[124] Cultivating Equanimity Through Emotional Awareness – with Joe Parent
12:04AM Aug 15, 2023
Speakers:
Alyssa
Joe Parent
Keywords:
feeling
practice
compassion
emotions
open
talked
anger
energy
angry
suffering
mind
work
good
posture
rinpoche
minutes
people
breathe
happening
breath
Got it. It's always good if you can get it right. So the we have that opportunity every time she puts that up in the recording. Well good afternoon. Good evening. Good morning. If you're in Australia.The one of my teachers putting up Rinpoche says good moment. So that way it doesn't matter what timezone you're in because it's always the present moment. So good moment, everybody.
I thought I'd make a couple of remarks about working with taming the mind and working with emotions. And I also wanted to give people an opportunity before we start the session if you have any questions about practice, about meditation, any of the meditation practices we've been doing, and then we can talk about that a little bit and use that as a springboard to go into the session. So first something excuse me to work with through the sequence of practices that we've been doing, and if you're new, we'll go through a sequence of practices. Stabilizing centering, grounding, which is and then working with the breathing, which is called shamatha practice which is dwelling in peace or taming the mind. Then we're going to do environmental awareness and expand out decentralized decentralizing and connecting with the inseparability of our experience and the world that we are experiencing.
And then we'll have an opportunity to do some compassion practice. That includes compassion for ourselves, which is some times called maitri, or making friends with yourself friendliness. Caring kindness cultivating joy, and then also with compassion, the Sanskrit word for that is Karuna and that is, a a wish for others to be experiencing less suffering. One of the the aspects of working with emotions is to understand what emotions are because when we talk about taming the mind, our mind is calm unless it's whipped by the wind of emotional upheavals. And it's helpful to understand that emotions are a combination of energy and concept. My teacher Tricom Trumper Rinpoche likened it to water and paint pigment, that the energy is like the water and the concept is like the paint pigment that colors the water to make it come out a particular way. When I work with athletes or other people doing performances and they feel nervous ahead of time. I talked about two ways you can experience that and in one situation, one aspect is really understanding the physiology. It's adrenaline pumping in your system that you're feeling and that adrenaline is just it doesn't have a positive or negative quality to it. It doesn't have any concept. It's the water of energy there. And how you color that is how you're going to experience it. So do you experience it as excitement and the chance to win or as dread of nervousness about anxiety for about the fear of not succeeding? It's the same physiological experience and how you frame it how you interpret it changes your mental experience of that physiological phenomenon. Now the interesting thing about the energy of emotions is that one burst studies have shown lasts 90 seconds to two minutes, something like that. I'm sure you know that's that's, that's the main I'm sure some are shorter and some can go longer. But that's the main thing. So you might ask, Well, then why do I seem to be caught up in anger about something and it just keeps going on and on and on? Well, what happens is the emotion, the emotion and the concept arise
in a with that particular color of anger. And then before it subsides, another thought arises, which triggers it again.
And you think it's continuous but it's really one one wave that's starting to go down and the other wave starts to pick up and then another one starts to go down as you think it's just continuous anger all the way along, but it's waves one following another following another fall. We're gonna have the following another
that's what's actually happening. So at any point, we can cut that by cutting the reinforcing concept. When it comes to, I'll just give an example when it comes to anger. What always goes with anger is logic. And it's having a logic that justifies your the anger Well, I'm angry because this this, this, this and this now, that doesn't mean the logic is always right. In fact, I would go as far as to say it's pretty much always wrong. And it's always wrong because it's always partial. It's my version of the situation. So that means it's not the whole picture. It can't be the whole picture because we only see it from one perspective. Now, if you have a sufficient level of realization that you have no self interest whatsoever, then you can start to see a lot of the different aspects of it. But the extent to which we have self interest in a situation blinds us to every other perspective of it. I think there's actually an expression called blind rage. So anger always has a suspect. logic that goes with it, but the logic keeps generating concepts and that keeps perpetuating the anger. desire or the the feeling incomplete and needing something sometimes talked about as attachment.
Grasping, needing to hold on to something comes from a feeling of incompleteness. And so if we don't get what we want if we feel frustrated, we interpret that as needing something more
and so we get that something more. You can think of it for some people when it comes to greed. They feel unfulfilled, and so they need to fill in in the Buddhist tradition. They're the images like a hungry spirit that
has such a big stomach in such a small mouth that no matter how much it takes in it can never be satisfied. So for example, or I don't know, you can put whatever name you think is in there but someone who could put their name on a building in gold letters 50 feet high. You would think that that would that would convince them that they're that they're that they've got all that they need, but it seems like they just keep trying to make things bigger and bigger and bigger. So that and it comes from looking in the wrong direction.
The anger comes often from fear. And instead of looking at what is it that I'm afraid of it's what did you do that makes me so mad?
The the greed and comes from a lack on this side, but we look in the wrong direction. So why aren't I getting from what I need from the world?
Can see Rinpoche Dilgo? Khyentse Rinpoche told tells the the uses this analogy. And he says, working you can work with emotions two ways. You can work with them, like a dog or work with them. Like a lion. And the analogy is that if you throw a stick at a dog, the dog chases the stick. If you throw a stick at a lion, the lion chases you. So do you chase after the object of your emotions? Or take a look at the source of the emotion out there are in here, out there or in here
we can explore that a little further in discussion afterwards. But one of the practices that's recommended and it goes back, Trump remember she was teaching this in the 1970s camera children teachers a lot now and that is drop the storyline and tune into the feeling
tight I think there's also a psychological movement called focusing a Eugene gendlin. He's the first person that I remember talking about it again. Gray hair was a long time ago. The
the tuning into the feeling and dropping the storyline which is especially good with anger because it's thrives on the storyline but it works with all the emotions because they thrive on the storyline that keeps perpetuating the feeling of energy.
So you sit drop out of your head in the body and say Okay, where am I feeling this? tight chest clenched jaw, shoulders by my ears. Okay? And as soon as you look at those, they sort of soften just by being by being observed and you start to breathe with that and feel it without a reason for feeling that way. That's the most important thing. Drop the reason you feel that way
and tune into clench stomach, tight chest. Numbness
kind of feeling dull, aching, heart ache, loneliness but not loneliness with the the thoughts of someone else or anyone else but just how it's more hollowness. An actual physical feeling. When you have that physical feeling
and you've dropped the storyline that physical feeling starts to morph. As I said, after a little bit sooner or later, you might feel it start to morph right away but it really starts to morph after a minute, minute and a half.
Sometimes dissipates, sometimes changes into something else. Sometimes moves elsewhere in your body. So all of these kinds of experiences happen that way. And it's a practice that we can do. It's not easy on the spot in the midst of a argument. But you can call timeout and say I am headed my skis here. You know that expression out over my skis. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm all caught up in my thoughts and feelings and I can't think straight right now. So I don't want to respond out of all this. Let's take a 10 minute timeout. And then I promise I'll come back and talk with you about what we're going through. And then you can do that. And once you've done that practice and the storyline has dropped and you get in and you've worked with the emotions. Interestingly, out of that emotional experience sometimes come some clarity. Oh, wait a minute. Maybe I did say that. Oops. And then you go back and say you know what? I really you're right. I didn't say that. I misunderstood and this is what happened. Please forgive me. It may find that everything opened up. You may find that they say no, you should have known better and it just starts again. No promises. But at least you will have stabilized and centered yourself and have a better chance of responding rather than reacting. So I hope that's helpful. One other thing I wanted to mention before we do the compassion practice as well. People say well, you know, I have compassion for some people but not others. And I think the idea and one of the Teachings is to apply compassion impartially and so people have a problem with that should I be compassionate to these tyrants who are waging war and this thing
you say? It's very reasonable to be infuriated about that. But what are you furious towards? What are you angry towards?
In the metaphor, again, has a stick involved. If someone hits you with a stick Are you angry at the stick? Are you angry at the person who did it? Okay, so these terrible people who are waging aggression, yeah, they're terrible. But they are the stick. They're the instrument. of confusion, ignorance, hatred, fear, bigotry, all of these negative emotions that have overtaken them possess them literally. And they are the instrument that these emotions are using to cause pain and suffering in the world. The problem isn't that one person because you know when that one person's gone another one, maybe worse, could show up. The problem is the motor that's driving that not the frame of the car that it's in. It's the negative emotions that are using these people as their instruments which is extremely extremely sad.
So when we do the compassion practice, it's not actually feeling like oh, I should be nice to that person. Not saying that at all. It's saying I wish that I could remove like a like a tumor that I could remove the negative emotions that are driving that person to do these terrible things. It's literally an exorcism practice. That's what we're talking about. I don't know if you it's an old movie again, The Exorcist. But, you know, really the little girl wasn't what everybody was afraid of? Was the demon that possessed her.
So that's what we're talking about. The demons that possess these people. Okay, um, before we start Are there any particular questions about practice?
Okay, if not, then we will. There may be after we practice so let's get started. Okay, step one was to posture and we want to be sitting sitting up straight, if you can do so without leaning against something, but if your physical situation requires you to lean against something, that's okay. Especially if you can put a little something bit behind your, your tailbone or your lower back. That braces you so you're not just you know, a lazy boy. recliner is not the place to be sitting for this. So you can sit up and I see most of you are doing this rather than looking. You don't want to look straight into your screen while this is happening. Sit on an angle to it or move it to the side and legs loosely crossed in front of your feet flat on the floor. If your legs aren't too long you want your knees to be a little bit below your hip level. Otherwise it puts a strain on your legs and back. You have to work a little extra hard. And you want to feel like your back is straight not just your back but all the way up to the top of the back of your head. Like it's a straight line. Bye bye Ray raising that back of your head up and and straightening. Your chin kind of naturally comes in. In your breath flows more easily down your throat than if your head is tilted forward or your chin is sticking out where your head is tilted back with your arms just hanging from your sides and leaving your upper arms vertical to the ground. You know vertical swing your hands up. Tom's face down palm down. Hands palm down on top of each thigh. Now here's a particular feeling that I'd like you to add in and that is at your heart center level which is about a third of the way up from the bottom of your breastbone. Your sternum is a notch up by your collarbone and a notch down at your ribcage. About a third of the way up is your heart center. Let that come slightly forward and slightly up. I don't know if you can see my screen I'll turn to the side right there just a half inch forward half inch up diagonally. Like that.
Don't try too hard. Just a little push. You notice an interesting thing happen your when you do that your chest opens up. Your shoulders go back a little bit your shoulder blades come together a little bit without you having to do it moving them. your sit bones press down into the seat. Your chin comes in and your breath really opens up into your chest. So you have a firm back and an open front which is ideal for this practice. You want your eyes closed and let's let's scan and remove any unnecessary tension. Your top of your head, forehead and face. Any hidden tension that you don't even realize just become aware of it. You need some hold your posture to work with your chest, your back
just soften anything else that your jaw soften that your mouth hanging open. Ideally you want your lips just barely touching or slightly parted. neck and shoulders. You may have thought you'd let your shoulders hang but there's still some residual tension really left them drop chest and upper back ribcage all around. If you get tired of having your point of your heart center extending up just rest, let it be natural. You open up again when you can. Lower back deep belly. Often deep belly and genitals we have a clenching feeling we're not aware of
just let them let them relax. But to tell tension melts and flow down out of you. upper arms, forearms hands fingers it's sighs knees calves ankles and feet
mature awareness drop down deep into your core. Like we talked about dropping down out of your head and into your body. Find that place just below your navel
deep core where it feels like your torso is expanding. As the breath comes in and contracting as it goes out. It's really the movement of your diaphragm. there it'll feel like your deep core area. Just in front of your spine a few inches below your navel is expanding and contracting
into this practice If your mind wanders off of the object of attention, just smile make a little mental note thoughts were thinking and that's code for I was lost in thoughts. But now I'm back because as soon as the Daydream pops, you're already here
and that's the practice our mind wanders when you realize it. Come back and what we're coming back to is our posture that feeling deep in our torso filling and emptying. And now open your eyes about halfway and look down under the eyelids. With a soft gaze don't focus on anything particularly tightly but just aware of your body sitting in the space, just the close space around you.
So the object of our attention is mainly the feeling of filling. An empty emptying, expanding and contracting of our deep core.
And around that we have awareness of our posture in space our bodies sitting in to do that for a couple of minutes.
Foods
drop the practice, relax. Feel your body
when you're ready. reengage in the posture
use turn just let your eyes be naturally open. Wherever your eyes naturally rest looking forward. It'll probably be halfway between straight out and straight down. Soften your gaze and open up to the bigger area of space in front of you and to the sides. Open up your peripheral vision
use time let your mind mix with that space using the breath as your vehicle. breath goes out the the your breath mixes with the air in the room and diffuses it's spreads out into the air in the room until it mixes with it becomes one.
In the same way, as your breath goes out. Use that as kind of a metaphor for letting your mind relax and open up. Open up to the space
in front of you and all around. Let your mind in mix with the space. So you go out dissolve or let go or open. You can just rest and let the body breathe in by itself. That in breath it'll be included in your awareness.
But mainly you're focusing on opening to the space out there more than in here
don't push the breath out you just breathe out naturally and as the breath goes out, open let go in rest
does your rash
again If your mind wanders to smile the mind does. Return to your posture. Wait for the next breath and go out. Open and let go will do that for a couple of minutes.
Don't just raise your gaze look at even slightly above horizontal. Imagine that your awareness extends out infinitely in all directions beyond the horizon beyond sky out into limitless space like a dark night sky rest for a moment in that infinite openness.
From within that spaciousness. Tune into your open heart and raise your chest a little as we talked about if you'd like you can even put your hand over your heart
and as limitless as your awareness was That's how limitless your heart of compassion is. Awareness is that which knows our heart is that which feels.
Inside attention you want to be of benefit to others as best you can to free them and yourselves and ourselves from suffering and the cause of suffering as best we can is to extend to others and ourselves happiness and the causes of happiness
you wish that all could enjoy a deeper equanimity that transcends the ups and downs of suffering and happiness
your eyes open or closed imagine a loved one who's experiencing struggle or suffering. Imagine that as you breathe in your open heart of compassion absorbs their suffering that you can take it from them and absorb that in your limitless heart of kindness and compassion. which transforms and as you breathe out radiate to them from your heart. Cool rays of white cool moonlight that soothes the torment of suffering
tweets out the fires of emotional upheaval. He fills them with peace and health and contentment.
If your mother has anxiety, breathe that in and send back out to her peace of mind.
True loved one has sadness returning in sender contentment.
Take taking pain and send out relief from pain. Your heart of compassion can absorb all of that
because your true heart turns into the nature of the energy and the contents dissolves.
If you're feeling a particular struggle yourself practice compassion to yourself by breathing that in all the negative experiences you're having into your heart of compassion radiate peace, health and contentment to yourself.
feeling unfulfilled read that in, radiate out you're okay as you are.
feeling hurt and anger angry me that in. tune yourself with acceptance trust your own nature. Basic Goodness.
Now think of all the other people and other beings animals that are going through various kinds of offering similar to yours and whatever you can think of. Breathe in all that suffering from the whole world. Your infinitely open heart of compassion can take it all and transform and radiate out. Peace, health and contentment to the world.
Absorb the suffering relief
while you're imagining settling center and ground yourself again good posture, the in your body. Your legs, your arms, your torso head and neck. Rest your awareness in your deep core
immediate breathing.
We conclude practice the aspiration for continuing further you can repeat after me or putting your own words made the practice I've just done
and what I do for the rest of the day be of benefit to others even more so than myself
thank you that's our aspiration. And if you have any questions or comments, we can discuss that now. And I do want to hear what you think about that posture of raising your heart center. Just a tiny bit forward and up
while you're thinking about what to say I did want to get back to Tim and his comment in the chat. Is are the emotions kind of like an echo that keeps feeding off itself? Yes, because an echo if the source of the echo
like an outdoor echo, you say hello and hear Hello Hello. And then it fades. But if it's reverberating the Hello comes back to you and you think somebody's saying hello to you and go Hello. They go Hello, you Hello. Hello. Hello. And you start to get upset that they're not talking to you at all they're saying is Hello What? Who are these people? So yes, Tim That's right. That's that's the illusion of emotions that we send it out. It bounces back on us and we think it's coming from somebody else. It's actually just a reflection coming back to us from what we were sending out. So it may not be coming from military maybe confirming here.
Comments, questions please feel free to unmute yourself.
Like pacified everybody's mind that's a wonderful cure curious John. Oh, James. Yes, James. Say something.
Yeah, I guess I just had a question because I, I took some notes and I I liked that phrase that you put out about an exorcism. Practice. But my mind started spinning about exorcism and I, I guess I I, my you know, my my thinking is that is it exercising that type of like angry energy or is it more about transforming that energy because I see them as two different things.
Ah, I understand. Yeah, I was thinking of it more as for our tonglen practice, okay, that you're imagining, imagine that one of those tyrants that you could actually do an exorcism and, and chase away the demons of hatred and fear and ignorance.
And what would be left would be an ordinary person. Oh, that's better. That's the that's the sense I was using it. Okay. Now in in the Buddhist tradition. Let's see. Laura wrote a comment to Oh, good. You're very welcome.
In the Buddhist tradition, there are different levels. There's removing literally removing, which often involves removing oneself from the sources and that's
kind of individual liberation part, sometimes called the Hinayana. But it's basically saying, well to quell desires, the first thing you got to do is not groundwood causes desire. And then the second part is see everything that you think of as desirable as horrible.
Then another level is to transform it. And as you were saying, and to say, Okay, I'm going to take my anger will but I'm going to say, okay, the anger is an energy that comes out of fear and comes out of feeling I'm like, I'm hurt. So again, instead of looking at the object of the anger, saying, What is it about me that that feels hurt or threatened or challenged, that would provoke this and and then I hear my phone ringing and it happens to be someone who's angry with. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. So, you take that feeling and that energy and you say okay, how do I pacify that energy here? And when you've pacified it, you don't necessarily exercise it but you say, how can I turn that energy into kindness? How can I turn that energy into wisdom?
And often, if you're experiencing something from someone, it's a clue to what's happening with them, because we're like tuning forks that we pick up on other people's energy
so it's, it's happening with them but the idea is to kind of go you know, you get triggered by our friend who says you spot it you got it so you spot it and somebody else and you get triggered but then you recognize that you need to wait and see what's going on.
You spot it you got to chase the be the lion chasing the source of the emotion rather than the object of the emotion is the instruction. Okay? Great. You're welcome, Alex. Hello. Hi. Hello, Joe. Nice to see you again. Oh, it's me. It's me. I don't know if you'd recognize them. I do. I do. But I want to let people know I know. It's the top of the hour. I'll stay on for a bit longer. If you have to go. Thank you so much. And I'll see you in a couple of weeks. And continue with your practice. Be mindful and kind as you can be and easy on yourself. When you're not 100 Sure.
Hey, I'm coming out of back surgery. It's was kind of low indeed. But it's not feeling like I can't I can practice sitting down and I don't know when I'm gonna be able to do it. So I could use some word of advice on practicing either laying down or standing up.
You can you can do walking meditation standing up.
Right, I don't work yeah. So you do do walking meditation
of putting your your hands at your sides or two or, or one on top of the other kind of in your lap, like at your navel or a little below. And then and then walk and be mindful of the space that you're in, and the movement and placement of your legs. And how your feet feel on the ground going out of the ground each one.
And then for if you want to be still, you can do it lying down but I would suggest having something that plays a little note of some kind every, say 30 seconds because chances of falling asleep are very high.
It happened to me twice already.
Yeah, well, what a surprise. So so if you have this thing that goes off every 30 seconds, part of it is you know it's going to go off every 30 seconds so you stay a little more awake. And if you do fall asleep. You're not asleep for more than 30 seconds.
Yeah, okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. You're welcome. Anybody else and you're muted. You're just waiting.
I'll just come on and say thank you. I had to leave but I wanted to I felt like I needed to connect but I really enjoyed the instructions your
hand. There you go. Can
I thank you so much. Have a good night. You're welcome.
Bye
John, you're still here. You said maybe they're coming at a clutch moment. And any more on that? Oh, no, I just
thought it was a lot of times nobody talks about emotions and stuff. And it's good. Maybe for myself, probably some other people too. I did I do. I was trying to start my video here.
So we think we're supposed to be good meditators. And always calm and peaceful and just doesn't. Not not the case.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I keep coming back to it. And it's, I understand that principle and it really is a great principle. But you know if I did have something to say, I think it's the thing that bothers me or the thing that I just cannot swallow is the compassion idea. And I respect everybody that talks about it. And I know the Dalai Lama does. I saw an article in the Times today. Yeah,
it was that interesting about from Matthieu Ricard. I've met Matthew.
What are we Yeah, yeah. Yeah, happy is wonderful, wonderful. Interview. But, you know, in when I'm reading it, and hearing it, it's wonderful. But I'll tell you after I go away, my mind starts working on that. And I go like what but but but, you know, the compassion thing because I just can't swallow the fact that come wishing everybody else was not a bad person is going to do any good at all. I just can't. I just, I mean, maybe I missed the whole point of it.
Okay, let's come. Let's get to the point of it. Okay.
Okay. What's the point of it is what what what is being angry at other people, do you? Well, it's a natural reaction, and I don't want to reject it. That's that's all I don't want to say to myself, Okay, I'm angry and I shouldn't be angry. Therefore it should be compassionate.
In studies, it's not exactly like that. It's not exactly like that. I think that the idea is, the idea is compassion. If people say Oh, take it away from everybody else and give it to yourself, the purpose of that practice of the exchanging self for other is to diminish ego fixation, egocentrism and not to and what do we usually do we say me first than them. So it's to go against that grain of that habitual tendency. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be angry when somebody does something nasty. It's not what it's about. Okay. But if somebody is suffering, and the the, the opening your heart and say I wish they weren't, is a good thing to do for your health, and your state of mind and your well being, and it's better for you to say I wish they weren't then to say, Boy, am I glad that's them and not me. Yeah, because then it's all about selfishness. So the purpose of this is less selfless. Yeah, yes. Selfishness. Yeah. Know what generosity makes you feel better than selfishness makes you feel you think? Holding onto something you think that that's gonna make you feel better? Giving makes you feel much better? Okay. Start with you. Don't worry about whether it does them any benefit. But I promise if you're if you're less salt, if you're less selfish, the world will benefit.
Yeah, okay, that helps a lot. That's
really the point. That's really Yeah.
Okay. Yeah.
And people asked me on this meditation stuff, you know, is it what's the what am I going to get some benefit? And I said, well, the benefit comes almost instantaneously because for those 20 minutes that you sit and meditate, that's 20 minutes where you're not out there causing trouble for yourself and other people.
I can buy it out.
Alright, gang, thank you. So much. It's wonderful to be here with everybody. Thank you for appreciating the practice and giving me an opportunity to because every time I teach it, I get better at both teaching it and doing it. So thank you all appreciate you. Okay. He will be mindful and kind as you can be. And be kind to yourself if you if you aren't so mindful and kind as you want to be
