A feast for thought today - something I need to understand and practice: From Raymond Sigrist: This is the citation from the book Jeff Taska referred us to Daring Steps: Traversing the Path of the Buddha It reminds me of Zhuangzis Peacefulness in the midst of volatility. In the Shravakayana context, effort is directed at counteracting our emotions. When, for example, strong anger or attachment arises. Deliberate effort is made to generate its opposite, like loving-kindness or nonattachment. Once this is successfully achieved, the negative emotions have no opportunity to surface, since opposite emotions, like anger and loving-kindness, cannot be present together at the same time. In this way, the negative emotions are reversed through giving rise to the corresponding positive ones. Within the context of the Mahayana, the practitioner takes a further step and seeks to understand his or her emotions and see their nature. When anger comes up, we try to look at ourselves and our anger in order to see the egolessness of our mind and the emptiness of that anger. There are different methods that lead us to see the ultimate nature of ourselves and our emotions. Using these methods, we will understand that the nature of everything is subjective. Anger, as everything else, is not something solid, something truly and independently existing. Through this understanding, the negative emotions are counterbalanced and positive emotions gradually arise. Following the Vajrayana teachings, we do not give up or reject anything; rather we make use of whatever is there. We look at our negative emotions and accept them for what they are. Then we relax in this state of acceptance. Using the emotion itself, it is transformed or transmuted into the positive, into its true face. When, for instance, strong anger or desire arises, a Vajrayana practitioner is not afraid of it. Instead he or she would follow advice along the following lines: Have the courage to expose yourself to your emotions. Do not reject or suppress them, but do not follow them either. Just look your emotion directly in the eye and then try to relax within the very emotion itself. There is no confrontation involved. You dont do anything. Remaining detached, you are neither carried away by emotion nor do you reject it as something negative. Then, you can look at your emotions almost casually and be rather amused. When our usual habit of magnifying our feelings and our fascination resulting from that are gone, there will be no negativity and no fuel. We can relax within them. What we are trying to do, therefore, is to skillfully and subtly deal with our emotions. This is largely equivalent to the ability of exerting discipline. Source: Daring Steps: Traversing the Path of the Buddha by Ringu Tulka Snow Lion Publications, 2010
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 16:07:19 +0000
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