In this twentieth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we explore the highly significant topics of emotions and thinking (again) such as how to train and work with them inside and outside of (formal) meditation including various views, responses, and relationships to/about thinking and emotions. Amongst other things we also talk about Wendy’s recent retreat experience with an emphasis on context and teachers. We also touch on topics (not in this order) like the body, change, eye gazing, fear, gender, language, context, impermanence, lock downs, rains retreats, relationships, society, etc.
Our very first Q & A addressed some of this although thinking and emotions are worth revisiting time and time again:
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or just showing to type/ask live.*
Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a few months thereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
Past chats with Wendy:
Audio: Emotions and Thinking | “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #20
Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)
The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
[Music]
hey we’re live waiting for Wendy to show up here and
uh waiting to see if it’ll go live on Instagram
too there we go all
right well I don’t know where Wendy is is
uh today’s meditation Q&A this is the 20th
installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy and we inquire into
meditation practice on and off the cushion and we plan to explore the highly significant topics of emotions
and thinking again such as how to train and work with them inside and outside of formal
meditation including various views responses and relationships to and about
[Music] thinking hey what’s up yeah well here I
am on Gabby Gabby country in Queensland in Australia and having printer issues
and had the wrong sorry that’s my printer just doing its thing and um so I’m sorry about that it
suddenly got really noisy so we’re having a really exciting kind of I thought I had I canceled a few meetings
today to do a few things and and sort out my printer and here we are
in the thick of the emotional frustration of dealing with printers this like such boring stuff and yet it’s
so huge isn’t it it it things like this happen I mean this is real life and I so appreciate
you doing this with me every month and I’m still not present here yet either because my headphones aren’t working so
Wendy and I have like this long history of technical issues around this show for whatever reason you know but it does
look like today um I’ve been able to stream on Instagram so welcome to anyone
there who’s listening to us and I did intro the topic here and I still can’t
find I think I’m just going to forgo the headphones for now um I’ll intro it
again and in this 20th installment of the on H do you want me do you want me
to intro it and then you can see if you can figure out your headphones how about that perfect that sounds good Wendy all
right so now now I just have to find your email all right so oh you can just
go to integrating presence.com and it should be the top okay there great because there was an email that you sent
me so too you could do that as well yeah so
here we go um let me just have a look use you just do your thing and I’ll see
if I can sort out this how about that all right good so in this 20th
installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash that’s me and Josh Dipple that’s him or his you know
dealing with technical issues inquiring into the meditation practice on and off the cushion we plan to explore the
highly significant topics of emotion and thinking again such as how to train and
work with them inside and out outside of former meditation including various views responses and
relationships now it very interesting so just uh I was on Retreat I think the day
I was the day after we last spoke I was on Retreat yep so I can hear myself just so
it’s a little bit of an echo there yeah yes uh yeah all right it is what it is
oh there is okay well well no I’ll plug it back in but
whatever reason the head headphones so so very strange okay
oh I’ve got an extra set here would you like them hang on just one moment now oh
okay no this is going to work Wendy so we I’ll just keep the headphones in is the echo
better I mean I can hear myself is the echo better or not
oh no yeah it’s like about 5sec delay okay I don’t know you know we just we just have this every single time it’s
such an interesting Journey so you know what do you do about the Dharma the
teachings of Technology frustration
irritation so many problems have you got the YouTube on got the YouTube
on yes um go into your settings and look in see if you can do Echo
cancellation all right let’s just see because I find normally the echo
cancellation I’ve got that that’s good it’s actually it was a u it looks like
it was a thing within restream ah there we are okay is that
any better now yeah that’s great can you hear me yes everything’s working okay we got
there sometimes it just happens all right so so last time I was
just about to go on on Retreat that’s right and it was very
interesting because I
thought I just really saw both teachers as
humans with their own just just energetic stuff their own stuff that they came
with and it was really like they just I’m I’m kind of the same as them
they were no longer on a pedestal um and it was very interesting
CU I got to see sort of the natural energies that come with people so that
was very interesting um that trigger all these emotions all the reactions all the
thoughts I could see the energy swirling around so that was very interesting and
then you know I came back and well printers and modems and telephones and
you know the usual staff my partner he he just got finally a job they asked him
to come in for an interview today so that’s really nice so that’s that’s my
stuff how is it for you you’re in Copenhagen or in Denmark at the moment
that’s right things are okay here and it’ll be end of next week we head back to the United States for three months
and I’ll be there two months or two weeks and then my fiance joins me for two months she goes back and then I stay
an extra two weeks and I’ll come back here that’s the plan anyway um as far as
your point to um Retreat teachers on Retreat I think this is a really key
time in practice where this uh we get even disillusions sometimes with the
teacher uh the teachers you know um I talk about this with my fiance
too and some of my teachers I have there’s this
um fallacy or potential danger of putting them on
pedestals you know and they are just human beings most of them like anybody
else now how however I feel that that needs to be balanced with a degree kind of honor
and respect you know for where they’re at but when we see that you know unless
someone has reached full Awakening they’re subject to the same kind of
things we are you know so to speak and um again and I find this helpful to
balance uh with not letting this go into doubt because if we see someone and we
think okay well I see this this and this about them you know they’re not addressing this and I start
psychoanalyzing them then it could lead to potential uh doubt about the
teachings about things like this so this is where for me personally I like to
look at the dhamma instead of the the vehicle from which it comes through so
much which is like the the the teacher and this is you can put it like the man or the mission and I’m more about the
mission than the man and that’s not not to say you know again balancing this
find these different dimensions of balance of if someone I’m not saying Wendy’s teacher is or anything but if
someone is unethical you know we hear about this time and time again in certain damama circles this is to find
the courage to to go how do we deal with this what’s the best way to deal with this you know um you know and when is
the best time to deal with this and how and I mean that’s kind of a touchy thing I mean possibly we could go into
something like that but I mean I’ve got some ideas um and so tying it back today
today’s theme thoughts and emotions you know the very first one Wendy and I did
was about thoughts emotions and Trauma trauma is a huge one probably not get so much into that again today um but you
know these emotions I think um yeah I think
that’s enough to Wendy how do you how do you feel about um this in relation to
kind of dhamma teachers is there anything else to say about that yeah it was actually that’s
actually a really really interesting question because it is there is a difference between the Dharma and the Dharma
practitioner and so there is there is a really really
big difference between the two and some people are unethical
neither of these teachers were unethical but I did find one of them
very aggressive and quite sort of she’d been
practicing since the 1970s and she just said you know we are the most oppressed
people we you know most and I just went I don’t know where you live but we live
I live in a place where I have so much freedom I have almost too much Freedom
at some level to yes I find myself but I’m also a little bit abandoned in that
space too so I I
don’t I I don’t know it it was just sort of really struck
me she was a bit Hellfire and brimstone so I don’t know what her practice was during the week and you know the
teachers because there’s two of them they would have been talking during the week in a way that us students wouldn’t
have been so I don’t know what was arising for her in her
conversations in during interviews all those sorts of things but
I I definitely thought that and then it was six days of silence and I got to 4
days and I think I just felt really lonely and shut out and there was there
was a particular um exercise we were asked to do where we were to stand in
front of the other person and sort of send them love
and I I had a guy of not love but you know sort of soft
gaze and and I had a guy with me and I just became hugely aware of the gender
stuff and then we had to do three people so the next was had was a guy and again
this gender stuff very acutely aware of being a
woman and then I finally had a woman and and that was that was fine but it was so
weird to have these experiences and then I I wanted to ask a question but we ran
out of time and and it just and I I felt disconnected cuz I
felt it was quite disorientating to have all these things triggered in that space
and not to be able to talk about it and it made me realize that the
silent meditation Retreats am I allowed to talk about sort of the experience of the retreat and and the context okay
please do so yes okay so what I realized is that you know the way that those
Retreats are set up the Reigns Retreat I mean presumably it’s a short Reigns retreat
essentially in those in those environments normally they are monastic
environments there’s a community and normally they have an opportunity to go out and do things and people come and go
but it’s a very fairly stable community you might have a monk at the at the or a
nun senior who’s the sort of ab Abbot on abs and then everybody else is there and
learning and studying and then it’s the rain’s Retreat because it’s the monsoon
season so everyone’s just basically got to deal with their own cabin fever so but you know each other the
rest of the time you have to repair and work on things together to keep the
monastery going during that time you might be you might have an ongoing relationship with that person
for 10 years and yet here we are in this
environment we’ve got a mini Reigns retreat with a whole lot of strangers
coming together and then I felt I found out on the last day as sort of we’re having
breakfast that probably three4 of the people in the room had relationships
with each other that were quite long-standing you know people going to each other’s weddings and how so and so
and all this sort of stuff so it felt like there was this ingroup and this out group as well and and I’m that that
energy was I’m sure in the space so I thought I thought it was very
interesting that we are an individualistic society and so we think we don’t
register the role of context and
relationship with what we’re doing and what is different we’ll just set up a
Reign Retreat and people will come from everywhere and we’ll just do it but it’s completely different in an Asian
Community where people live there and then they’ve just got to deal with cabin
fever for 3 months and hey let’s use that as an opportunity to work through our staff so so that that was really
clear and I I found myself being quite lonely and I realized it’s not not where
I want to go actually in terms of my own practice I I would like something which
is more relational um you know more I I I just want to you know hang out with
people so I’m going back to Insight dialogue which is what I did for a long
time and um yeah so that’s that’s where I am and that was the result of and and
was very interesting because I I looked around at the group and they were now how would I com commun how would I say
that that sort of demographic so I would imagine Boulder
has a sort of a progressive left greeny kind of cafe
latte white middle class sort of wealthy upper middle classes you know it’s got a
particular vibe that is quite different to the rest of the environment is that
does that so so if you take that kind of that kind of uh personality Byron Bay is
a is a particular everyone was from the Byron Shire which is yeah has that sort
of wealthy vibby surfy kind of influencer
sort of vibe to it and I looked at it and these people are lovely people and I
looked around at the room and I thought these aren’t my people these just aren’t
my people they don’t swear nearly enough for me and they there just is this sort
of correct way of being which I find quite oppressive which isn’t really
owned and I and I just decided that this this thing which I have been a part of
for 20 years I just went this is not me I’ve tried to kind of fit into that space
it’s not me and as soon as I did that it was really interesting meditation opened
up here all sorts of things changed here I it was it was very interesting so I
don’t know how that relates to our conversation but I I think I guess what I want to say
is everything sits within a context and just because in Burma myanma and
Thailand and Laos and Cambodia people you know you have these communities
where you do rigns Retreat you cannot pluck that model and plunk it
here and have the same outcome because the context is so completely different
so the end of my conversation and I want to pick up on these points because I’ve only done one
Reigns Retreat and was at a Thai Forest Monastery and I have to Echo everything Wendy says and again my fiance talks
stresses again and again what you just said that it’s it the way everything’s kind of set up is not for like the
Western world as much you know some things work some things don’t you know living um so at the end of The reigns
Retreat is a more intensive period of meditation and it seemed to work okay
but you we do have you know people say not to bring up like cultural differences or whatever but there just
are you know there’s there’s the Thai Community there is significantly
different in in many aspects not good or bad you know um uh language Behavior
social interactions and things that than the westerners there and I think it actually is quite harmonious and and
works fairly good in that that in those in that setting but you know
um then we’ve got the the gender thing and we’ve done multiple shows on that
and that is really it is a thing you know um there’s so many different aspects especially now I mean I’m an old
old-fashioned you know traditional gender type thing they’re still and this is where I think it works okay where a
lot of the interactions Within
you know the the monastery the the the females are separated from the males and and it works a lot of times very well
but other times it doesn’t so there’s pros and cons to that approach too and
then at the end of The reigns retreat they kind of open up the mon in what when he said about the tight-nit community there it is designed for
monastics right so uh but then the it opens up and then people can come in
whenever and uh do more intensive practice I love liked it uh it worked
okay for me however I switched monasteries I don’t know if I in in the middle of The reigns Retreat and I would
recommend not doing that it actually the place I was in England it kind of flooded during that time which was kind
of crazy that the whole point of these rains retreat was because it was raining a lot and someone I think criticized the
Buddha uh that the monks were trampling fields and destroying crops because they were traveling around too much so he
conceited and it was interesting how I couldn’t even get to the bus to get to the next Monastery because it was flooded on the road so I had to go off
the road and I got torn up by Briars and I was muddy I was lucky to even make it
there and I come stumbling into this Garden Center you know dis sheveled and clothes torn up a little bit and muddy
and it it it was an interesting time so I mean this is so all these different
Dynamics are so far removed uh from what a lot of westerners day-to-day
practices um what other Dynamic was I missing here okay so we got socioeconomic class too this is this is
a fairly big thing because you have a lot of different emotions and behaviors between socioeconomic classes and you
know where I really see this shine though uh or where all these kind of boundaries dissolve if people have a
sincere genuine interest in practice in the Dharma and they can Overlook these
other things to find common ground but like Wendy says you know getting in the right kind of
communities to begin with where you don’t even have to make extra effort where it’s just like I’m it’s like a
kind of a homecoming you know oh this is what I want these are my people it does make it quite a bit easier and the other
thing I’ll pick up with is the the benefits and the challenges and the drawbacks of silent meditation you know
um like Wendy’s saying there there’s just certain things that we cannot convi
to each other um without language but vice versa too there’s a lot of things
we miss out on because the language overpowers a more subtle interaction as
well so again pros and cons I think one of the ways that works best with Retreat is give enough time at the end to allow
reintegration and speaking and these times to interrelate and talk to people
and let them know if there’s what we’re thinking what we’re feeling about ourselves and others and give time to to
go and seek out and share some of these experiences that we live very intimately
amongst people and not talk it’s not a a way of being that we’re really used to
so a lot of things can come up internally that might be so disconnected from the other person or they might be
so in tune you know or someone comes to us with something we have no idea what they’re you know where that came from
I’m like oh I’m so glad you were able to tell me that because you know now I see that I didn’t see that why I was you
know during the silent time so all these interesting dynamics of silent and Retreat it’s and I I will throw in here
I got a chance to go to Insight Copenhagen for a day of Silent practice was it a couple Saturdays ago or
something and I was it was great because I hadn’t done a group practice here in
Denmark um and so it was really lovely even though the language barrier for me
it was okay they still accommodated me a little bit they gave a little English and they’re so inclusive here in Denmark
it’s it’s pretty it’s pretty wild how inclusive everybody is here and yeah so
that’s enough for me on all that yeah actually I’m really curious can I ask you did you notice with
Insight Copenhagen did you notice differences in the way that it was
carried out or a different vibe or because everyone’s different and danish
culture is so different to American culture so much more reserved I would
imagine um and maybe more
straightforward and I just wondered yeah how how did you what did you think well
the first thing is the huge language barrier for me and I don’t really look at as like a language barrier it’s just
that I can’t connect the way I usually do with language I have to sit there and just feel and either pretend or just
keep meditating right and so at the end there was um version of insight dialogue
where they allowed me to speak in English because you know I don’t have the the Danish skills and it’s they did
read some poems in both Dan Danish and English so there was a couple of things of there but it is a real interesting I
don’t know if anyone else has immersed thems in um and a lot of people I think
they can understand understand language even if they can’t speak it for me I don’t know maybe there’s a mental block
there and it’s quite challenging for me but I the energy I am energetically
sensitive somewhat so I can feel kind of what’s going on in the room and there wasn’t a lot of people there and we did
get to meditate in nature walking in nature this beautiful Park in Fredericksburg and the walking
meditation periods were there and I didn’t feel as bad because I’m familiar with the Insight type um insight
community and just kind of how the practices go so it wasn’t like I was
just thrown into something that I didn’t understand to begin with you know it was just mainly the
language but it the the culture is kind of more straightforward I like
the the unique humor uh once I hear it translate this put one way that you know
in America if you’re not happy then something’s wrong with you but you know
for extended periods right but it’s almost the reverse here if you’re too overly happy here something’s wrong with
you you know you’re not supposed to express it like bubbly and stuff it’s reserved so if you’re if you’re happy
and you know kind of like imagine someone from California right oh hey man it’s all good to love all the time you
know that would just I mean you would you probably yeah exactly you would be kind of look looked at like what are you
doing are are are you okay is something wrong with you you know well if you
would be oh man why are you being such a bummer you know party pooper well it was funny because a
friend of mine he’s he’s died now but when he moved to Australia he’s from the
US he was in New York or something and he moved to Sydney and he he met this
guy and he said oh you know you look genuine but you sound like you’re full
of sh you know so like and he just
because of that hype you know that Americans that we see hi wow you’re amazing so incredible da d da and and
Australia used to be like that and now it’s much more I think it’s got that
American uh it’s been very heavily culturally influenced and there’s definitely huge differences between
people of my generation you know I’m in my late 50s and people who are in their
20s and the way they use language very different so where are we up to well I would just
say the cultural thing is I’ve never been to Australia and I would say there’s a huge difference between
actually kind of reading and seeing things and actually going to the country and experiencing it for yourself but I
you probably see a lot of things on TV that are accurate with Americans because it’s so media media driven C uh
saturated but there are so many different areas and and diversities within different areas of the United
States stes too but so we titled this thinking and emotion
um so let’s talk about this like on the cushion and stuff you know uh I just say
right now emotions don’t happen a lot for me on the cushions at least really strong ones like they did in the
beginning of my practice you know um I’ve heard that if you know a natural
emotion will or emotion comes in if it’s not fueled it will only last like 90
seconds um so I think in another way framing emotions and looking at emotions
in general you know some where the common uh the common kind of stereotype
is that men are less emotional than women right and that’s usually used as a pejorative unfortunately I think too you
know um so I think emotions can act as like an amplification a very good
communication they can be um a protection too you know when a strong
emotion is coming at me I can’t really a lot of the other things kind of fade
away and all my attention gets placed on the emotion to to to to deal with the
emotion and the kind my energy level tends to match the emotion if I don’t
consciously take the intention of what energy I want to bring so these are kind of like so that’s just a little bit of
surface level things on these um Wendy what would you say in general about emotions so I was speaking with a client
the other day and he he’s a very chilled guy and he’s very protective about
keeping himself and he’s you know nice gal and you know it’s it’s going well
but he’s using this I can feel there’s this barrier he’s creating you know but
I don’t want her to take my time I’m going time is is really fluid it’s much
more it’s like you’re going to lose it or something what what is that and I was
sort of telling him about a romcom from 2017 or something called plus
one and and it’s it is guy who is all
California and he’s really chilled and relaxed and you know but I’m totally with the program and stuff but it’s
actually a veneer he’s really dissociating and and one of of the
things that the retreat person said the one of the teachers who had actually she
she said you know I had the MF of a year last year it just started with three
months of just horrific covid and
then she discovered that she need she had you know breast cancer aggressive
breast cancer and then she and her husband decided to separate and so then
they had to sell the house pack up the house sell the house and then find a new place and clearly the budget didn’t go
so far so there was a lot of works so she sort of opened up with this and she
was talking about death death of obviously of the marriage death and
sickness you know with covid death of capacities and
abilities and and and and she said and I think this is
true that in in Buddhism there is a shadow that is not really engaged with
which is that there is a sort of a life denying at some level and a sort of a a
depth and a breadth of being emotions now I don’t think that’s actually what the Buddha
said but there you know it comes out of a cultural context of India mean Indians
are very funny often they have great sense of humor but most much a lot of what we’ve got today is from Sri Lanka
or southeast Asia or East Asia
Tibet and I think there are more conservative societies than perhaps the
humor of the Indian which is a bit more lively and funny so I I thought it was it was an
interesting thing that how do you how do you you engage
with the D in real life and fully and we’re full of blind spots and
challenges and we don’t want to know everything you know so we’re limited and
so I think I think it is I think it I I can
see that I use the Dharma I I actually do find meditations quite intense when
I’m they’re quite strong emotions I mean it’s not as overwhelming in I suppose
but I still find that there are emotions that are quite physically intense more
subtle more subtle for sure but
equally and and I do think there is this thing that sort of you’re not supposed
to because I think the English which is my Heritage is quite reserved certainly
in the Southeast and the German it’s got that
strong Germanic background in the Southeast and I think there is this we
can’t have conflict what I was watch I was listening to a program and I might even have mentioned it last time that in
North America and and the United Nations idea
of uh what was it peacekeeping but you know what when when
are you at peace and it was the guy said it was it’s when you are not having
conflict but in most cultures around the world it’s when everybody lives with
dignity that’s very very different so I wonder if in our kind of
Anglo in ancestry of your country and my country
that we have you know just included this kind of dampening
down of emotions to avoid conflict and and it’s not about fullness
and dignity it’s it’s about keeping it sort of a little bit selch down so there
you go these are great points you started off with this thing we addressed too of time you know and I I see this uh
in relationship with guys that they don’t think the the partner values their
time you know and I know I really respect my time and I find it so precious however you know relationships
take time and time is we’re not going to go into the whole perception of time and all that as well and uh this is a I
think this is a challenging one for some guys in general you know it’s it is for
me sometimes um the uh yeah emotions okay so from what
what I understand the Buddha or in the poly text there is no word for emotion I
don’t think there is a poly word that’s or anything in the polyan that’s
directly translated as emotion however Vena is a feeling tone I like honic tone
so it’s almost like it’s taken as um our experience is either Pleasant unpleasant
or neither and Wendy makes some really good points here about uh how peace is
perceived you know as a lack of conflict um unfortunately that’s kind of how I uh
view it a lot of times and I think a lot of that has to do with my upbringing like I come from a kind of a rural
conservative background in Perry County Missouri where it does have a big German Heritage and uh you know there was a
significant amount of emotional uh challenges in my upbringing so when there wasn’t that I mean that is a
degree of external peace and when there’s a lack of inner conflict too
there’s uh there’s a sense more of a sense of Peace however this notion of dignity I find overrides that because
where I’m coming from from that with the lack of conflict a lot of times that’s
not a societal thing that’s just me and if I if I’m either causing conflict or
um getting conflict thrown on me but if we look at dignity I love this because it it opens it up and not that we should
go out of our way to start conflict or you know disregard you know that is unimportant absolutely not I find you
know the the greater amount uh of less ill will you know is going to go a long
way for um inner peace stability and dignity which dignity you know this is everyone is
deserving of dignity you know in the world and I think that is like the ground level for interacting with people
in our society and you know we see some people that are really maybe on Skid Row
or really challenging and you know it’s
like are we sensing that their dignity has been stripped from them you know
like how do we see someone in such a decrepit State and then you know look at
our reactions are we picking up on how other people treat them or is it us you
know then we go to try to show dignity and it doesn’t seem authentic maybe or
or you know maybe we’re met with overwhelming emotions I don’t know why I’m choosing this example but you know
some people can just show pity instead of compassion you know like uh we talked
about that before like it makes me feel better than the other person if I can pity them and a lot of people just don’t
have the live protective lives and not around other people who are really in poor State they don’t really have a
reference point on how to um kind of be around that in a way that’s helpful
either uh and vice versa some people have known adversity their whole life if they’re taken and put in a context where
there really is no reference point for someone like that you know how did they be so it it’s these really interesting
Dynamics and I will say in the context of meditation emotion is a great uh it’s a
great place to explore emotion because like it’s said you can feel the most murderous rage uh but if you’re sitting
by yourself on a cushion you C you’re not going to really act on it you can’t act on it uh but you can feel it
throughout the body you can really explore what this is like and what I
found with anger it was one of the more easier ones to drop at least the really coarse hard versions of anger is because
it doesn’t feel Pleasant in the body it actually feels so um unbearably unpleasant uh and so in
meditation a lot of times if I see I have a choice and I see that choosing
anger is not really going to have much of a um helpful outcome uh then I can choose not to however I’m not talking
about suppression because I don’t think suppression does it either I mean I don’t Advocate someone going out and
being angry all the time wherever because I I don’t want to suppress it you know that’s not what I’m talking about that’s not a healthy expression
either we don’t want to keep it bottled up but that’s why meditation is great because we can explore that we’re
allowed to feel that and see how that works in our body and express it
internally uh and actually feel it as physical Sensations but there’s also the other
end here too and I’ll just throw it back to to when there can be some really Pleasant Sensations way above sense
Pleasures in this world you know like a Pity and Suka the Bliss and U they call
it Rapture and so we get the full what’s possible that goes well
beyond our conditions s sensual world uh in meditation there is um some the the
amount of human Spectrum increases with formal training on the
cushion yeah so yeah while you were doing that
and there is a common that uh people say there is no Pary word
for um emotions and and I’ve sit there going
well I’m not sure that’s quite right it’s maybe not a direct translation but
but that doesn’t mean to say those don’t exist and have need you know people need
to to work with it so yeah there there is Vena which is you know positive negative neutral Pleasant Pleasant you
know kind of disengagement or whatever it is so definitely that that is um or
Bland something but that is one but I think we what they call emotions I think
we are more likely to call claes so or um c kaces yeah the um the
taints the outflows is that I forget yeah defilements there’s another so
that’s right and you know anger is mentioned you know Bliss so these different flavors are mentioned but the
word itself I don’t you know emotion that’s the thing but yes of course Bliss
and happiness anger you know um grief sorrow lamentation despair you know the
the translations for Dua the words for Dua so all these kind of different states it’s almost like it’s um framed
in a sense of Mind state or a state of being other than an emotion which is
really interesting because most people in today’s world can relate through all these things through emotion right and I
wonder you know I wonder what the emotional state was back you know how many thousand you know 2 200 years ago
more you know it’s just unfathomable how life was even a hundred years ago so I
have not the slightest clue how our emotional landscape could be very similar or very different it it would
just be speculation on my part it’s an interesting question because I think about you know people in my
parents’ generation you know my mother was born before the war my father was born you know quite a bit before the war
and that wasn’t a psychological sort of time that’s just come since the 80s
really the sort of more psychological understanding of experience and and
children being allowed to you know what I was sort of raised not very far from I
certainly remember my grandmother saying to me children should be seen and not heard and so definitely this idea that
children were to be controlled so there was a lot more controlled of the environment and you had your social
status and I mean as I said my parents are are um English or British my father
was in India but military background which is you know the education system
in England is actually Prussian so this is so it’s got the Germanic side which
is quite dry and and sort of emotionally um divor B yeah B yeah
so so yeah so I think that we don’t know
but the human condition is The Human Condition and I don’t think there’s that
[Music] much I think we’re perhaps more able to diagnose things but they were very clear
I’m just looking at here at at tempor contemporary I’m on Wikipedia and it
looks you know afflictive emotions so that’s the caces the
um mental afflictions destructive emotions
defilements um yeah so I think that there it is this idea that these very
intense strong States hinder our capacity to live
well but you know actually here’s one I learned on Retreat so you know we talk
about love compassion joy and peace um or equinity joy is actually and
I’m going to tell you this word it’s not it’s we talk about rejoicing in the other or sympathetic Joy
whatever but it’s actually uh confelicity in English now
that’s a word we never use but it is to derive delight and joy
in another person’s success um vicarious I like that word
vicarious Joy I I want to put that word back in the English language
conicity convicity yeah and people talk about this word veilance with Vena too a
certain experience has a veilance but I wonder if this was a strategy by the Buddha not really to overemphasize
emotion or not even have a word in poly for it because like you said I you know
I can see where yes emotions can be a very rich expression of The Human
Condition you know they can also be cathartic and healing to a certain degree but at uh you know I don’t I
don’t know you know it’s like I I don’t know how to view this but I I wonder I just pulling this out of
the blue here if it was actually a strategy by the Buddha somehow it’s not based on anything but
uh I think that’s unlikely because I think he was just reporting the way things the way he saw
them the way the way he experienced them that these AFF Ive emotions which are
sort of where we are very caught they are sticky in these
trances and and then we have these thoughts but there and Sensations and
that are Pleasant or unpleasant but I I but you know I don’t know how you deal
with I mean disappointment hurt I mean hurt sorrow I guess that if you take it
all person personally in those moments but when somebody dies it’s not personal
you just they die they they’re dear to
you so I’m wondering if I’m wondering you know I’ve seen some new translations
of um impermanence it’s not that the Buddha
didn’t think that things didn’t change but that that and and this person went
on to sort of several different versions so I thought it was very interesting I can’t I sort of looking for it but I
couldn’t find it but I I’m just I think it’s how can a
person not be sad when their loved one dies cuz that to me sort of feels like a
and and I’ve heard a few teachers oh you know when my father died I didn’t feel
sad I just was happy he was finally at ease and I just go oh I think you’re
bypassing I think I think it’s normal to have Co you know a variety of
feelings and and to not recognize that I I don’t know that’s me I I I’m Western
and psychologically minded so that’s what I think I think the the when it comes to death I I like I do so much
better at funerals than I do at weddings I’ll just put it that way because there’s really no expectation on how you
should be or shouldn’t be during a funeral you know uh I think people show grief all kinds
of different ways from Ab zero emotion cold stare you know uh completely
distant to just weeping and wailing and I think all of this is is not really out
of the blue or out of the ordinary when it comes to a funeral so I think and then a lot of it oh I got to act a
certain way so that’s all you know all these things happen around U deaths and
grieving and I’ll just say my own EXP experience for whatever reason I don’t understand why my grandfather when I was younger I think that was the most uh
hard death I’ve ever taken because I think that was the first time someone really close to me happened but I will
say with with practice though the the grieving process uh for me has become a
little bit more manageable though it of course it’s still there but it didn’t really have such a profound influence
and effect on me without practice I mean I’m not saying that the the process of life and death is any less profound it
just seems like we’re better equipped um to to deal with the grieving process
with a with a meditation practice right um and what was the other point here uh
with thoughts though you know we’re not really going to have much time about thinking but it’s of often said that or
at least my fiance points this out that it looks like a lot of the Buddhist teachings they’re they’re more focused
on the mind in the body you know um there is a lot of uh chitta in the
Brahma viharas which are really lovely and they’re often emphasized in today’s
Buddhist worlds quite a bit and I love the Brahma viharas they’re so great but I mean there is um just kind of a
Mastery of Mind and Body in a lot of the Buddhist teachings and it doesn’t really talk a lot about a rich emotional life
as much if I’m getting that right you know um but you know it’s all about Dua
and the ending of Dua and so I don’t know how how do you how would you take
this Wendy how would you how do you what do you have to say about these type of
things I was just sitting there kind of going which which particular part would you like me to respond
to yeah exactly what whatever strikes your fancy really because we’re I guess
we’re running out of time a little bit here too yeah we’ve got um over five minutes I guess
and to delve into the thoughts because you know I started reading pid’s book
knowing and seeing and it goes into like Abid dama and all the different types of Consciousness and chitta and chasa you
know like hundreds of different combinations and variations if I’m getting that right and just such a
profound level of minutia and deconstruction and relating it to the
three character istics and that’s another thing I wanted to say really briefly is um anicha which is usually
impermanence or changeability and the guy from purama
p.net he he says that that’s if I’m getting this right it’s kind of a mistranslation by early English
translators one of the ways if I’m getting how he puts it it’s this notion of okay if I can just arrange all the
external conditions in my life just the way I want them then I won’t have a problem but the thing is that’s a that’s
a setup for failure especially in the long term because something’s going to happen in my life where I can’t get all
the external conditions exactly the way I want them and I’m in this delusional State thinking I can do that and that’s
what’s going to make me happy then I forget that I can’t control it all the time and then that’s when dooka strikes
uh when I can’t maintain those external conditions and to me that just that strikes me as way more reasonable
because we all know oh yeah everything changes of course but no one’s he says that no one’s ever become enlightened
just becoming just because we know things are impermanent everybody knows everything’s impermanent and they’re not really enlightened you know they know it
cognitively so that’s enough yeah so I was thinking um as
you’re saying that um there about impermanence and how we got our things
together and I was thinking about you know there’s burglars or criminals and they
plan and they say this and and it’ll then we’ll do that and then if that happens we’ll do that and if that happens we’ll do that and there’s a lot
of planning and strategizing and they get busted because well it doesn’t work
like that and in a way what you’re describing is similar to a
criminal just not understanding that the way life is is that there are so many
moving Parts you cannot for for a minute imagine
that things will you will be able to have control I mean this is what I thought was so interesting about Co and
the pandemic was just how oh like we tried to keep everything in
control in one level but then it but then the fact that well we don’t have to
do that and we don’t have to do that and we can change that and well why don’t we
do that and all of a sudden the whole way that our society is is sort of quite
different there’s something quite different in the energy postco post
pandemic so yeah I I guess yeah what how do you
feel about that well and it’s it’s wild too that whole dynamic is on the
receiving end but just think about how quickly the world shut down overnight that was the biggest form of control
I’ve ever seen in my entire life almost instantaneously and I don’t think anybody saw that that was possible and
that came saw that coming and the amount of control that was implemented on people’s minds and how they behav during
that time I mean I I mean you talk about quick changes in people’s behaviors I
was just completely flabbergasted and Blown Away about that you know in a sense yeah and that’s right you know um
not to get too political here but I met with a group and a lot of it seemed to hinge on emergency powers so when a a
state of emergency is declared all that other all our regular lawful processes
and how we normally do it’s thrown out the window and I get it because you know if there’s a nuclear war you don’t have
time to go through all the legislative Pro you need to act right away but this this was kept going on and they
reinstated it and Drew it out and kept going and was all and so none of our
regular things and so it might have been pushed a little too far you know it
seems it seems that way sometimes you know so it was a huge experiment and I
think it’s still ongoing um you know especially in how people perceive it and
respond to it the choices they make the choices they don’t make you know um
safety Freedom all these um kind of external things and it was a really good
time though to go in to go inward you know it was a retreat nobody asked for
but I think a lot of people did some profound soul searching during that time too you a lot of things fell off but a
lot of more Draconian measures might have been imple so it’s a really huge Dynamic one of the biggest things we’ve
ever lived through you know and it just sort of going back to
that idea about you know the era that we’re born into that we have our early life experiences the culture around that
so A friend of mine partner is a kindergarten teacher and she says that
the the kindergarteners who are coming through they’re different because they’re the co babies and so they were
completely isolated from anyone except the mother who was in this sort of state of you know angst and they are not
nearly as relational so there’s something kind of a little bit off or
quiet or just not like maybe not as something so
it’ll be interesting to see what happens to that cohort from 2020 to 2022 to see
what happened or 2023 what happened in that era for those babies and is that
going to be a particular slice like babies who are born between 1939 and
1945 a particular slice so yeah these generational things and I
did see that fear uh was way more important than most anything because it
could run down the immune system so quick to be in such a state of Terror and fear for such a prolonged period I
saw that way more detrimental than just about anything and so and I’ve even seen dhama circles um you know in the recent
past now really addressing fear you know how do we deal with that and maybe that will be a topic um upcoming topic that
we might discuss but yeah I think we’re about time aren’t we Wendy we are at time what a
conversation it was I I we went in different ways than we thought we would
or we normally do I think I think we sort of take the sort of particular topic and then we go well how does that
apply with the DH in question that’s the way I am I guess you know sure same yes
I’m glad we got the to to kind of debrief the The Retreat experience too
and I tune in next time we’re going to be the the topic anyway is knowing and the known so we’ll be looking at that
next time perhaps so all right be well you all bye now all right take care
[Music]
Integrating Presence 
35 thoughts on “Emotions and Thinking | April 22, 2024 “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #20”