--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > As hopefully a rare intellectualism from me, and not > to argue but to present another POV, I once heard an > interesting talk from a Tibetan teacher on this idea > of "working through stuff." > > His view was that the "crap" has no existence; to focus > on it in an attempt to "work through it" tends to give > it existence, and activate something that is otherwise > inactive. In his very traditional view, the "crap" > is related to states of attention. A certain level of > "internal crap" is just how one sees things *from* a > certain state of attention. His view was that it's > impossible to "work through" the crap of that state of > attention because there is an infinite amount of it. > Focusing on the crap is like turning on a faucet that > is fed by an infinite lake of that particular brand of > crap. No matter how much of it you "work through" as > it flows through the faucet, there is always more. > > In other words, you could convince yourself that you've > "worked through" all the anger that you've got inside > you, and be free from it for some time. But the minute > you allow your mind to shift back into state of attention > in which anger is an attribute, bing! there is anger > again. > > So his approach was very Tibetan traditional. Become > more aware of your ever-fluctuating states of attention, > and use your free will and intention to not dwell in > the ones that have "lower" attributes (like anger or > jealousy), prefering the states of attention that have > "higher" attributes (like love and compassion). > > Sounds a little like mood-making, but I can assure you > that with the proper training in identifying one's > fluctuating relative states of attention and then > shifting from one to another easily, it isn't the > same thing at all. It's more like, "Oh, there's that > anger sucker again. I know how I feel whenever I > indulge in it, and don't particularly want to feel > that way again. Therefore I will shift my state of > attention to one that is shinier and more productive." > > I'm not saying that this approach is "better," I'm > just presenting it as another POV on the subject. > This approach, when you analyze it, is a lot like > "When you become aware that you are not thinking the > dharma, easily think the dharma." :-) > > Unc
**** I see this to be a dualistic understanding. And it is very typical to the eastern traditions. This is also the weak spot of many of those traditions. Certain emotions like fear and anger are labelled as negative. There are ideals that in an awakened state you don't anymore have those emotions. Ingenious techniques have been developed to disconnect oneself from those emotions. Those emotions are thrown out of perception somewhere into the collective energy soup for some other, maybe somewhat weaker people to carry and handle the best they can. And this is called creating peace!!! Fear and anger (fury) are very important emotions for life to sustain itself. You cannot live without them, you can only disconnect your conscious mind from those emotions and push them to your subconsciousness or to the collective consciousness to be expressed by others, often not too constructively. Fear warns of danger, anger helps us to put legitimate limits, so that others cannot use us. These are important functions. We must just learn to use them constructively. When the person, or organizing "I" evolves emotionally, it can learn better and better process these emotions. A cornerstone in this evolution I understand to be something I call "emotional enlightenment". By this concept I mean a stage of emotional development, where the "I" don't anymore identify with the emotions. When this is accomplished you can start really to work with and transform the heavy and difficult emotions more easily. E.g. I can perceive fear, usually it is felt somewhere in the body, but the "I" is just calmly observing the emotion, and can decide how to work with it. At best this transformative work with fear can be quite enjoyable. Anger I cannot manage that skilfully yet. But one thing I know for sure through my own experience: this kind of work is very healing. Before this stage of non-identification is fully gained, working with those emotions is very hard and tumultuous work. It is probably true that in the collective energy or emotion pool there is no end to those emotions. But that is not a problem, because learning better and better to working with the emotions and transforming them is rewarding. Irmeli To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
