By Pema Chödrön
This article mainly features the usage of emotions as a tool for spiritual practice and growth.
Excerptions :
Buddhanature and the natural state are not just made up of happy, sweet emotions; buddhanature includes everything.
Emotions, in essence, are just pure energy, but because of dualistic perception we identify the emotion as “me,” and it gets very locked in.
Fundamentally, the reason emotions are discomforting, painful, frustrating is that our relationship to the emotions is not quite clear.
This is to say that energy itself is not a problem. We always associate our emotions with thoughts—we’re scared of something, or we’re angry at somebody, or we’re feeling lonely or ashamed or lustful in relationship with either ourselves or somebody else.
Our emotions have a lot of mental conversation......
If there is a way that you can interrupt the conversation through your meditation training, even for a few moments, then you can have an actual experience of dread—a nonverbal experience.
If we use our emotions as the object of meditation, as our friend and support, it’s like standing on the bank of the river and observing.
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