Meditation for Buddha's Enlightenment - Disturbing Thoughts and Emotions

Second and Third Satipatthanas

Disturbing and destructive thoughts and emotions are a major obstacle to Buddha's enlightenment. So they are also important field of practice in Buddha Wisdom, when in company and when alone. Buddha's meditation makes good use of one's alone time to deal with negative thoughts and emotions.

I introduced an attainable approach to Buddha's enlightenment, satipatthana practice and sutta, and the first satipatthana in my earlier articles on "Meditation for Buddha's Enlightenment - ...". Let's examine satipatthanas 2 & 3.

Traditional Buddhist Scripture

I summarize all the key points of the Buddhist Mahasatipatthana Sutta; DN 22, sections 2 & 3, based on my extensive experience of Buddhism -

Intro. The historical Buddha taught thus :

Section 2; Mindfulness of Feelings

"a monk discerns or knows when pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feelings are present."

Section 3; Mindfulness of Mind

"a monk knows or discerns when greedy, hateful or deluded thoughts are present or absent. He knows or discerns when his mind is concentrated or scattered, bound or released, cramped or expansive."

On Feelings and Mind

"a monk views his feelings and thoughts as just feelings and thoughts, and not his own nor himself. This removes greed and suffering"

"a monk clings to nothing" (except monk's rules and doctrines.)

"a monk focuses on the arising and passing away of his thoughts and feelings."

Comment: Detachment from Feelings
The phrase "a monk regards feelings as just feelings and not himself" might be stilling in a Buddhist talk. But it might not lead to lasting inner peace.

A major disruption of inner peace is being out of touch with one's own inner feelings, due to compulsive thinking, or insensitivity, fear of old stored pain or lack of meditation training. To regard your emotions as not yourself can lead to denial and detachment, thus aggravating the suppression.

Moreover, one important step to conflict resolution is to take responsibility and ownership of you own defilement, and stop blaming others.

Likewise, denying that your thoughts are your own is no real solution to compulsive thinking.

Comment:Knowing there is a Problem
The first step to dealing with destructive thoughts and feelings is to recognize them and know that they are active. But there is no point knowing about a problem if you do not know the solution or cannot take action to solve it.

More theory is needed for satipatthanas 2 & 3; dealing with negative thoughts and emotions. Let me offer this as starters.

Satipatthana 2 ; Dealing with Negative Thoughts

• Label the most recent thought. Keep the label short : past/future, worry, criticism, opinions, etc. The more accurate the label, the better the control. But trying to find the best label usually restarts the compulsive thinking. Find the balance between these two.
• Monitor the feelings. Is this train of thought generating suffering? If so, some objectivity in needed. We need to recognize their basic delusion and destructiveness. We need to step out of them, abandon them, and take a different course. Deluded decisions made while under their influence need to be reversed.
• Monitor the thoughts. Is this line of thinking driven by defilement, or is it founded on Qualities of Freedom? Wake up, and stop allowing defilement to proliferate. Wake up, and direct your mind to these beautiful Qualities instead.
• Journal or write down the thoughts. This is good if you are worried about presenting some issue to others - writing can boost discipline and thus restrict unhelpful unnecessary thinking. It also gets it out of your mind and onto paper.
• Get some counseling, or some other therapy. A trained professional will pull you out of unhelpful and unnecessary thought and help restore the clarity needed for proper decision-making.
• Watch your speech. How much of your talk is unnecessary, unhelpful thought spilling over into speech? How much criticism, self-justification, worries, opinions, old pain, resentment is there?
• If incessant thinking disturbs your peaceful times or your rest, then ask yourself; do I really need to think about this problem now? If you find you have no choice, and the thoughts continue, then I recommend you take on meditation training.

Why be attentive to thoughts before emotions? One tactic that the pain body and the ego uses to retain control over your will is to drown out the feelings with compulsive thinking. The emotional pain is obscured, not felt, nor faced let alone released.

So it festers in the dark, as fresh food for the next attack by the pain body.

So clear your mind of compulsive thoughts first. This improves access to your emotions, so you can feel them better in future.

I discuss the ego, compulsive thinking and the pain body in detail in my article on Impermanence and Not-self, based on Eckhart Tolle's teachings.

Satipatthana 3; Dealing with Destructive Emotions
Although some of Eckhart's teaching is obscure, I find his material on the pain body most useful in understanding how our will can get harnessed in addictive and other destructive behavior and habits, and how to deal with this problem. Let me summarize the relevant sections of his book "The Power of Now."

• Every time we get really upset and the pain is not properly released (which is the norm), the suffering is locked away in mind and body, to merge with other stored pain. This creates what Buddha calls the "huge mass of suffering".
• This stored pain is like an invisible entity of its own. It seems to have its own will and cunning.
• Let us call it the pain body.
• It has two forms; dormant and active.
• Anything can trigger it, particularly if the situation resonates with a pain pattern from the past.
• When it is ready to awaken from its dormancy, even a thought or innocent remark can trigger it. This awakening can be quite shocking.
• Like any other entity, the pain body wants to survive. It can only survive if it can get you to unconsciously identify with it.
• It can then rise up, take you over, "become you" and live through you.
• It needs to get its "food" from you. It feeds entirely on pain, i.e experiences that resonate with its own nature.
• So it gets control of your will, and drives you to cause more pain, for yourself or others.
• So you become a victim or perpetrator of suffering.
• The pain body is like cancer; life force that has become split off from the human being and become anti-life.
• If you were truly conscious of this process, the pain pattern would immediately dissolve, for to want more pain is insanity, and no one is consciously insane.

Eckhart's method of dealing with an active pain body is delightfully simple. (p 41)

• Focus all your attention on the emotion in you, in mind and body. Put priority on this; make a "call of Nature" to get some space.
• Know it is the Pain Body, and NOT your True Nature. (vipassana)
• Accept that it is there. (Surrender, chap 10, P of N)
• DON'T think about it; feel it.
• Don't judge or analyse the pain.
• Don't make an identity for yourself out of it. (anatta)
• Stay present, and remain Being the Observer of whatever is happening inside yourself. (satipatthana)
• Become aware not only of the pain, but also of the Observer of the Pain.
• This is the Power of Now.
• See what happens.

Meditation for Buddha's Enlightenment
If destructive thoughts and feelings have been causing real suffering for a long time, then instructions like this become both important and difficult to follow.

Something has been neglected for far too long, and the necessary objectivity is lacking. The mind has not yet been trained nor the heart tamed to avoid destructive extremes. In Buddha wisdom, this training is satipatthana meditation, and involves developing some essential objectivity from destructive thoughts and feelings.

The essential tactic is to repeatedly and consciously retrieve your attention from unnecessary and unhelpful thoughts and feelings, and repeatedly and consciously return it to some chosen meditation object. This is the heart of Buddha's meditation. It takes years of daily practice, and this training will be much assisted by other supportive practices and therapies that appeal to you.

Releasing Old Pain
In some ways, meditation by itself is not likely to effectively deal with stored pain. From my experience, the body has to move in its own way to release the old pain that is locked within it and that causes bodily and emotional dysfunction. The main discharges are -

• Deep grief is best released by convulsive sobbing that blocks speech.
• Deep anger is best released by angry words with stomping or table thumping.
• Life-threatening fears are best released with teeth chattering and cold sweat.
• Light fears and embarrassments are best released with convulsive laughter, or yawning, or stretching.

This stored pain is so tightly locked into the body that vigorous convulsions, stomping or shivering is needed to shake it loose. And this vigorous movement has to come from the body's own intuition, not the justifications of the thinking mind.

Very often, such release or discharge simply won't work effectively without the help of someone else, and they have to assist and approve of the discharge, and not interfere in any way. You have to know that they will help not hinder your emotional release. And there can be considerable social inhibitions on any of the above healing releases.

Getting Professional Help with Stored Pain

The chief danger and greatest pitfall in Eckhart's approach, Buddhist meditation and the like is to rely on them exclusively to deal with stored pain. This old pain is called recorded distress in co counseling, the dormant pain body by Eckhart, and defilement by Buddhism.

An important tactic used by the ego and the pain body to maintain control is the insidious notion : "I don't need help. I can deal with this problem by myself." This supposed "independence" feeds isolation, a powerful weapon used by the ego and pain body to retain control of your life.

Another powerful weapon they use is another insidious notion "I cannot afford professional help," when weekly expenditure on basics and perhaps luxuries is many times the cost of occasional sessions with a professional psychologist, counselor or other trained therapist.

Moreover, the Australian government now offers considerable subsidies for psychology in certain situations. The need for this kind of service is more widely recognized these days.

The reason why people go to professional therapists is because this help can be so much more effective than just enduring the emotional pain, and any physical illness it has caused or aggravated.

Addictive Behavior and Pseudo Escapes

The Way of Being Free examines the roots of addictions like tobacco, alcohol, drugs and addictive behavior like incessant thinking and criticisms, junk food, screen dependence, verbal diarrhea, social isolation and fruitless obsessions.

What is it that one really craves? What is it that one is really trying to escape from?

The addictive thing, whether tobacco, noise or isolation, appears to be both the desired object and an escape from something undesirable. Clarity will reveal it to be merely a pseudo escape and a substitute. For addictions only compound the problem, and more harmful addictions really compound the problem.

Buddha wisdom points to the experience of Being Liberated as the goal. For as long as this goal is neglected, craving and suffering will continue. For deep within, the addict knows the true goal and purpose, and therefore craves it, but unfortunately this has been concealed and covered up for far too long.

Buddha wisdom points to the emotions and ones reactions to them as the key to breaking the vicious cycle of addictions. Do we feel the pain fully, with the courage that we have the strength to endure? Do we face the pain with the faith that it will not govern our decision-making and attitudes? With the detachment that the pain is not really me?

Buddha wisdom points to addictions like tobacco and the noise making of the mind which covers up the raw emotion. This dulls the edge of the pain, but only drives it under. Then we have the problem of not being in true contact with our feelings. Negativity continues to fester in the dark.

Buddha wisdom points to the unconditioned as the solution to the problems of the conditioned. The Goal is not a true escape, any more than addictions are a true escape from the problem. The Qualities of clarity, courage, faith, forgiveness, determination, discipline, sensitivity help us face the problem of inner pain we have not released, nor faced nor accepted. I discuss these Qualities and their unconditioned Source in my article on Buddhist truth no. 3. I describe how to cultivate them in my article on Satipatthana no. 4.