>> I to have the same questions, for anxious feelings invade my >> thoughts as well. I have made the attempt at following the feeling >> to see where it originated but have never been successful and >> finding its source(i know its in me but what started it?). I say >> this because i still get those anxious feelings. I must not be >> persistent enough or......? I feel if i get to the core of it and >> understand it, it will leave me. I have also done the opposite by >> trying to ignore it or just get past it and that hasnt helped at >> all. It would be great to get away from my mind when im getting >> these negative feelings but its true when they say you have to take >> you with you where ever you go. The solution is within its just a >> matter of finding it. Mack
"understand" is an intersting word, here. to me, there seem to be different types of experiences & knowledge which we use the word "understand" for. one kind "understand" is the ability to identify a situation or event or concept (or whatever) enough to be able to articulate it in words. but that is not always enough, it seems. i sense that there is another kind of "understand". i guess the best analogy is how we know how to ride a bicycle. most of us know how to do this, i think. it's a bodily sense kind of knowledge. it is hard to "explain". we might be able to explain it in terms of inner-ear balance & motor coordination & write volumes of learned texts on conservation of angular momentum, inertia, & center of gravity as well. those are all involved in riding a bicycle (and more). but they don't really convey what riding a bicycle is about, do they? & for all we could read (& think, or imagine even) about riding a bicycle, none of it helps to actually learn to ride the thing. we just have to do it until we "get it". & then we find once we "get" how to ride the thing, all that other physics & physiology & whatever is irrelevant. we just ride the thing. when i consider & experience "anxious feelings" (or in my case, since i suffer from clinical depression, overhwelming feelings of futility & doom) i try to "understand" the cause. sure, i can even get logical about a situation; see its history; see my own conditioning from childhood (or from wherever)... there are times i have a great clarity about the presumed causes of the "anxious feeling" & the emotional mechanisms of why i react or feel the way i do in a situation. but i find that this "understanding", so to speak, does not change anything, really. it doesn't dissipate the "anxiety" or depression at all. it takes effort to heal from depressive modes of thinking & feeling. it is a strange kind of effort... understanding & thinking has its role but in the end, when i see myself feeling & behaving differently, i cannot explain the healing process at all. it is very mysterious. & yet i know that, slowly, i am healing from these episodes & "anxious feelings". in the same way i think our practice is much like this mystery. yes, there is a vast intellectual & verbal infrastructure accumulated over thousands of years, the sutras & commentaries... but in the end they are much like the tomes on riding a bicycle; they describe everything about it but cannot convey the actual sense or ability to ride the thing. it is probably necessary to understand these to fully deepen our experience. but in themselves, i am not sure they can help us ride the bicycle of our lives. perhaps i am wrong, but i see the process of Zen practice much the same way i am experiencing healing from clinical depression. it is slow. it requires effort. it requires guidance. things change & happen & we sense the difference in our bodies, even try to describe it. but in the end it is a mysterious process that can be described, but the description itself falls short, & does not convey the freedom of change -- in my case, the freedom from being bound by depressive emotional loops. the depressive impulses don't really "leave"... rather i experience it as being something i sense & acknowledge & then do nothing with. & mack, i am not going to tell you "good reasons" or *any* reason why one could get depressed. i will say again that you should consider yourself to be blessed & give my sincere wish that you never experience it at all. - elk ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/hjtSRD/3MnJAA/i1hLAA/S27xlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Right Livelihood Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZenForum/ <*> 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/
