TAKING EMOTIONS AS THE
PATH
by Tsoknyi Rinpoche III
The Vajrayana says not to reject the kleshas, the negative
emotions, but to take them as the path. This can be quite
challenging to most people because emotions often govern our body,
speech, and mind. So in order to take emotions as the path, we need
to take a step back to take a look at emotions.
Where do these emotions come from? The most obvious are the
karmic habitual patterns stored in our alaya. We know our own
emotional inclinations, these kleshas very well, don’t we? They
often seem to be running the show! But sometimes they are
confusing; they seem to pop out of the alaya according to very
subtle causes and conditions of which we are unaware, not from
traceable situations. Other emotions, particularly pure emotions,
are not necessarily created by the mind. When these emotions come,
they inform the mind and create moods that color everything. Some
emotions are simply patterned into the physical system. So when the
physical system is triggered, those emotions come up in the mind.
For example preliminary practice, ngöndro, is a time when a lot of
emotions can be triggered due to the physical activity. Some people
cope well with it, but some cannot take it, so preliminary practice
can be a very emotionally challenging time.
However, it’s not only special practice situations that produce
strong emotions in the body’s chemistry. One that most people
experience is fear. There are two kinds of fear. The first is a
healthy fear, like when you are walking and suddenly feel yourself
tripping. Fear arises instantly as a bad taste in your mouth; you
can taste the chemistry of fear. Until you become a rainbow body
you need that fear. That fear is part of our relative-truth wisdom.
If you see a car coming straight at you, you need to do something
with your intelligence and clarity. Is jumping to the side best?
But which side? Is rolling out of the way better? Or is it best to
stand still and wave your arms, so the car can see you and go
around you? At that moment you have to choose to do something to
protect your physical body. When you’re a rainbow body, then you
can think, “Oh yeah, this body is transparent, it cannot be harmed,
so it’s not an obstruction.” Until then, you need this fear because
it will lead to life-saving action.
The other fear is an unhealthy fear, a deluded fear that feels
like a constant buzz in our body and mind. This is the fear you
need to take care of. With such strong emotions like deluded,
solidified fear I suggest you start by developing an attitude
towards it that views it neither as an enemy to be abandoned, nor
as something with which to identify. Once this attitude is
established, bring the emotion into focus. Emotions like fear are
misperceptions by the ego and result in mental grasping. Because
there is grasping, a good aikido-welcome works well with it. An
aikido-welcome releases mental/emotional grasping just like it does
physically. You begin by saying, ”Oh hello fear, I see you’re here,
but that’s okay because there’s room for you.” Then, as you relax
the subtle body the fear itself relaxes a bit. At this point, like
in aikido, you can move the energy of fear more easily in the same
direction you are going because the ego’s fear-story is no longer
in charge of the energy. By applying this method you are beginning
to take emotion as the path. What is the key to doing this? It is
removing the ego’s attachment to the fear story.
This is how you can approach anger as well. There are two kinds
of anger. One comes from believing you are right. It is a pure
anger, not really sticky. With it comes a lot of clarity and, for
the practitioner, the possibility of mirror-like wisdom, the
dissolving of anger and ego in rigpa.
But there is another kind of anger that comes when you feel you
have been wrong, made mistakes or avoiding feeling of
self-blame…“I’m not wrong!” This sort of anger is more difficult to
deal with because it has a lot of delusion connected to it and is
not so clear. It is stickier than the pure anger. This is the anger
you need to take care of. It can be very powerful, heating up the
physical body, tightening the subtle body, and narrowing the
conceptual mind’s focus to just the object seen as threatening and
the source of anger. When this anger arises, it’s ordinarily
experienced as something solid and is filled with ego because
within the emotions are the five poisons. Within all of the five
poisons, there is one predominant element, the ego that clings to
experiences and to its own survival. You have to abandon this ego,
no matter what. Remove ego and the five poisons become transformed
to the five wisdoms.
Actually, ego is happy when you notice it and challenge it.
It likes the focus; it likes the attention. It’s used to being the
center of your universe and a challenge makes it feel so important,
and, if it is invested in being a practitioner, so spiritual, so
holy. This is why first welcoming emotion and then turning away is
quite upsetting to ego. The aikido-like moves transform the energy
that supports the ego’s story and centrality in your life.
When the energy is transformed, ego doesn’t know what to do. When
the ego doesn’t know what to do, it freaks out and that is the time
to recognize rigpa, if you can. But sometimes it’s difficult to
recognizing rigpa when the kleshas are strong, so this aikido-like
method works well even if you cannot rest in rigpa. In fact, when
any obstacle comes, any emotion comes, the aikido method works
best. But first you must welcome it. Do not confront, just welcome.
But don’t hang out too long with it. If you do, you are likely to
merge with the emotion and that is quite different then doing the
aikido moves. Technically you may understand this, but whether you
can do it or not depends on your skill in practicing this way. So
practice the skill of “mental aikido” because it is very
useful.
So what else can you do with self-blaming anger? It has both
emotional and mental aspects that need to be dealt with, but before
doing either of those, it’s best to take care of the emotion in
your physical body. Generally I don’t recommend that Westerners do
Tibetan Buddhist body practices. Your complex life produces subtle
restlessness (lung), an emotional problem we don’t commonly see in
traditional Tibet society. In Tibet they assume you don’t have a
problem with restlessness and teach a lot of jumping, a lot of
breathing. Sometimes it’s too much for Westerners and you might get
more restlessness. Instead, I think westerners should go more in
the direction of yoga, tai ji or qigong.
However, there are some meditative practices in the Tibetan
system that can be very helpful. In the Tibetan system we
understand that there is a subtle body made of tsa, lung and tigle.
The Tibetan word tsa is called nadi in Sanskrit and translates as
channels in English. The Tibetan word lung is prana in Sanskrit and
translates as energies or winds in English. Tigle is bindu in
Sanskrit or seeds of energy in English. Within the subtle body
there are different levels of subtlety. The channels are the most
gross, the energies are subtler, and finally the seeds of energy
are quite subtle. So meditation practices involving exercises for
tsa, lung, tigle are a way of working with the subtle body and are
used when taking emotions as the path. But you need to know the
right way to do these exercises otherwise they will not function
correctly. Because of the lung problem, you need to take your time,
scan your body and loosen up the energetic knots. Over the years,
knots of restlessness have developed and underneath the
restlessness is ego. But ego does not like to let go, so it takes a
few months, a few years perhaps, to really let go. So before you
try to practice Tibetan tsa-lung exercises, I think it’s good to
practice jam-lung, subtle vase breathing. Anything harsh does not
work for the western body, but a very long time of gentle nurturing
opens it up and the subtle body begins to rejuvenate.
Once the subtle body begins to rejuvenate you can bring in
mental understanding, the second aspect generally needed to work
with strong emotions. A good practice for this is The Four
Applications of Mindfulness. They begin to break down the ego
clinging that makes self-blaming anger so powerful. Breaking down
the ego clinging makes it possible to reconnect with the spark of
love that lives within all of us. This spark, this basic love has
surely been obscured if there is self-hatred. Basic love has been
replaced by a very critical ego. Generally, you’ll find that your
expectations for your life have been set so high that you are bound
to be disappointed with yourself. But once you feel the spark of
basic love again, really feel it, it’s possible to adjust your
expectations for your life. Only then can well being infuse your
heart. If you don’t do this, you’ll continue to suffer greatly from
self-blaming anger. However, if you begin to receive the nurturing
of basic love, your mind becomes more stable, and it’s not as hard
take the medicine of rigpa.
Using rigpa medicine can bring a klesha to an extreme and at its
peak realize its emptiness. However, rigpa medicine also works well
without letting the emotion build. If you can, go directly to
the view of rigpa, seeing the empty, spacious nature of the
emotion, without rejecting, avoiding or having to transform it.
Within rigpa, the anger ceases to be solid. By realizing emptiness
and resting in rigpa, the already weakened ego-clinging dissolves.
With no self to be hit by the emotion, there is no need to reject
the anger or react to it. The counterpart of anger is mirror-like
wisdom and this will come as you experience the pure energy of
anger. When there is the experience of anger’s pure energy, it
enhances clarity of mind. That enhancement of the clarity stays as
rigpa clarity. And that is the quality of mirror-like wisdom that
sees everything.
But these methods are quite difficult to do because they require
strong, stable rigpa and this takes some time to establish. So that
is why I recommend beginning with the wisdom of the aikido-like
method. However, no matter which combination of practices you use
to let go of the anger story, you need to know that anger leaves
some sensation in the body and you might think anger is still
there. Don’t be confused by this, because actually the anger is
gone. As long as the ego is not grasping, the feeling will no
longer produce any karmic pattern. It’s just an uncomfortable
feeling that can distract you if you don’t see it as just a little
bit of physical discomfort. Don’t hook back into it. It takes some
time to cool down, but the emotional part of anger is gone as soon
as you let go of the ego grasping. Only the energy is left, and
that is what the body is feeling.
It is incomplete to look at emotions as the path for western
Vajrayana practitioners without considering depression. For many,
many Westerners depression is a life-long emotional struggle, with
much suffering, and I think it’s connected with tigle (bindu), the
seeds of energy. When I discuss depression with people, they say
the experience is one of no light in their life; their thoughts and
bodies feel heavy and hollow; there’s no enthusiasm, and their
sexual desire has gone down (although they may not behave this
way). Everything is gray or even black and they are easily scared
(again, they may not behave this way). They feel flat and there’s
no “juice.” Anything connected with bliss is gone.
This is very close to the description of what happens in our
constitution when the energies are blocked and the tigle cannot
move freely throughout the body. The tigle are stuck in one place
and start to diminish. When they diminish or dry up, minds start to
feel a sense of depression. When not dried up and the subtle body
is in balance, tigle function as the basis for love, happiness,
compassion, and bodhicitta. Usually the mind rides on these
energies, but when the energies become too speedy, our minds fill
with worry and anxiety. Speed itself can go in a positive way or a
negative way, but when it drives our minds in a negative way our
whole system feels the impact. When this energy comes into the
heart, people can become quite depressed and hopeless. I call this
“chicken-hearted,” and it’s another form of depression. No matter
what the specific formative circumstances, people with depression
are easily overwhelmed by stimulation and just want to pull the
covers over their head. Without the courage or guts to engage in
life, they become ruled by fear and aversion and either take no
risks or are covering it up with bravado.
From the practice perspective, the tigle need to be revived. In
the beginning, it’s difficult to address the tigle directly, so we
start by working with our minds, which are usually full of thoughts
of all kinds. Having a lot of thoughts also can dry up the strength
of the tigle. Therefore we train our minds to calm down, relax and
remain still through the practice of samadhi. If you can do this,
it automatically rejuvenates the tigle, bringing back the
experience of well-being. You can also apply the Four Applications
of Mindfulness as we saw with anger. They too will stimulate a
sense of well-being. Another important method you can apply to
depression is intellectual conviction. Although you feel lousy,
your conceptual belief can be quite strong. You trust the Dharma,
the blessings of your teacher, and the lineage teachers. Based on
this trust, you should supplicate the teachers and receive their
spiritual influence. These blessings impact your subtle body and
you start to experience well-being again. All of these methods can
be used to jump start the tigle.
Once the tigle begin to move again, your desire and enthusiasm
begin to come back. Then it helps to “feed” the tigle with things
that nurture well-being, like stable, emotionally healthy
relationships, good food, beauty, music, and the juicy practices
like devotion, which bring bliss and joy. But of course you have to
take care. You have to take care of your energy. You have to use it
the right way. When desire and enthusiasm come, don’t exhaust
yourself expending it in the next moment. But eventually
enthusiasm, bravery, openness, juiciness, compassion, love, and
bliss–many things come together.
From the Vajrayana point of view, emotions are fine. But if you
use them wrongly, these emotions can be harmful. The key to the
Vajrayana approach is remembering that your emotions are your
emotions, whether you are skillfully managing them or not. They are
your production. They are all empty in nature. Because of this, all
emotion in Vajrayana is welcomed as method. But in Vajrayana
practice, any emotional feeling can be mistakenly indulged if there
is not sufficient wisdom and stable rigpa. Then it becomes just
craziness or harmful behavior. This is important, so make sure your
practice is a balance of wisdom and method. You need to know how to
welcome emotions. It doesn’t mean you follow them all the way.
Opening the door to them completely is the samsaric way of
welcoming, not the Vajrayana. If you follow any emotion completely,
it does not lead to freedom.
However, once you have a stable rigpa practice, you can let go
of all methods because recognizing the view is the best way of
dealing with emotions. Just recognize rigpa, realize emptiness.
That’s all. When any emotion comes, just re-recognize rigpa,
realize emptiness. The emotions will naturally become purified.
With stable rigpa, emotions can be purified through liberation,
using self-liberation, liberation upon arising or liberation
without benefit or harm. But if there’s still some lingering
negative emotion, although rigpa is totally stable, it is fine to
say: “Oh, hello, I am sorry, I didn’t know you were still here.”
Make a “handshake” with what is hanging around, engage with it so
the emotion doesn’t feel left out. You can include the emotion with
an “Oh honey.” Just say “honey” like a sweet mantra. It doesn’t
mean much because you are no longer trapped by the ego’s attachment
to emotion, but the ego will be happy…and then you can continue to
practice!