – but it is only when you see emotions clearly that you can live congruently. It is better to know your feelings than to be ridden by them unconsciously.
Emotions
In shi-nè we see that thoughts come and go. The same is true of emotions – although they generally persist longer.
Emotions are intolerable when they seem to persist indefinitely. When gripped by hopeless desire or depression, it seems that we will always feel that way. This illusion is reinforced by our refusal to allow emotions to be as they are. Because we express, repress, or dissipate emotions, we do not experience them passing on their own. Few emotions, in fact, are strong enough to last more than a few hours in meditation. When allowed, they eventually exhaust themselves. One reason it is valuable to practice occasionally for periods of more than an hour is to watch emotions arise, strut about furiously, and then subside into nothingness.
It is because diverse emotions come and go, that they conflict. It is because they come and go, that acting upon transient emotions causes trouble. If we could depend on loving or hating something indefinitely – it might be different. Drastic actions to acquire or eradicate might function – but we regret hurtful statements when anger has passed. We often find that our lust for a new pair of boots fades some time after purchase.
Posture
During a long meditation session – particularly when you are tired and achy – it can be useful to perform a quick mental scan of your body to check and freshen your sitting position. Traditionally meditators memorise a seven-point checklist that goes something like this:
1. My legs are relaxed and comfortable.
2. My spine is upright and elongated. My chest is open, my belly soft, and my back strong.
3. My shoulders are released backward—not hunched forward—and are even with each other.
4. My upper arms fall vertically from my shoulders. My hands are relaxed and comfortable.
5. My head floats upward from my spine. My chin is slightly tucked toward my chest, so that the back of my neck relaxes and straightens out.
6. My tongue is relaxed and lightly touches my hard pallet, with my lips and teeth slightly open.
7. My eyes are slightly opened and my gaze is angled diagonally downward.
Each point is the antidote to a physical difficulty. However, what is most important to remember is the overall principle: any still, comfortable, relaxed, and alert posture is ideal for meditation.
This Week’s Meditation Technique
This week and next, continue the method of last week. Practice shi-nè; be aware of the charge on thoughts; transfer attention to bodily sensations when you find emotions.
Regard emotions impersonally. ‘I am angry’ equates ‘me’ with ‘anger’, and I become my emotion. Anger has me – rather than my having it. ‘Anger is happening now’ sounds odd – but is more accurate. When we see that emotions rise and fall in the empty space of awareness they no longer rule us. Attend to this space in which emotions occur. It becomes evident that we contain—and are larger than—our emotions.
Anger
With all emotions, the method is similar – but more can be said of each emotion in particular.
Thoughts of self-justification and blame usually accompany anger. We actively persuade ourselves that we are entirely in the right – and the person with whom we are angry, is entirely wrong. That intensifies the emotion. Letting go of those thoughts in meditation allows anger to begin to subside. It may also reveal that neither party was entirely right or wrong.
Blaming depends on seeing the parties as solid, clear-cut ‘selves’ with well-defined, consistent intentions. Meditation reveals that our own thoughts, emotions, motivations, and plans change constantly and are—in a sense—impersonal rather than created by ourselves. The same is true for everyone else – including those who harm us. They are driven by the insane ape of incoherent emotion and the insistent advertising slogans of thought.
Recognizing this – there is no longer any basis for hatred. Hatred is anger prompting the desire to cause harm. There is no point harming a horse ridden by an insane ape – or even in harming the ape. Recognizing this – it gradually becomes possible to forgive everyone for everything.
Horses ridden by insane apes remain dangerous. Forgiveness does not imply that we allow ourselves to be trampled. Forgiving harm done does not imply that it was justifiable – only that we have the skill to avoid churning up our own emotions by endlessly reminding ourselves of the injustice.
When hatred is dissolved, we can employ anger to concentrate—to see situations clearly—and to act to prevent harm to ourselves, rather than to cause harm to the other.
Anger often masks fear. Sometimes we deliberately make ourselves angry to avoid feeling the underlying fear. When angry—in meditation and at other times—be alert for signs of fear. If it is the cause of anger, it is best to observe the root fear directly.
Obstacles & Antidotes
Frustration, irritation, and impatience are weak forms of the same energy as anger.
These are an obstacle when you think that meditation should be going faster than it is. When nothing happens and you feel it is past time for results, annoyance at meditation or at yourself might tempt you to stop meditating.
Re-configure impatience as determination. Rather than pushing away the source of irritation – fierce energy can overcome obstacles. When meditation has become routine, frustration may help you see yourself practising on autopilot. Then you can resolve to sharpen your technique.
Antidotes become obstacles when over-employed. The complementary danger is becoming obsessed with precision and with returning ever more quickly from distraction. Gentleness in meditation consists in not trying to measure up to an arbitrary standard of perfect technique. The fear that ‘I am not good enough’ underlies this obstacle. Ask yourself: Where did this standard come from? What is the root of that fear?
Fear
After you break through the barrier of superficial thoughts, fear may replace boredom as a primary obstacle. Like boredom, fear is an officious signpost: ‘Do not look here – on pain of discovering who you are!’ The antidote is the same: stare into the fear – find that this ‘obstacle’ is an open door – and walk through it.
Fear in meditation may be the ‘ordinary’ fear of unfortunate future events; fear of emptiness; or fear of emotions.
Ordinary fear prompts obsessive, unhelpful visualisation of what may go wrong. The antidote is to remind yourself that it is not happening now. Return to the present. That includes the sick feeling – but not the imagined bad situation.
When ordinary fear is examined – it often transpires that we are more afraid of how we will feel if the bad event occurs, than of the event itself. It is useful to see this: correctly identifying the object of fear is half way to overcoming it.
Fear prompts avidity, repulsion, and disregard. Fear of loss leads to clinging and hoarding. Fear of being harmed leads to pre-emptive aggression. Fear of emptiness prompts us to construct our own prison cells. We build walls to enclose a tiny safe territory and keep ourselves from straying into the vast unknown. Fear of emotions leads to hiding them from ourselves and others.
We may falsely suppose that we have—within ourselves—a bottomless well of fear and rage; insecurity and neediness; loneliness and compulsion; anxiety and suspicion; and, confusion and depression. We fear that if we open the lid, these will boil out and overwhelm us. We see this problem as irresolvable – so that it is best to suppress, freeze, or ignore negative feelings. Unfortunately, that cuts off our wellspring of energy and leaves us half-alive.
Let disowned emotions gradually rise to the surface in meditation. Be gentle: do not dive down looking for them – nor drag them up—but allow them to emerge in their own time. This takes months or years – but in time you will find the bottom.
Meditation provides a space to approach difficult emotions gradually and learn that they cannot control you. You can, after all, stop at any time. As buried thoughts and feelings surface, regard them impersonally, without pushing or pulling at them. Be curious about each emotion: what would it be like to experience it fully? If you allow intense emotional sensations to ‘do their worst’ – you will find that they cannot harm you. Discovering this counteracts fear. Eventually nothing remains lurking in the depths which can dismay you.
Recommended Resources
This course has room for only a basic introduction to the meditative approach to emotions. The book Spectrum of Ecstasy, by Aro Lamas, explores the topic in depth. It shows how meditation can transform neurotic, conflicted emotions into joyously unproblematic equivalents.
See our meditation resources page for a range of learning methods.
Learning to meditate is a gradual process. Each week, this course has tweeted new techniques and facilitated new insights. The techniques either address particular problems that may arise when you meditate, or provide progressively more advanced methods which deepen your experience. It is recommended that you start by going back to week one's techniques and begin your weekly course at that time. The earlier exercises are not mere preliminaries. They are central methods in their own right to which you will return repeatedly - no matter how advanced your practice becomes.
To sign up for this course to be emailed to you weekly; click here Aro Meditation
Greetings
How has your last week of meditation been?
You may have found that the new technique seemed to make everything worse. If so – it is because meditation has brought hidden emotions to the surface. In the short term, that might seem undesirable – but it is only when you see emotions clearly that you can live congruently. It is better to know your feelings than to be ridden by them unconsciously.
Emotions
In shi-nè we see that thoughts come and go. The same is true of emotions – although they generally persist longer.
Emotions are intolerable when they seem to persist indefinitely. When gripped by hopeless desire or depression, it seems that we will always feel that way. This illusion is reinforced by our refusal to allow emotions to be as they are. Because we express, repress, or dissipate emotions, we do not experience them passing on their own. Few emotions, in fact, are strong enough to last more than a few hours in meditation. When allowed, they eventually exhaust themselves. One reason it is valuable to practice occasionally for periods of more than an hour is to watch emotions arise, strut about furiously, and then subside into nothingness.
It is because diverse emotions come and go, that they conflict. It is because they come and go, that acting upon transient emotions causes trouble. If we could depend on loving or hating something indefinitely – it might be different. Drastic actions to acquire or eradicate might function – but we regret hurtful statements when anger has passed. We often find that our lust for a new pair of boots fades some time after purchase.
Posture
During a long meditation session – particularly when you are tired and achy – it can be useful to perform a quick mental scan of your body to check and freshen your sitting position. Traditionally meditators memorise a seven-point checklist that goes something like this:
1. My legs are relaxed and comfortable.
2. My spine is upright and elongated. My chest is open, my belly soft, and my back strong.
3. My shoulders are released backward—not hunched forward—and are even with each other.
4. My upper arms fall vertically from my shoulders. My hands are relaxed and comfortable.
5. My head floats upward from my spine. My chin is slightly tucked toward my chest, so that the back of my neck relaxes and straightens out.
6. My tongue is relaxed and lightly touches my hard pallet, with my lips and teeth slightly open.
7. My eyes are slightly opened and my gaze is angled diagonally downward.
Each point is the antidote to a physical difficulty. However, what is most important to remember is the overall principle: any still, comfortable, relaxed, and alert posture is ideal for meditation.
This Week’s Meditation Technique
This week and next, continue the method of last week. Practice shi-nè; be aware of the charge on thoughts; transfer attention to bodily sensations when you find emotions.
Regard emotions impersonally. ‘I am angry’ equates ‘me’ with ‘anger’, and I become my emotion. Anger has me – rather than my having it. ‘Anger is happening now’ sounds odd – but is more accurate. When we see that emotions rise and fall in the empty space of awareness they no longer rule us. Attend to this space in which emotions occur. It becomes evident that we contain—and are larger than—our emotions.
Anger
With all emotions, the method is similar – but more can be said of each emotion in particular.
Thoughts of self-justification and blame usually accompany anger. We actively persuade ourselves that we are entirely in the right – and the person with whom we are angry, is entirely wrong. That intensifies the emotion. Letting go of those thoughts in meditation allows anger to begin to subside. It may also reveal that neither party was entirely right or wrong.
Blaming depends on seeing the parties as solid, clear-cut ‘selves’ with well-defined, consistent intentions. Meditation reveals that our own thoughts, emotions, motivations, and plans change constantly and are—in a sense—impersonal rather than created by ourselves. The same is true for everyone else – including those who harm us. They are driven by the insane ape of incoherent emotion and the insistent advertising slogans of thought.
Recognizing this – there is no longer any basis for hatred. Hatred is anger prompting the desire to cause harm. There is no point harming a horse ridden by an insane ape – or even in harming the ape. Recognizing this – it gradually becomes possible to forgive everyone for everything.
Horses ridden by insane apes remain dangerous. Forgiveness does not imply that we allow ourselves to be trampled. Forgiving harm done does not imply that it was justifiable – only that we have the skill to avoid churning up our own emotions by endlessly reminding ourselves of the injustice.
When hatred is dissolved, we can employ anger to concentrate—to see situations clearly—and to act to prevent harm to ourselves, rather than to cause harm to the other.
Anger often masks fear. Sometimes we deliberately make ourselves angry to avoid feeling the underlying fear. When angry—in meditation and at other times—be alert for signs of fear. If it is the cause of anger, it is best to observe the root fear directly.
Obstacles & Antidotes
Frustration, irritation, and impatience are weak forms of the same energy as anger.
These are an obstacle when you think that meditation should be going faster than it is. When nothing happens and you feel it is past time for results, annoyance at meditation or at yourself might tempt you to stop meditating.
Re-configure impatience as determination. Rather than pushing away the source of irritation – fierce energy can overcome obstacles. When meditation has become routine, frustration may help you see yourself practising on autopilot. Then you can resolve to sharpen your technique.
Antidotes become obstacles when over-employed. The complementary danger is becoming obsessed with precision and with returning ever more quickly from distraction. Gentleness in meditation consists in not trying to measure up to an arbitrary standard of perfect technique. The fear that ‘I am not good enough’ underlies this obstacle. Ask yourself: Where did this standard come from? What is the root of that fear?
Fear
After you break through the barrier of superficial thoughts, fear may replace boredom as a primary obstacle. Like boredom, fear is an officious signpost: ‘Do not look here – on pain of discovering who you are!’ The antidote is the same: stare into the fear – find that this ‘obstacle’ is an open door – and walk through it.
Fear in meditation may be the ‘ordinary’ fear of unfortunate future events; fear of emptiness; or fear of emotions.
Ordinary fear prompts obsessive, unhelpful visualisation of what may go wrong. The antidote is to remind yourself that it is not happening now. Return to the present. That includes the sick feeling – but not the imagined bad situation.
When ordinary fear is examined – it often transpires that we are more afraid of how we will feel if the bad event occurs, than of the event itself. It is useful to see this: correctly identifying the object of fear is half way to overcoming it.
Fear prompts avidity, repulsion, and disregard. Fear of loss leads to clinging and hoarding. Fear of being harmed leads to pre-emptive aggression. Fear of emptiness prompts us to construct our own prison cells. We build walls to enclose a tiny safe territory and keep ourselves from straying into the vast unknown. Fear of emotions leads to hiding them from ourselves and others.
We may falsely suppose that we have—within ourselves—a bottomless well of fear and rage; insecurity and neediness; loneliness and compulsion; anxiety and suspicion; and, confusion and depression. We fear that if we open the lid, these will boil out and overwhelm us. We see this problem as irresolvable – so that it is best to suppress, freeze, or ignore negative feelings. Unfortunately, that cuts off our wellspring of energy and leaves us half-alive.
Let disowned emotions gradually rise to the surface in meditation. Be gentle: do not dive down looking for them – nor drag them up—but allow them to emerge in their own time. This takes months or years – but in time you will find the bottom.
Meditation provides a space to approach difficult emotions gradually and learn that they cannot control you. You can, after all, stop at any time. As buried thoughts and feelings surface, regard them impersonally, without pushing or pulling at them. Be curious about each emotion: what would it be like to experience it fully? If you allow intense emotional sensations to ‘do their worst’ – you will find that they cannot harm you. Discovering this counteracts fear. Eventually nothing remains lurking in the depths which can dismay you.
Recommended Resources
This course has room for only a basic introduction to the meditative approach to emotions. The book Spectrum of Ecstasy, by Aro Lamas, explores the topic in depth. It shows how meditation can transform neurotic, conflicted emotions into joyously unproblematic equivalents.
See our meditation resources page for a range of learning methods.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Meditation Techniques - Week 11
About This Course
Learning to meditate is a gradual process. Each week, this course has tweeted new techniques and facilitated new insights. The techniques either address particular problems that may arise when you meditate, or provide progressively more advanced methods which deepen your experience. It is recommended that you start by going back to week one's techniques and begin your weekly course at that time. The earlier exercises are not mere preliminaries. They are central methods in their own right to which you will return repeatedly - no matter how advanced your practice becomes.
To sign up for this course to be emailed to you weekly; click here Aro Meditation
Greetings
This week, and the next two, we will explore emotions in meditation.
Meditation can be relaxing – but it also reveals what is – which includes the full range of emotions. That is a sign of progress. You have penetrated superficial thoughts.
Some traditions see emotions as obstacles – and therefore provide antidotes. Others—including Aro—welcome the opportunity to embrace emotions within meditation. Strong emotions make meditation more difficult – but also more powerful. They naturally have a strong concentrating effect, so working with them accelerates progress.
Learning a better way to relate to emotions in meditation can transform our experience of everyday life. That ‘better way’ is to view emotions in the context of shi-nè.
This Week’s Meditation Method
Practice shi-nè according to whichever technique is suitable to your mind-state: counting, awareness of breath, or formlessly. When a thought arises—rather than immediately dropping it—observe for a moment the emotional texture or ‘charge’ that accompanies it. When you return to presence, maintain awareness of any continuing bodily sensations that accompanied the emotion. For example, if there was an undertone of anger in the thought, you may experience heat and pressure in the chest or forehead. Fear may be accompanied by nausea.
Shi-nè is taught as the first meditation method in Aro because others techniques depend on viewing situations from the standpoint of emptiness – the open space that shi-nè reveals. Shi-nè is also taught first because it is possible to apply it in some form in almost any situation. Other meditation methods we teach only apply under certain circumstances.
This week’s method is useful only when you have emotions strong enough to feel in the body as physical sensations. However, attempting it can also uncover buried feelings. For that reason, please avoid this method if seriously depressed, or suffering from other mental dysfunction.
Emotions
Typically, we express, repress, or dissipate strong emotions. These are the strategies of avidity, repulsion, and disregard. We may express emotions by acting on them – but that often results in trouble for ourselves or others. We may repress them by denying or burying them. Unfortunately, keeping emotions buried is unpleasant and tiring – and hidden emotions may grow monstrous in the dark. They can burst out at awkward times. We may dissipate emotions by busying ourselves with distracting activities into which we can channel the unwanted energy. Careers, hobbies, entertainments, and ‘good works’ may all be dissipations – although of course they have other functions. Dissipation is the least harmful of the three options – but it wastes our lives by diverting us from the authentic actions we would take if we were willing to face our emotions. Often inauthentic activity wastes other people’s time as well.
There is a fourth possibility: to experience our emotions fully without acting on them. Although difficult at first, this alternative spares ourselves and others the consequences of desperate, harmful actions, the psychological damage of emotional repression, and the waste and interference of dissipation.
This week’s meditation method trains us to simply be with emotions – not expressing, repressing, or dissipating them. We develop this capacity during meditation, when we do not have to act and are not constantly provoked by others’ actions. With experience, we can apply the method in difficult life situations.
Sitting with emotions can be painful. It must be approached with strength and gentleness. We do not allow our emotions to run us, or to run us off the meditation cushion – but we do not become hostile either. The method is to regard emotions with respectful interest. We neither slam the door in their face, nor invite them in for tea and a cosy chat. Whether we like or dislike them, we allow them to be as they are—at least for the duration of the meditation session.
By allowing emotions—without commentary—we see them clearly. Emotions consist of thoughts plus bodily energy. This meditation method separates the two. We let the thoughts go – but we remain aware of the physical sensation. In the gaps between thoughts then, the feeling begins—of itself—to assume its natural form.
Posture
The magician position is the same as the siddha position, except that the foot of the outer leg is drawn up onto the inner leg’s calf. This improves the balance and stability of the posture. It is more stable—and feels more symmetric—but requires greater flexibility. Once you are comfortable with the siddha position, try the magician position occasionally and gently. Gradually it will become easy.
The lotus position is the ‘iconic’ symbol for meditation. However, is not the only ‘proper’ position, or even the best. For certain meditation methods it is essential. For shi-nè, all the positions I have described are equal. The lotus position does have one practical advantage. You can sit comfortably in the position on a flat surface—if you can be comfortable in it at all—which means that you do not need a support. You can therefore meditate anywhere at any time.
The lotus position requires great flexibility in the hips. If you are not sufficiently flexible, it can lead to serious injury. Forcing yourself into the position may be only slightly painful – but maintaining it against resistance for a long meditation session leads to knee surgery. You can approach the lotus position safely using a specific series of stretching exercises. Consult a yoga teacher if you want to learn them.
Obstacles & Antidotes
Feeling tired or sleepy when meditating is common. That may be because you are, in fact, tired or sleepy – but not always. Notice how you feel ten minutes after the end of your meditation session. If you remain tired or sleepy – the feeling was genuine. Meditation has simply revealed what was there.
You may discover, however, that you feel energetic again. In that case, it may seem that meditation has been making you tired and sleepy. In reality, this damping of energy is an ‘escape clause’ that enables you to avoid unpleasant or frightening emotions that might arise in meditation. That could be a feeling or thought. It could also be the threatening state of no-thought.
If you are genuinely tired, rest. If you find you are dulling yourself as an avoidance mechanism, rouse your energy and silently confront what you have been avoiding.
Restless energy can also be avoidance. Obsessive planning or fantasies can hold off unwanted feelings – or emptiness. Stirring up one emotion may be a way to avoid feeling another. In such cases, redirect the energy into the meditation technique. Employ the energy to nourish precision and diligence. Turn your ambition to returning more often to the presence of awareness – and to remaining longer.
The Insane Ape
When emotions are separated into thought and sensation, they simplify and clarify. The sensation may remain intense, but it feels clear. What was a boiling cauldron of bile, transforms into a cool, clear, free-flowing waterfall—still volatile but no longer toxic. With practice, that energy may be positively harnessed.
Emotions become problematic when they are driven into complexity and conflict with one another through thinking. In the Tibetan tradition, it is said that to be at the mercy of conflicting emotions is like being a horse ridden by an insane ape. The ape demands you turn left, raking your flanks with its spurs – whilst also forcing you right, jerking the metal bit in your bleeding mouth.
We become our own insane riders when we judge emotions: ‘I shouldn’t want to hurt my spouse whom I love’ or ‘I shouldn’t feel miserable because I am well-off’ or ‘I ought to want to see him more often’ or ‘I am a spiritual person so I should not want so many things – so much’. In mediation, we lessen inner conflict by dropping such thoughts and returning to simple awareness. We allow chaos and confusion – but we do not add to it by trying to fix it.
Obstacles & Antidotes
Coming face-to-face with emotions is difficult—although, as with all else in meditation, it becomes easier with practice. It calls for a balance of determination and kindness toward yourself. If you turn away as soon as the going gets rough, you will make no progress. If you force yourself ahead when fear or pain seems intolerable, you will revolt and refuse to meditate. You can find your own balance point only by experimentation.
When feelings are just too strong to continue with this method – first, try returning to shi-nè. As soon as you feel the emotion – drop it and return to your breath. Allow your mind to calm in the quiet space of shi-nè.
If you cannot maintain shi-nè, try something different rather than cursing and gritting it out. I particularly recommend vigorous physical exercise, which—like shi-nè—cuts through obsessive thinking and releases excess energy in a constructive way.
If you cannot help acting on a destructive emotion, try to maintain some memory of meditative awareness – as you do so. Try to allow a gap between being provoked and your next action. In that empty space you may find clarity – and thus the possibility of choice.
Recommended Resources
This week’s meditation technique is a simplified approximation to one from the Tibetan tradition, called trèk-chod. Trèk-chod is taught in Aro in the evening class series entitled Spectrum of Being. It is also taught on weekend-long retreats: Embracing Emotions as the Path and Reality – The Vivid, Vivacious, and Volatile Vision.
Find upcoming Aro events near you.
See our meditation resources page for a range of learning methods.
Learning to meditate is a gradual process. Each week, this course has tweeted new techniques and facilitated new insights. The techniques either address particular problems that may arise when you meditate, or provide progressively more advanced methods which deepen your experience. It is recommended that you start by going back to week one's techniques and begin your weekly course at that time. The earlier exercises are not mere preliminaries. They are central methods in their own right to which you will return repeatedly - no matter how advanced your practice becomes.
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Greetings
This week, and the next two, we will explore emotions in meditation.
Meditation can be relaxing – but it also reveals what is – which includes the full range of emotions. That is a sign of progress. You have penetrated superficial thoughts.
Some traditions see emotions as obstacles – and therefore provide antidotes. Others—including Aro—welcome the opportunity to embrace emotions within meditation. Strong emotions make meditation more difficult – but also more powerful. They naturally have a strong concentrating effect, so working with them accelerates progress.
Learning a better way to relate to emotions in meditation can transform our experience of everyday life. That ‘better way’ is to view emotions in the context of shi-nè.
This Week’s Meditation Method
Practice shi-nè according to whichever technique is suitable to your mind-state: counting, awareness of breath, or formlessly. When a thought arises—rather than immediately dropping it—observe for a moment the emotional texture or ‘charge’ that accompanies it. When you return to presence, maintain awareness of any continuing bodily sensations that accompanied the emotion. For example, if there was an undertone of anger in the thought, you may experience heat and pressure in the chest or forehead. Fear may be accompanied by nausea.
Shi-nè is taught as the first meditation method in Aro because others techniques depend on viewing situations from the standpoint of emptiness – the open space that shi-nè reveals. Shi-nè is also taught first because it is possible to apply it in some form in almost any situation. Other meditation methods we teach only apply under certain circumstances.
This week’s method is useful only when you have emotions strong enough to feel in the body as physical sensations. However, attempting it can also uncover buried feelings. For that reason, please avoid this method if seriously depressed, or suffering from other mental dysfunction.
Emotions
Typically, we express, repress, or dissipate strong emotions. These are the strategies of avidity, repulsion, and disregard. We may express emotions by acting on them – but that often results in trouble for ourselves or others. We may repress them by denying or burying them. Unfortunately, keeping emotions buried is unpleasant and tiring – and hidden emotions may grow monstrous in the dark. They can burst out at awkward times. We may dissipate emotions by busying ourselves with distracting activities into which we can channel the unwanted energy. Careers, hobbies, entertainments, and ‘good works’ may all be dissipations – although of course they have other functions. Dissipation is the least harmful of the three options – but it wastes our lives by diverting us from the authentic actions we would take if we were willing to face our emotions. Often inauthentic activity wastes other people’s time as well.
There is a fourth possibility: to experience our emotions fully without acting on them. Although difficult at first, this alternative spares ourselves and others the consequences of desperate, harmful actions, the psychological damage of emotional repression, and the waste and interference of dissipation.
This week’s meditation method trains us to simply be with emotions – not expressing, repressing, or dissipating them. We develop this capacity during meditation, when we do not have to act and are not constantly provoked by others’ actions. With experience, we can apply the method in difficult life situations.
Sitting with emotions can be painful. It must be approached with strength and gentleness. We do not allow our emotions to run us, or to run us off the meditation cushion – but we do not become hostile either. The method is to regard emotions with respectful interest. We neither slam the door in their face, nor invite them in for tea and a cosy chat. Whether we like or dislike them, we allow them to be as they are—at least for the duration of the meditation session.
By allowing emotions—without commentary—we see them clearly. Emotions consist of thoughts plus bodily energy. This meditation method separates the two. We let the thoughts go – but we remain aware of the physical sensation. In the gaps between thoughts then, the feeling begins—of itself—to assume its natural form.
Posture
The magician position is the same as the siddha position, except that the foot of the outer leg is drawn up onto the inner leg’s calf. This improves the balance and stability of the posture. It is more stable—and feels more symmetric—but requires greater flexibility. Once you are comfortable with the siddha position, try the magician position occasionally and gently. Gradually it will become easy.
The lotus position is the ‘iconic’ symbol for meditation. However, is not the only ‘proper’ position, or even the best. For certain meditation methods it is essential. For shi-nè, all the positions I have described are equal. The lotus position does have one practical advantage. You can sit comfortably in the position on a flat surface—if you can be comfortable in it at all—which means that you do not need a support. You can therefore meditate anywhere at any time.
The lotus position requires great flexibility in the hips. If you are not sufficiently flexible, it can lead to serious injury. Forcing yourself into the position may be only slightly painful – but maintaining it against resistance for a long meditation session leads to knee surgery. You can approach the lotus position safely using a specific series of stretching exercises. Consult a yoga teacher if you want to learn them.
Obstacles & Antidotes
Feeling tired or sleepy when meditating is common. That may be because you are, in fact, tired or sleepy – but not always. Notice how you feel ten minutes after the end of your meditation session. If you remain tired or sleepy – the feeling was genuine. Meditation has simply revealed what was there.
You may discover, however, that you feel energetic again. In that case, it may seem that meditation has been making you tired and sleepy. In reality, this damping of energy is an ‘escape clause’ that enables you to avoid unpleasant or frightening emotions that might arise in meditation. That could be a feeling or thought. It could also be the threatening state of no-thought.
If you are genuinely tired, rest. If you find you are dulling yourself as an avoidance mechanism, rouse your energy and silently confront what you have been avoiding.
Restless energy can also be avoidance. Obsessive planning or fantasies can hold off unwanted feelings – or emptiness. Stirring up one emotion may be a way to avoid feeling another. In such cases, redirect the energy into the meditation technique. Employ the energy to nourish precision and diligence. Turn your ambition to returning more often to the presence of awareness – and to remaining longer.
The Insane Ape
When emotions are separated into thought and sensation, they simplify and clarify. The sensation may remain intense, but it feels clear. What was a boiling cauldron of bile, transforms into a cool, clear, free-flowing waterfall—still volatile but no longer toxic. With practice, that energy may be positively harnessed.
Emotions become problematic when they are driven into complexity and conflict with one another through thinking. In the Tibetan tradition, it is said that to be at the mercy of conflicting emotions is like being a horse ridden by an insane ape. The ape demands you turn left, raking your flanks with its spurs – whilst also forcing you right, jerking the metal bit in your bleeding mouth.
We become our own insane riders when we judge emotions: ‘I shouldn’t want to hurt my spouse whom I love’ or ‘I shouldn’t feel miserable because I am well-off’ or ‘I ought to want to see him more often’ or ‘I am a spiritual person so I should not want so many things – so much’. In mediation, we lessen inner conflict by dropping such thoughts and returning to simple awareness. We allow chaos and confusion – but we do not add to it by trying to fix it.
Obstacles & Antidotes
Coming face-to-face with emotions is difficult—although, as with all else in meditation, it becomes easier with practice. It calls for a balance of determination and kindness toward yourself. If you turn away as soon as the going gets rough, you will make no progress. If you force yourself ahead when fear or pain seems intolerable, you will revolt and refuse to meditate. You can find your own balance point only by experimentation.
When feelings are just too strong to continue with this method – first, try returning to shi-nè. As soon as you feel the emotion – drop it and return to your breath. Allow your mind to calm in the quiet space of shi-nè.
If you cannot maintain shi-nè, try something different rather than cursing and gritting it out. I particularly recommend vigorous physical exercise, which—like shi-nè—cuts through obsessive thinking and releases excess energy in a constructive way.
If you cannot help acting on a destructive emotion, try to maintain some memory of meditative awareness – as you do so. Try to allow a gap between being provoked and your next action. In that empty space you may find clarity – and thus the possibility of choice.
Recommended Resources
This week’s meditation technique is a simplified approximation to one from the Tibetan tradition, called trèk-chod. Trèk-chod is taught in Aro in the evening class series entitled Spectrum of Being. It is also taught on weekend-long retreats: Embracing Emotions as the Path and Reality – The Vivid, Vivacious, and Volatile Vision.
Find upcoming Aro events near you.
See our meditation resources page for a range of learning methods.
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