Feeling unpleasant emotions does not necessarily make us unpleasant people, or spiritual failures. Yes, it can feel painful to experience annoyance; But it can feel even worse to then compound it’s suffering by then feeling guilty about feeling annoyance.
Who we are is Not determined by what we feel; rather who we are is determined by what we Choose to do with what we feel. So then, what could we choose to do with annoyance? We could choose to exercise denial: “What me, annoyed; well I never heard of such a thing.” We could choose to exercise suppression: “I must not feel annoyed, I must not feel annoyed, I must not feel annoyed.” We could choose to indulge the annoyance: “Of course I feel annoyed, and now I feel enraged, and in about six seconds I’m going to punch you in the nose!” We could choose justification: “Of course I feel annoyance, and you’d feel annoyance too if you’d had a childhood like mine.” We could choose minimization: “Yes, I feel annoyed, but at least I haven’t killed anyone!” We could choose rationalization: “Yes, I feel annoyed, but it is a form of righteous indignation; and besides, doesn’t it add color to my cheeks?” We could choose condemnation: “Yes, I feel annoyed; it is a bad emotion and I am a bad person! I’m a bad son, spouse and father! I’m a bad employee, employer and entrepreneur I’m a bad Buddhist, I’m bad at meditating and I should just give up!” Yes, these are some of the choices we could make But they’re not very productive are they?
Are there better choices we could make? How could we use the energetically dynamic emotion of annoyance to actually progress upon Buddha’s path of Peace, Insight and Love? In Buddhism first we notice the object of our attention then we deconstruct the object of our attention. We don’t lie to ourselves and say there is no annoyance… that’s just silly. Take for example two men; Mr. A and Mr. B.
Mr. A steps out his back door, surveys his garden and chants, “There are no weeds in my garden, there are no weeds in my garden, there are no weeds in my garden.” You just know the weeds are going to take Mr. A’s garden! One the other hand we have Mr. B, who walks into his garden, notices a weed and then says, “Oh look, a weed.” Then he simply bends over, pulls out the weed, and throws it in the garbage can. Likewise a Buddhist contemplative should not say, “I have no annoyance, I have no annoyance, I have no annoyance.” Rather he should first notice the presence of the annoyance and explore what it feels like. This courageous act can go a long way to hindering the destructive momentum of annoyance. But the annoyance is still there, like an engine running in idle. What then should he do? Now, he should explore the ultimately, non-graspable nature of his annoyance. Now, he should take steps to free himself from the habitual tendency to grasp onto that painful emotion with white-knuckle-intensity.
When I was a little boy I was such a scared-y-cat! When I saw the movie “Roller Coaster” I fixated on the scene where a bad guy sabotages a roller coaster track at just the right place and when the roller coaster car rolled over that place, it, and it’s unfortunate participants went pitching off to their certain doom! Imagine how scared I was to ride a roller coaster after that. When circumstances and fate combined to force me into a situation where riding a roller coaster seemed inevitable, imagine how tightly I grasped the roller coaster safety rail and how white my little knuckles could have turned during this exercise both in terror as well as grip isometrics!
Like wise, in life after life, we have each grasped on to the pain of annoyance, with a white-knuckle-intensity. This grasping has not often been deliberate, intellectual or even conscious; but it has been there, none the less; like the static you can hear in the back ground when you listen to A.M. radio. Our real suffering does not come from merely experiencing momentary annoyance but from being controlled by it’s momentum; and having that momentum’s domino effect impact our thoughts, feelings and actions, in a less then empowered manner. Now, those of us who correctly practice Buddha’s mental yogas deconstruct our experience, Not to pretend it doesn’t exist, but to slip in a conceptual crowbar that can pry loose our death grip on annoyance.
Next Saturday find a park with a great play ground, just full of kids playing, being silly and just having a great time. You could notice that some of the kids play sweet, some of the kids play mean, some of the kids are laughing, some of the kids are crying and most of the kids are taking their games very seriously.
Then you could notice the first-time parents watching their kids, also taking the games very seriously. So much so, as a matter of fact, that many of them sit on the very edge of the bench as if they were anticipating eminent disaster; like an audience member, watching a summer, action-movie, blockbuster.
Again you could adjust your gaze and, this time, watch the grandparents. And judging from their, relaxed posture, and their amused facial expressions it could be very obvious that these died-in-the-wool play ground veterans did not take their grandchildren’s games very seriously at all.
Likewise, by practicing Buddha’s mental yogas of noticing your annoyance and then deconstructing your annoyance, in time you too could find it has lost it’s weight, it’s heat, it’s momentum , it’s power and it’s seriousness. Buddha’s yogas can give us the courage to be authentic and allow ourselves to fully feel whatever emotion bubbles to the surface, while simultaneously finding it to be as slippery and as non-graspable as a bar of soap, at the bottom of a bathtub; full of hot, soapy water.
I implore you to find an instructor who can teach you the verbal, silent and semi-verbal meditations that are required to effectively and easily tame your annoyance as well as harness it’s energy constructively so that you too can progress even further upon Buddha’s path of Love, Peace, Insight and Happiness.
Lama Jigme’s next
starting Monday, the 27th of August.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment