"I have all kinds of bad thoughts and feelings in meditation. What can I do?" she asked. The Sage said, "Pay attention." "But," she said, "am I not to let it all go?" "Letting it go or not," said the Sage, "it will go. The question is, 'Do you welcome it before it goes?'"
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
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The writing addresses emotion and the spiritual life. Emotion is not a static thing. Emotion is a motion, a movement: lit., French "out, to move." In a day, we experience this activity constantly. And quickly, a pleasant feeling can leave, and an unpleasant one come. We have little decision in the matter, as a feeling is present before we choose it. Feelings come, feelings go. And we are preprogrammed for the frequent arising of some emotions more than others. However, we can learn to work with emotion in a way that benefits us. We do this without indulging or denying what is present.
Also, some spiritual teaching can appear to denigrate emotion or at least some feelings, such as strong desires, or passions. In that case, emotions can be seen as unspiritual and counter an awakened life.
One can also misread the instruction in meditation of "letting go." Letting go does not mean pushing away, which is repressing. Instead, the whole variety of feelings has a place of welcome in the life of holiness. Holiness is not a part life but a whole life. If we subdue what we see as unacceptable feelings, they grow stronger, and we live an unwhole life.
Hence, this writing arises from the idea and practice of welcoming all feelings in their coming and going. This wisdom is seen in a poem by Rumi - "The Guest House."
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
*Coleman Barks. The Essential Rumi.
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Jesus speaks of the danger of resisting our shadow aspects, including emotions we see as unacceptable. Not to suppress is the negative way of saying to welcome. His use of "demons" signifies religio-social inappropriate thoughts and feelings -
When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. Then it says, "I will return to my house from which I came." When it returns, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil [or, harmful] than itself, and they enter and live there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil [or, harmful] generation.
*Gospel of Matthew 12.43-45 (NRSVUE)
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Welcoming does not mean being tolerant. There is a space between tolerance and intolerance. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche writes of this clarity; hence, to live an enlightened life does not mean a life without emotion or unenlightened feelings -
A compassionate attitude, a warmth, develops ... . It is an attitude of fundamental acceptance of oneself while still retaining critical intelligence. We appreciate the joyful aspect of life along with the painful aspect. Relating to emotions ceases to be a big deal. Emotions are as they are, neither suppressed nor indulged but simply acknowledged.
*Chogyam Trungpa. Ocean of Dharma. Ed. Carolyn Rose Gimian.
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As a Christian pastor, I created a little tale for sharing with my Christian congregation several decades ago. Buddhist study and practice since have enhanced the meaning for me.
A man wakes up in the morning and goes to his front door. He opens the door. Someone has unloaded a large pile of dung there. He is angry. He hates the sight and smell and thinks about who might be to blame and how to rid himself of the mess. He pays someone to come and take it away and unload it way down in the wood, far out of sight. He is satisfied when the task is complete.
Another man living nearby wakes up, opens his door, and sees he also has a large pile of dung dumped at his door. He looks at it. He smells the stench. He thinks, "Now, what shall I do with this?" He sees it as more than dung. He sees it as manure. So, little by little, he moves it near where he will soon plant his garden. He fertilizes the garden with the dung. Soon, he has a most beautiful garden, for he saw the garden in the dung, when the first man only saw dung.
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Our life experiences, including all our feelings, are like dung. We can treat it as mess or manure. Our emotions, for example, are of three kinds: negative, positive, and neutral. Feelings represent our relationship with life experience. And we have been taught to be antagonistic and aggressive toward what we have been taught are negative feelings. However, this does not work. What we attack and repress lingers and tends to grow stronger.
I was usually a calm, quiet person when a youth and young adult. Persons said they could not imagine my getting really angry. They admired my emotional disposition. Yet, I did get irate. I did have outbursts. I did, in so doing, hurt others. I had come up being emotionally hurt often. No one had voiced permission for me to feel that hurt. So, over time, it built up. I had to learn to work with that anger instead of criticizing myself for it and repressing it.
Contemplative Christianity first and then Buddhism guided in working with afflictive emotions like anger. I came to see how, for example, not to identify with any feeling but to witness it as a passing phenomenon and inquire into what it could teach me about myself and the nature of reality.
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Meditation provides daily retreat to work with emotions. In the silence, repressed feelings come forth, and emotions tend to magnify. We learn dispassionately to observe what arises and how it leaves. We can dispassionately observe passion and restfully observe unrest, for example. Kindly observing itself is transformative and healing.
We see emotion as filled with life. What we call a negative or positive emotion is the same energy. Essentially, a feeling is just a feeling. We see how feelings arise about feelings. Then, we do this outside meditation too. Hence, our life and relationships are enriched by befriending what we once wasted in self-criticism, guilt feelings, and repression.
That a feeling presents itself does not mean we need to do anything with it beyond witnessing it - there are ways to observe, and some teachings guide us in working in other ways with emotions. For many of us, likely most, fully awake, detached observation will be the principal or sole response in meditation. Being awake to the feelings that arise will lead to insight without our pushing to gain insight.
Feelings that will come and go for the rest of our lives may arise. So, first, we are learning how to be with passing emotions, not get rid of them or wait their demise. Trying to get rid of feelings is aggressive and counters unconditional compassion.
In learning acceptance - not indulgence -, we become less identified with emotions. Emotions arise within us; we see they are not us. In this process, emotions lose their power over us - they no longer have us. We no longer say things like, "I am angry." We see anger becomes present and then not.
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Buddhists speak of maitrīi [Sanskrit; Pali, mettā]. We can render maitri as compassion or unconditional kindness. There is a warmth to maitri. We all have a soft place inside. Yet, we fear it and so repress and neglect it. We may fear we cannot contain such feeling. We can become callous, even if polite and respectful. But practicing this kindliness toward ourselves warms up our hearts. We grow in confidence that we can work with all kinds of feelings. We expose the tender place within rather than concealing it in our criticism of what we see as unacceptable in ourselves or others.
With natural warmth, we see how harsh we can be toward ourselves and how kind we can be. We have an amazing capacity to love ourselves. And we see how, before, we tended to blame emotional disquiet on others. Now, we appreciate the innate capacity for inner peace by befriending our disquiet rather than blaming others for our upsetness.
Through this practice of maitri, we become more kind and warm toward others, less critical, more understanding, and more forgiving. We relish growing in this gentleness, trusting we can make some difference in a world harsh and unforgiving. We become more fearless by allowing our fear a place in our lives. We grow in gracefulness toward all beings, for we do so toward ourselves. Hence, this tenderness toward ourselves brings benefit to all we meet.
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A story in the Christian Scriptures tells of Jesus looking out on a large gathering of persons. They had come to see him. The Scripture says, "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them [or, was moved with compassion], because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9.36, NRSV). Here, as Buddhists teach, we see the wedding of insight and compassion. Jesus' was moved within. He did not decide to have compassion; it arose spontaneously from insight. So, with us. And we will be more kind and tenderhearted toward others by showing the same toward ourselves. By intentionally practicing warmheartedness, it becomes more a spontaneous expression of our lives.
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and notation of title and place of the photograph.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
