emotional turmoil
Posted by Clarity on 15 Jan 2008 at 02:56 pm | Tagged as: Personal, Buddhism
Sigh… In lots of emotional turmoil again. 
That’s one thing that one hopes will go away with meditation. Well, it does not, at least not in the way one would think. There’s still reactivity, still pain, despair and all the emotions, but what seems to change slowly is that more and more it just becomes the content and not what one is. So, at the moment this is my practice - just watching these thoughts, this pain, hatred, regret, anger,… And I try to remind myself that there is nothing to fix, nothing to change, just let it flow through. The ideas from the previous post have been very helpful.
So… It goes like this…
This feeling of abandoment is not me, is not myself, is not mine,
these thoughts that I will never ever be loved, that this is just further proof how unlovable I am - they are not me, not myself, not mine,
this pain in my heart is not me, not myself, not mine,
this anger towards you burning in my eyes is not me, not myself, not mine,
this anger towards me that I played along with your games for so long - is not me, not myself, not mine,
these thoughts of wanting to hurt you, expose your ugliness for the whole world to see - not me, not myself, not mine,
these thoughts that I was just a toy to you, discarded when you got bored - not me, not myself, not mine,
this regret for every thought of love and kindness I had for you - not me, not myself, not mine,
this regret for all the effort I’ve put in this relationship - is not me, not myself, not mine,
these thoughts of wanting to never ever seeing you again - not me, not myself, not mine,
…
it goes on and on as you can imagine. All I can do at the moment is just be patient and let this chaos slowly dissolve on its own. And in the mean time, not act on anything, not believe anything in my head and muster every last straw of loving kindness and compassion I have for this human being, just a human being… But real or not, it just fucking hurts…
(supportive comments welcome, any holier than thou advice will be promptly deleted and your IP banned)
When reading this I remember the story of the man who yelled angrily at the Buddha, who then asked him if somebody is offered a gift and the gift is refused, who is the owner. The man said the person who offered it. Then, said the Buddha, I refuse your gift of anger, so it is belongs to you. So, when doing the meditation above, is there a point at which we must be responsible for thoughts and feelings? The thoughts and feelings are part of the mind/body process, so therefore are as fleeting as clouds, yet reappear over and over again when we don’t pay attention to them. In Tibetan Buddhism there is a saying: When being chased by a demon, stop, turn around, embrace it, then kiss it on the nose. This means to accept that it is a part of who you are. Paradoxically, the demon stops chasing. Is this accepting different than or the same as saying “not me, not myself, not mine?”
I’m sorry this is so long. I’m trying to work my way through the “I” of semantics, and the “I” that doesn’t exist, as well as wanting to know the difference between what needs to be looked at more deeply and what to let go.
Hello Valerie,
I think for the above meditation to work you must have some familiarity with the view of emptiness but more importantly with unconditional acceptance of yourself - what in our tradition is called maitri.
Without maitri and view of emptiness, it’s very likely that one would use the sentences above to try to deny what one is feeling, to try to persuade oneself that they are not his feelings and so on, basically, to use these sentences to just solidify even more.
However, if we first accept that this is what is happening, then we can use these sentences as a reminder of the fleeting unsubstantial nature of thoughts,feelings or emotions. Then it is not a fight anymore. So, I’d say acceptance first and then look more.
I’m not sure if this helps?
I fucking love you.