2022-08011 Thoughts and Emotions (4 of5) What is in our Depths

2:53PM Aug 11, 2022

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

deeper

belief

attitudes

discover

stories

quiet

thinking

meditation

breathing

discursive

subtle

work

layers

quieter

emotions

idea

thoughts

learn

replace

feel

So this relationship between thinking, and emotions, emotions and thinking that we're talking about this week. And thinking has many layers, many different within us. And some of the more surface layers are the is called discursive thinking, thinking that involves having a conversation or telling a story or imagining some scenario, that you know, sometimes it's almost like there's watching TV or something. And this can have a powerful effect on our emotional life than the end. Because sometimes, you know, we're humans are storytellers. And stories have a big impact. And we have the ability to imagine stories as if they're real, and they feel them in our emotional life. So we want to be careful with the stories we tell, and the discursive mind. But then the thinking can get quieter, and it doesn't have to be discursive thinking. story we tell, but there might be some repeated attitude, judgment we carry with us. And, and that judgment might be one that's undermines us, or might point one that inspires us or buoys us up. As the mind gets quieter, and quieter, then it doesn't mean that we stopped thinking. But the thinking becomes more subtle, or more foundational or more, underlies everything else. And sometimes, that's a part of the advantage of getting calm and settled the meditation is that we can start hearing or seeing or recognizing the deeper ways deeper occurrence of belief of thoughts of attitudes that are in us, that are offering overlaid by discursive thinking or judgmental thinking. And, and that deeper layer is valuable to see, sometimes it's even sometimes we don't even know that it's there, it's casting its influence, and everything else, it's kind of like the root from which everything else kind of grows, or the root, which kind of spreads some kind of food into everything else in the plant. But the food might be, you know, might not be whatever it takes in from the soil, it might not be healthy, or it might be healthy. So this deeper attitude to start seeing what it is it's going on. And, and to give you some examples of some of the kind of maybe simple deeper attitudes, beliefs that might be there is sometimes when people get really quiet it still and and meditation is just really tracking the breathing, people are really doing breath meditation, it's you can see that certain attitudes could appear for some people at a particular point in the cycle of breathing. So there are sometimes people record five, see that I don't want to exhale, because I don't want to lose something I want to hold on. And it's not safe to have to be safe by holding on, or the end of the exhale is a common place where some people get afraid, because sometimes there's a feeling the end of XA end loss of control there, or what kind of everything's going away, and I might disappear and might die or something, I won't exist, the end of the, the end of the exhale. Or sometimes I've known people who have an attitude as they breathe in, they don't want to breathe in, like, leave me alone, there's too much work. It's like, the world is imposing itself on me. And so there's a resistance that kind of very subtle. And so these are kind of so these are kind of symbolic is kind of we discover that the in relationship to breathing is a relationship that is plays itself out in the rest of our life. But it's so subtle and so quiet, we might discover that there are very foundational emotions that are there. And those emotions give birth to a way of thinking or to the discursive thoughts. So to get quiet and quiet. So as I said earlier in the meditation, one of the attitudes that I had that in my early years of practice, beliefs was that if something's happening to me, it's not the real thing. It doesn't necessarily logical to have that belief.

But that's kind of I never thought about I didn't think it out. I didn't even know I had that belief. But there it was when I got quiet deep down inside, there was like, that wasn't a policy that I had towards everything. So I could never, you know, do things right or never never felt satisfied or content or our at home anywhere, because it was always the wrong thing. So you might think, then you might think, then, then we have to cultivate the opposite, that everything I'm experiencing is the right thing. There's the real thing. And, or, for example, if you've discovered deep inside, that you feel that you are somehow, you know, bad, then you might think that now you have to guess what the thoughts tell you that now you have to cultivate thoughts that you're good. And so there's a trap, and not recognizing what's deep inside some belief we have, and thinking the solution is to have the opposite belief, the positive version of it. So if you're, you know, if you have a belief that you're wrong or bad, then you have to kind of find a way to believe that you're right, and good. And but that's kind of a headache. That's work. And how do you do that, really. And that becomes kind of a strain and the expectation that we live by and challenge. The alternative is to recognize some of the deeper beliefs we have been some of the deeper emotions we have that are difficult, and not set up the idea, we now have to experience the opposite. It's enough, it's powerful, and enough, just to stop thinking, I'm wrong, just to stop thinking that I'm bad. So rather than thinking you have to become now a good person, who just stopped believing you're bad. Instead of thinking that you're because you're, you're afraid, now you have to develop bravery and courage. It's really enough just to learn how to settle and quiet and, and, and let go of the fear perhaps you don't have to replace it with something else. And because if you replace it with something else, you tend to be in a pendulum that can swing too easily between these Sixth Sense extremes. And also, the attempt to go out into the positive. Sometimes it's wonderful to do and nice to do, I don't want to say never do it. But it often carries with it. Even deeper attitudes. And deeper belief around self me myself in mind, like I'm the agent and and then only then will people really love me. And so there's a deeper belief about what it takes to be loved, for example, or concern for that. And so as we go deeper and deeper in the practice, what we learn is that it's, it's powerful, it's wonderful, simply to stop the this way of thinking, these beliefs that we have, and not replace them. And they're in the depths of who we are, maybe we'll discover that there's a kind of a peace, a kind of a kind of stillness, or a kind of spaciousness or a kind of calm, that has no opposite, that there's a kind of joy and happiness, that has no opposite. And so then we're not swinging so much back and forth. And it just, it can just be there. And it comes without a belief. It doesn't have to have a self connected to it, it doesn't have to have some idea of who we are and what we have to accomplish. And we have to do in order to be a good person, a successful person. And, and we can just be, we're allowed just to be at home and ourselves. We don't have to prove ourselves, we don't have to defend ourselves. You don't have to have any particular experience. That's the experience we have to have. That we're allowed just to be yourselves. In Zen, sometimes there's the idea that we when you are yourself the dharma is the dharma. When you just allow yourself in this kind of way to live in that deep place, where there are not living in the opposites that we swing by. It uses deep replace that has no opposite. So

so this idea that there is a deeper voice, belief attitude mood that underlies it at all, you might want to see today to let it be a quieter day and see if there's something there for you. You have to be very careful with this and very tender and compassionate, and who feels like this is too much for you. Or if the information you learned now or something you need to digest and work with and get support for, by all means, do that, don't stay, don't stay kind of right up against it all the time. But you might also see if this can be a day where this deeper, quieter listening, and you might have a busy day, but maybe other little corners of the day where you can sit quietly and just kind of tap in what's deep inside. And if what's deep inside, what is it want to say? If he could speak sometimes that reveal something that wants to get revealed if we just kind of feeling or tending to it. So maybe you'll discover to that in the depths of who you are. That's where your wisdom resides. So thank you, and we'll continue again tomorrow.