Emotion
 

Today during meditation I was overcome with emotion my eyes filled and I had to take a couple of deep breaths to compose myself. I soon returned to following my breath and when the timer went to mark the end of meditation I felt a wave of relief.
I feel fine and unaffected now but what I found strange was I didn't recognise that emotion it wasn't happiness, joy, sadness or anger just an emotion without a label.
I probably shouldn't be analysing this but I'd interested to hear your thoughts, please bare in mind I'm very new to Buddhism.
kind regards
Gary

Hi Gary,

We shouldn't attach too much importance to emotions if they arise in meditation. It's enough that you noticed "emotion" and its impermanent arising and ceasing.

Feeings come and go....

I don't think there's any need for further analysis in this case, just relax. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/grin.gif

Kind regards,

Aloka

My first emotion came and went, thanks again Aloka-D. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/grin.gif
Gary

I agree with Aloka. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/grin.gif

Gary, my take: this is awesome. I agree also with Aloka-D that we should let it go. The more fundamental an emotion is the more tempting to cling to it. However, the ability to feel emotion (and let them go) is what we need in order to be in contact with ourselves and others. The fuller the contact you have with yourself, the better. And the realisation that all emotions are generated and based on the fullest experience/awareness is very helpful. It will come back in different ways, if you let it go, and it will build on your connectability, rather than stand in the way.

Wonderfull told Jan dear,

http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/hands.gif

Gary, my take: this is awesome. I agree also with Aloka-D that we should let it go. The more fundamental an emotion is the more tempting to cling to it. However, the ability to feel emotion (and let them go) is what we need in order to be in contact with ourselves and others. The fuller the contact you have with yourself, the better. And the realisation that all emotions are generated and based on the fullest experience/awareness is very helpful. It will come back in different ways, if you let it go, and it will build on your connectability, rather than stand in the way.



Awesome.

I'm not sure how this is relevant because we all feel emotions, no ability to do that is needed. What is needed is the ability to recognise what we're feeling....and then relax and let it go.

Thanks Aloka-D and Jan http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/wink.gif

Hi Aloka-D. Well yes, but we often lose the ability. Our senses are often dulled because we stop believing in our emotions, and try to become immune (sometimes even using alcohol, medicines etc. to promote this).

They have indeed become irrelevant, come at inappropriate moments due to the fact that they have become associated with certain thoughts. When we have the same thoughts, the associated emotions pop-up, but are not necessarily as relevant as last time we had these thoughts. This basically is attachment.

Becoming open, wonderous, unprejudiced allows one to experience pure - only relevant - emotions, not an overreaction to what our parents did to us etc. These associations, or attachment of emotions to ideas, become dislodged through meditation: re-examining these associations briefly from different angles (and discovering the associations are erratic) as thoughts enter your mind, and you do not allow yourself to jump on the associated emotional bandwagon, but in stead you let the thoughts go, thus de-coupling the association, really a "bias", "preference" or "prejudice". One becomes more open and sensitive to perception and "pure" un-associated, un-prejudiced emotion. Not opionated.

j

One doesn't need to go through a laborious analytical process if, as I've mentioned before, one just recognises an emotion and then relaxes into it. (a Dzogchen approach)

It is!

Thanks

PS My tradition is a direct practical approach finding your own path (with guidance from a teacher through personal contact).

Sorry Aloka-D, I was unclear. In Zen it is an automatic process, there is no analysis necessary at all. The thoughts and emotiuons will become automatically detached from one another, purely through Zazen, and in Rinzai Zen through koan-study. It is explicily very much non-analytical, but not necessarily anti-analytical.

Oh I didn't mean that the approach I mentioned was avoiding analysis altogether in the long- term, just in the short term when dealing with the emotion when its actually present.

Neither am I avoiding analysis altogether in the approach I mention. But not necessarily as the only direct driver or rule of thumb. Just to increase logical understanding. Which is hugely important - obviously, the alternative is ignoring reality: superstition.