Split thread: Handling strong emotions

[Ugrok]

Hi !

What i found out during zazen practice, especially relating to fear, not so much anger, is to stay with the body and let it do what it wants. For example, when i feel my chest or throat contracting from fear, i notice that often my first reaction is aversion and i have some reaction like trying to relax, breathing more deeply, stuff like that. In fact it's counterproductive. It shows that I don't want to feel that. And it fuels it.

Now i try (it's really not easy) to say yes. Body, if you want to contract, do it, you know better than me. If you want to make my breathe shallow, do it. The body knows better than us, and it takes care of itself. So now whatever i feel, i allow it, and emotions are allowed to come into balance much faster that way. It's total surrender and it is hard because in the end it means accepting to live and die, but in fact it's much more comfortable than resisting.

Gassho,

Uggy
Sat today

[Eishuu]

Uggy, I agree...fighting the body is pointless and often if you just get out of the way, it has it's own process and works itself out. There's a lot of letting go in that. Thank you for sharing.

Gassho
Lucy
ST/LAH

[Doshin]

Interesting thread. I agree with those who separate anger as an emotion from the person who is experiencing it. Anger is a threat-based emotion, like anxiety and disgust. It arises naturally when our threat-system is activated.

When we encounter someone who is anxious and withdrawn, we tend to respond with compassion. When the same person is angry or aggressive, our instinct is usually to keep our distance. From an evolutionary perspective, anger has served its purpose, protecting the angry person from harm with an intimidating display of aggression.

No one chooses to experience genuine anger. Like anxiety and disgust, anger is a natural response to feeling threatened or vulnerable. If we can recognise this, we may be able to respond to anger more helpfully, with greater patience and compassion, including our own anger.

Russell Kolts writes about compassion and anger. He also facilitates therapeutic groups with violent offenders in prison. I saw him speak once and he said, "next time you see an angry person, try to see someone who is suffering in that moment". This stayed with me.

As Jundo says, we all have seeds of anger. I want to water the seeds of compassion and wisdom in myself and others, including people consumed by anger. If we look closely, the most violent actions, or so called "unforgivable acts" are often perpetrated by those who are most in need of compassion and loving kindness.

Just my thoughts.

Gassho,
Enjaku
Sat LAH

Thank you.

Gassho
Doshin
St/LAH

[Tairin]

One who walks with peace has no regrets. For the first third of my life, I lived in anger and fear, and a lot of the time I has unhappy, disoriented, mystified. I thought others had all the answers. I was always afraid I might be found out. My life was untruthful. I was only beginning to wonder if there might be a different way. I was especially afraid of women thinking they all hated men. My father was not around, and my uncle was no help. At age 11 or 12, he told me if I got the "urge" to slam a window on it. I listened to dirty stories told by other boys, and then I found a "girlfriend," or should I say we found each other. We had no more idea of what to do with each other than any couple I saw at our high school. But they seemed to have it all together. My stories could go on, as Diazan, or Jundo would tell me. I found my wife, and through some terrible, and beautiful times we stayed together. Now Jundo calls her my best Zen teacher. When I relate some stupid behavior, Jundo just says, "I'd like to meet her someday." Yes, I love her, but it me, I still do not know what LOVE is. All I know is I would give my life for her, and she has already given her life for me. She knows my pain. Tai Shi, Gassho, std

Tai Shi

I don't always understand what you write here at TreeLeaf but I understand this and it is lovely. Thank you.

Gassho
Warren
Sat Today (no LAH YET)

[Jishin]

Split thread: Handling strong emotions

Hi !

What i found out during zazen practice, especially relating to fear, not so much anger, is to stay with the body and let it do what it wants. For example, when i feel my chest or throat contracting from fear, i notice that often my first reaction is aversion and i have some reaction like trying to relax, breathing more deeply, stuff like that. In fact it's counterproductive. It shows that I don't want to feel that. And it fuels it.

Now i try (it's really not easy) to say yes. Body, if you want to contract, do it, you know better than me. If you want to make my breathe shallow, do it. The body knows better than us, and it takes care of itself. So now whatever i feel, i allow it, and emotions are allowed to come into balance much faster that way. It's total surrender and it is hard because in the end it means accepting to live and die, but in fact it's much more comfortable than resisting.

Gassho,

Uggy
Sat today

If someone begins to beat you with a baseball bat your body may want to contract and maybe protect itself reflexively but you would do better by getting your mind involved. The body does not know the best course of action. You better not allow it to do just what it wants to do. I think you continually make the dichotomy of body and mind. Me vs them. Just let the self be swallowed by the Self, ego collapse into Ego, little i collapse into big I, form swallowed by emptiness, anxiety collapse into Anxiety. Then anxiety is just anxiety. It's all good, form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Form is form and emptiness just emptiness. Nothing gained. Nothing lost. All perfect yet not perfect. Just learn to live with the ambivalence of life because life is like this.

My 2 cents.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Ugrok]

Good point indeed. Maybe we could just say that trying to change what you cannot change is a dead end. So when you feel a difficult emotion, you cannot change it by forcing your body to feel otherwise. But you can act and use your mind to create more favorable conditions.

Sounds better maybe ?

Gassho
Uggy
Sat today

[Jishin]

Good point indeed. Maybe we could just say that trying to change what you cannot change is a dead end. So when you feel a difficult emotion, you cannot change it by forcing your body to feel otherwise. But you can act and use your mind to create more favorable conditions.

Sounds better maybe ?

Gassho
Uggy
Sat today

I would say accept it (you are in stormy waters while traveling in the ocean) and then chart a course for calm waters and then let it go. Your boat will reach its destination without much effort all by itself with the natural winds of the storm. Or maybe the boat will sink, take you with it and you will die. Out of your hands. Just keep on sailing (sitting)!

Gassho, Jishin, ST

[Mp]

I would say accept it (you are in stormy waters while traveling in the ocean) and then chart a course for calm waters and then let it go. Your boat will reach its destination without much effort all by itself with the natural winds of the storm. Or maybe the boat will sink, take you with it and you will die. Out of your hands. Just keep on sailing (sitting)!

Gassho, Jishin, ST

I agree ... the ocean is like our life, sometimes the seas are calm, sometimes they are turbulent. Either way flow with the waves or no waves ... this is life. The seas will be calm or not so calm, whether we like/want it or not.

Shikantaza is like a ships anchor and grounds us when the seas turbulent and chaotic.

Now, just sit, let go of all these mental formations and just enjoy this life. =)

Gassho
Shingen

SatToday/LAH

[Frank]

Emotions and Hello again

Hello my friends. I'm back after a short hiatus I've missed you.

Reading this thread about anger, reminds me of a book about Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere.
There is a page that talks about the ethics of defense in combat...I'm paraphrasing here with apologies to the author.

4- you attack someone for no reason, ending in their death...lowest
3- you provoke someone to attack you, you defend yourself, ending in their death...again low
2- someone attacks you, and you defend yourself, injuring them, possibly ending in their death..acceptable in court, not highest ethically.
1- someone attacks you, you defend yourself in such a way (words or technique), that no harm is caused to you OR the attacker. Highest form of defense in combat.

I'm reminded of a bible quote in Luke that "the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, but he went his way amidst them".

Thich Nhat Hahn says, "let emotions be like a river. Don't become part of the river. Sit on the bank and smile, watching them pass".

I think, with emotions, just as in our sitting, just ......breathe.

Gassho

Frank
Sattoday

JUNDO NOTE: SPLIT TOPIC FROM A PRIOR THREAD



This probably deserves its own topic, but I'll bite.

Emotions aren't justified, they just are. If I'm angry, it's not wrong to be angry. It may be wrong to punch someone in the face. Only our actions need to be justified. An emotion can't be wrong, any more than a leg could be wrong, or your hair growing. It's important not to think that as buddhists, we're not supposed to feel anger, so we suppress it and push it away. Repressing emotions leads to more suffering. When we feel a strong emotion, we have to lean in to it, to feel it completely and thoroughly, and then we can let it go. If we try to stuff it back down, we'll never be able to let go, it'll keep coming back up again and again.
Here in America, there's a sense that in order to really feel your emotions, you have to express them, to "get it out". I don't think that's true. If I'm angry, shouting at my wife only makes us both angrier. I can't pretend like I'm not mad, but I don't have to express my anger all over everyone. I still do, but I don't have to.
So the question is, how do we feel our emotions without letting them lead us into harmful behaviors? I haven't figured that one out yet. One answer is to just sit with your feelings, and it works when you can do it, but it's really not that practical in most emotional situations. Most situations demand a response of some kind. I'm not sure how to respond with compassion and kindness when I'm feeling fear and anger. Seems like not too many people have that figured out, either.

Gassho, Zenmei
#sat

[Getchi]

Beautiful responses everyone, thank you :-)

I believe, time is being and being is time. Anything that let's you "spend the time" will allow "you" to be "you" again.

Best practice is breath e, next best is sit still.

Gassho
Sat2Day / LAH

Geoff

[Jundo]

An interesting interview with a scientist proposing some unusual responses to inner anger ...

Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett runs a lab where she studies emotions and says that if you pay attention, everyday anger can be a source of wisdom.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition to the book How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain,

http://www.ttbook.org/book/want-be-more-understanding-get-angry

More here ...

But not all varieties of anger are divisive and destructive. Others are uplifting and constructive — an antidote to hopelessness. If you’re furious at the political situation, researchers have found, your anger may lead others to try to soothe you, strengthening your bonds with them. ... the anger you share with other like-minded citizens can be empowering, scientists have discovered, and lead to collective action. This kind of anger can even create a community.

Buddhism teaches that anger is a form of ignorance, namely of other people’s points of view. If, in the midst of your fury, you can manage to see your opponents not as evil but as frustrated and trying to make a change, anger can actually cultivate empathy for the other side. In this sense, some angers are a form of wisdom.

Another constructive variety of anger can help in a contest, political or otherwise. Think about football players who intentionally cultivate anger before a game. They shout and jump and pump their fists in the air to get themselves in the right frame of mind for crushing the competition. Their aggression enhances their performance and tells their opponents to beware.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-varieties-of-anger.html

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Mp]

Very interesting Jundo, thank you for this. I really like her approach on this pre-determined response ... how we can respond to not necessarily to the present situation, but rather to a conditioned response from previous experience or encounters.

Going to do a little more read up on her, interesting stuff.

Gassho
Shingen

SatToday/LAH

[Kyonin]

Hi all,

A few years ago I took psychology at the Uni and I remember I was mesmerized by anger. As a Gen X-er, I grew with anger and fury as means to get whatever one desires. Want to win a fight? Get angrier than the other one and destroy! We can see traces of that in current entertainment.

In this course we learned how most of our emotions are relevant from an evolutionary point of view. We developed emotions in order to survive, to better relate to the universe and to have right responses when threatened or in danger.

The thing is, we also have developed an ego, which loves to tell stories that revolve around primal emotions.

So anger is fine as long as we just reckon we are feeling it, but not create stories about it. It's better to see if anger isn't advising us we are in danger so we can act accordingly. Same goes with sadness.

Now, Buddhist practice allows is to be at peace with emotions. We don't run from them, we don't block them. We are at peace with them and live them fully. If we need to cry, we cry. If we need to feel angry towards a political issue, we do it because that will spring us into right action, instead of destructions.

When we are aware of thoughts surrounding emotions it gets easier to see options that we were blind to. I have tried that an in my own experience, it helps a lot because now I don't cling to emotions most of the time. Of course, sometimes it just happens, but emotions tend to stay less time than what they used to.

My English feels quite rusty today, so I apologize if all that didn't make any sense

Gassho,

Kyonin
Sat/LAH

[Tai Shi]

For me, the hope is for a way through the chaos of emotions, depression or anger, mania, or suicidal. I have found hope here, and it's right after dinner which I enjoyed, and as soon as I finish this little note, I will go sit. I will allow the emotions of pain slide of of that canter who is me, and I seek a middle path on either side as I accept that our cat is claiming my let with affection, and for the most part that intense pain caused because my bones don't work right in my spine, my neck, and my knees is not controlling me, the me that is Calm Poetry, the me Charles (Strong Man). But with great joy I am in severe pain, and I am not angry. There is nothing my body has done to me, so I can accept my pain, and joy, as Mozart did, or Beethoven, or Eliot, or Shakespeare, or Lao Tsu, or Jesus, or The Buddha, or Abraham Mallow, or Issac Perelman, or William Tell, or any middle path person. For me, I have only recently learned a way through the chaos of emotion, so it is my hope that this middle path can lead me away from my anger and remorse. In my list of artists and those who have found a way are Mother Teresa, Emily Dickinson, Jane Austin, Susan B Anthony, And from India and Africa Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, From the Holocaust Victor Frankel, fur Martin Luther King, Jr. and Millions of saints of all descriptions, like myself a bipolar Brother Vincent Van Ghough, Salvador Dallhi, Borjas, and so many our Sangha Sisters and Brothers could name who I don't know, and whose names I do not know how to spell, like the writer of The Heart Sutra. Anger is not THE answer, nor is deep depression, and elation which can sometimes drive us to do unthinkable things, so I follow The Buddha's middle path, as did the Ancient Greeks in the Golden Mean. Nor is knowledge just for the sake of just to know any good at all, but to study each bright blessed, benevolent, and loving person, or those who can stand back, appraise a situation, and find a human and giving, path and worthy answers to those emotions I know so little about in my own life. What is it that the brilliant Canadian musician Joni Mitchell, what is it in her music she was trying to teach me?

Tai Shi
std LAH
Gassho

[Hoseki]

Hi all,

A few years ago I took psychology at the Uni and I remember I was mesmerized by anger. As a Gen X-er, I grew with anger and fury as means to get whatever one desires. Want to win a fight? Get angrier than the other one and destroy! We can see traces of that in current entertainment.

In this course we learned how most of our emotions are relevant from an evolutionary point of view. We developed emotions in order to survive, to better relate to the universe and to have right responses when threatened or in danger.

The thing is, we also have developed an ego, which loves to tell stories that revolve around primal emotions.

So anger is fine as long as we just reckon we are feeling it, but not create stories about it. It's better to see if anger isn't advising us we are in danger so we can act accordingly. Same goes with sadness.

Now, Buddhist practice allows is to be at peace with emotions. We don't run from them, we don't block them. We are at peace with them and live them fully. If we need to cry, we cry. If we need to feel angry towards a political issue, we do it because that will spring us into right action, instead of destructions.

When we are aware of thoughts surrounding emotions it gets easier to see options that we were blind to. I have tried that an in my own experience, it helps a lot because now I don't cling to emotions most of the time. Of course, sometimes it just happens, but emotions tend to stay less time than what they used to.

My English feels quite rusty today, so I apologize if all that didn't make any sense

Gassho,

Kyonin
Sat/LAH

Made sense to me!

Gassho
Hoseki
Sattoday


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