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March 2009 
Enlightening the Passions - An Experiment: Day 2
Mushin
Once there is the resolve to move in a certain direction out of a basic understanding that this is "the call of my destiny", things are more easy, even if from another point of view they might be hard.
Last night I was reading about suffering from a Buddhist point of view - suffering's nature, origin, cessation and the path leading to the cessation - and it occurred to me that the thinking behind this both in the East and the West. and certainly the search to free oneself from the suffering that is thought to be caused by desire and attachment, is maybe a bit mistaken - or at least I used to be.
Suffering seems at first sight to be a feeling, and it is uncomfortable - sometimes it is somehow uncomfortable and at other times almost unbearable; almost because if indeed it is unbearable I'd loose all consciousness or drop dead aor I'd stop bearing it immediately. But what I keep finding as I put some light on my uncomfortable feelings is that they are not at all what suffering is; it's the stories I tell myself, and eventually others, about the causes or "reasons for being" of these feelings - suffering is a story, the feeling is... well, (most) uncomfortable.
The same goes for desire and attachment (both basically have the same 'signature', only the one seems to be more agentive than the other); when now I inspect my desires as they make their appearance in the field of my awareness - it is the story that I tell myself about the feeling: "This is a desire for that," that turns the feeling into 'desire'. Embracing what is called desire, and somewhat stripping away the need to do something about it, actually experiencing it like I would a piece of art that I do not necessarily understand, it turns out to be quite ok to have, it's actually interesting to be with.
Now I don't know if I would say the same thing if much stronger desires arise... if it happens within the next days that I conduct this experiment, I'll report it here. Promise.
Another thing I've noticed yesterday night and today so far (when writing this) is the amazing amount of small irritations that dance their (mostly little) dance in many situations. And being irritated seems to not only be triggered by not getting what I want in those moments but by remarks, small gestures, almost 'nothings'. And, it's an interesting feeling, really. It seems to manifest bodily somewhere in the lower throat area and consist of little needly bubbles (hmm, I just made those words up to indicate something I've never tried to paint in words before).
An interesting aspect of this I've noticed in a team meeting around noon is that simply noticing and 'yessing' the basic irritation feeling it doesn't play out in the conversation or discussion anymore. Patience, something I've cherished over the years being an impatient person - or so I thought -, patience isn't needed at all because the irritation doesn't cause anything, it doesn't flow into behavior or words or even concepts. One could say it's there as the waves on a lake, just rippling away...
In my morning's contemplation my awareness drifted into close inspection and then embrace of one of my Top Seven (or so) uncomfortable feelings that has a major novel as accompanying story. :-) It's name not being important enough to mention in this context here... (which is an amazing discovery in itself, as this experiemnt is about shedding light on the feelings in their very essence, not in how they play out as story in life; a story that is malleable whereas the feeling itself seems not to be so malleable, but simply very present.)
I circled it and found that when the feeling and I really touch I almost don't breathe anymore. This feeling takes my breath away / I stop to breathe "spontaneously" when this feeling appears on the horizon. In the safe bounds of my morning's contemplation I can embrace it, trace it's signature in my body and mind, and can quite easily be with it. This is when I invoke a feeling...
... but when during dinner this evening I was confronted with enough trigger for my anger to appear and at the same time being basically powerless - I got angry, legitimately so my mind tells me, and at the same time knowing that I couldn't do anything to change the situation (damn if I shout, damn if I don't, damned if I run away etc.), powerless anger ("ohnmächte Wut", in German) - confronted with this... I had to leave the room, "and now embrace this!" I thought to myself.
Actually I didn't - I was just about to say I couldn't, but that's not correct; the feeling became so powerful very, very fast. So all I could do was leave the room and breathe very deeply a couple of times until it subsided enough so I could be with it - and still can be with the residues of the feeling.
Looking forward to continue this experiment, actually. A deep value seems to unfold in real time experience...
Access: Public
Mushin,
Very interesting contemplations, that I can easily follow, and understand from my own perspective. I really appreciated how you had an ability to leave the room and take deep breaths, until the need to “act” was gone and all that was left was being with the feeling that had arisen.
Perhaps I will remember that myself, when triggered enough to feel that way - it will probably come over the next few hours ;-}. A prediction that most likely will prove itself metaphysically as “true”.
I'll try to check back in soon and see how it goes …
Deborah
BTW it was the roll with knife between teeth that compelled me to read - yeah, something resonates there.
Beautiful Mushin!
I'm happy to read of this interest and investigation and am intested in the obseravtion of strong desire…(you promised!)
Here, I have felt a srong 'pull' at times, like to go to Arunachala (where Sri Ramana Maharishi lived) in India.
I have called it a 'srong pull', and it kept returning, even though the thoughts were “no , i don't need to go there… who I am is here….nothing is needed for awakening etc.”.
The thoughts, or the story, was against the action, but the feeling persisted.
So it is being followed, and kind of seems like instructions that need to be followed…. beyond story, beyond “me”.
Hmm….
Blessings,
Soul
Thank you Deborah for taking a closer look… I think part of the experiment is seeing how my feelings and 'mindless reactivity' connect - staying a bit more with the “being with” than the “doing because”…
This is not about healing my anger; you have surely noticed, but it is an exploration into the depth of the feelings. As strange as it might sound: I've never really taken the time to study my feelings in all their splendour; I always let myself be propelled by them into whatever action.
Love,
Mushin
Dearest Soul,
yes, I know desire very well. It keeps acting as if it were something that only has a function; as in sexual desire - it's pulling me to making love with my partner or with my hands…
But what if we look at desire a bit differently? What if we somehow say, “Hello my desire, it's interesting to get to know you. I know your garments, your story, what it is that you want me to do. But what if I don't do anything but only be with you for a while? What if I strip you of your garments, take away the glorious stories you tell me of the things that will happen if I do this, that and the other? What if I be with you naked?”
This is what I explore in this experiment.
And I find - among many other things - that I react so fast to my feelings generally, that I don't even know them and how they truly are.
I've taken feelings as motivators. And maybe that's what they are from an evolutionary perspective. But awareness can change all that and going deeper, or surrendering to the feeling, find hidden treasure.
I don't know enough to say that a desire can be an instruction, a story beyond “me”, as you suggest. What I do know, and what I#m also exploring, is that some of the persistent feelings, or those that keep coming back again and again - that are part of our character's melody, in a away - are really a veneer over a feeling of uselessness, meaninglessness, a sense that something profound is missing from my life (call it enlightenment, call it God, call it what you like).
So, I guess, part of the experiment will probably be at some point to simply be with that feeling, and strip it of it's garments to touch its skin and feel its presence, and allow it to give to me whatever it is that it wants to give.
For unknown reasons my heart goes out to you; may joy find you today…
Mushin
Dear Mushin,
Thank you! Joy is here..May you see your true nature is joy, even while strong emotions may come and visit at your door….you are welcoming them in!
I have seen some very painful emotions come to this door called 'me' and in allowing them to be, accepting them, have seen they are not who i am, but are visitors arising and passing.
With sexual desire, i feel to share that lately, as it arises (and i am not currently in an intimate relatonship) it is welcomed and it is seen/felt/accepted, but not acted upon..and it passes. I am feeling so much energy and freedom from being with this energy in this way. There is no more addiction to orgasm. This is only the experience here, and is in no way a judgement to others, or not even saying this is the 'right' way or only way…but only to say or share that this feels soooo good!
Blessings!
Soul
Dearest Soul,
even though guests come and go I treat them as if they were going to stay forever - this would be a fitting metaphor for where I feel I'm at.
As much as being with emotions is also a true meeting, a “I-Thou” meeting, as Martin Buber would probably call it, what might be called my “true nature” appears in these meetings. From Buber I learnt that in the dialogical space that is opened when we - in this case me and my feelings - relate to each other in I-Thou terms: The “meaning is to be found neither in one of the two partners nor in both together, but only in their dialogue itself, in this 'between' which they live together”
The very sense of being connected, I find, is a feeling. To truly relate I need to feel the other, the situation, whatever I'm relating to, and then dialogue, which means for a very important part to listen with heart open. I need to, in my heart, embrace the other in their otherness.
This is different, I feel, from seeing myself in others, or some such. But really, I don't know. I found that this concept is not really resonating with me. So when I embrace these visitors that come into my guesthouse, I embrace them with no thought as to their permanence or impermanence but with the sense that they are unique, other and precious in an absolute sense.
Sexual desire is an interesting arena for experimentation - the whole Tantra thing, at least in the West is doing just that - in the sense you describe it. I know that, if not acted upon, it subsides - one could most likely, and if one cared enough to do that, graph the ebb and flow of this desire.
Being in an intimate relationship makes it more complex (that doesn't necessarily mean that it complicates it) especially if one's partner is having another lover as well. That gives you a fantastic arena to really test what you believe in regarding sexual desire and it's place in your life.
And you're right; orgasm within a system of addiction is not very satisfactory. Being able to be with my feelings - negative, neutral, positive - on the other hand, the more I learn it and, most of all, practice it is very satisfactory, indeed.
Much Love,
Mushin
Dear Mushin,
Thank you for the link to Martin Buber, I very much enjoyes resding about him and his seeing.
Beautiful..freshness!
Love,
Soul
I relate so strongly to that feeling of antipathy toward feeling powerless, and it seems no matter how often I learn-and-relearn that letting go (of stories or emotions or whatever else is yanking me around) is an empowering act, the counterintuitiveness of that still catches me. You are so right about the importance of practice. Thank you for this.
Mushin,
Thanks for this. Pausing when agitated or triggered is sooooo hard. I wonder, though, if, when insulted or confronted with contrary behavior, if what we experiene is really anger, in the pure form? Is that what overcomes us when triggered? My own experience is that what seems like anger is more rooted in my own fear and powerlessness. If fear and powerlessness or shame/guilt etc are activated, I make appear angry, but I suspect that it is really rage, which is behavior masquerading as anger.
When I am triggered, self doubt is what arises immediately “How do I handle this situation?” In this all too brief transitory self-doubt state, all I have to rely on for guidance in the present, are my past behaviors (and, critically, the largely emotional consequences of those past behaviors) which I typically refuse to actually revisit when triggered. For me, the flow is usually: triggering incident -self doubt - fear - resentment - rage or other compensatory behavior. What makes the sequence so charged is that, unless I pause while in self-doubt and look within honestly and curiously to what has actually been triggered, (wounds along my own storylines) I become susceptible to the mind-centered “fear-of-fear” factor (not real fear but very much capable of seeming so) Once I have left the arena of self doubt and not gone inward for reflection but begin the judment/criticism/projection process, the mind-centered fear-of-fear factor will rise and adrenalization is the inevitable result. All this must be rationalized of course and, once adrenalized (because of the fear of fear factor) I am off and running down the resentment behavior trail and away from the present which, at best in many cases is characterized by self-doubt.
Cheers,
Michael
Dear Soul,
yes Martin Buber is a revelation; the most radical way in which he allows the other to actually be other, and at the same time embrace this otherness - that's an art I'm still working on very much.
Dear Siona,
I've actually come to be convinced that the act of letting go if it really is one with 'a consequence' that it cannot be actively done. Actually what I've been learning very much over the last week+ is that embracing all these challenging feelings can be amazingly hard, yes - and anybody who skips a turn has my full sympathy! :-)
Letting go on a feeling level, at least that's how I see it, is a almost entirely autonomous happening that is decided upon by the same instance that created what we want to let go of in the first place.
What I found to be true (and what runs really counter to the 'Western' spiritual 'truths' that believe that we are responsible, and that thinking comes first) is that there is almost negligible influence on the part of what I want to what is happening on my feeling level. An event happens (a word, a gesture, a situation) and my emotional body immediatly feels this, that or the other. I then have to 'deal with it'. It's like weather! No influence on my part (or very, very little.) So I've tried ignoring it, denieing it, healing it, and the myriad other ways to get rid of it or let it go. I failed. It's that simple.
So now I open my eyes and heart and gut to it. And doing that as a practise that I start my day with, and remembering my prime directive “be present to it and even embrace it” helps.
Dear Michael,
thank you for sharing how you see the event-feeling-reaction/response cascade happening, and for laying bare the pattern you see at work.
I think you're right, we don't experience anger in the pure form. I think I once did in a 5 day seminar without any sleep and full of exercises that get your anger going - there was, for maybe half an hour pure anger in me; an amazing and beautifully strong, clear, laserlike energy that is utterly empowering and has none of the trappings we ordinarily connect with anger. But actually, does it matter how pure it is?
In this experiment so far I've come to a preliminary conclusion, to be further tested againt what happens, which is that feeling have tags, key lines that are almost like a signature of what this or that feeling is.
In my case I would say that anger really is a 'last resort' kind of thing, it follows if being hurt doesn't change the situation favorably :-) So anyway if I think about the cascade in which irritation and anger play a role than I see a great similarity between waht you describe and what happens here. I would probably replace “self-doubt” with “feeling hurt” but the rest seems to hold true generally speaking.
Yet, waht I have learnt over the last week+ is that at any place in the cascade it is possible to drop the 'reaction' part and start opening up, allowing the feeling to be there, and even embrace it. Maybe that is a consequence of the basic assumption ”The premise to be tested in this experiment is that all feelings, especially the uncomfortable ones, are potentially soul-food and enliven or quicken my present being-alive; they inspire in a most profound way by re-connecting me with the flow of life by intentional/willing/conscious participation. This is so as long as I am with these feelings unconditionally (not to heal, change, or in any way influence them)..”
Self-doubt being at the root of this in your experience I think investigating what feelingly exploring that consistently is worth experimenting with. I might actually save you from going down the whole cascade more often, but, and this wouldn't surprise me, it might also show you some aspect of you and life that you might want to get to know about…
Thank you all for your responses, it deeply touches me that you engage with all of this.
Love,
Mushin