Tricycle | Awake in the World

The second possibility is that the thoughts, feelings, or physical sensations intensify. That’s also a good sign—an indication that deeply embedded perspectives are beginning to “loosen up.” To use an analogy, suppose you apply a few drops of water to a plate or bowl encrusted with dried food. Initially, the plate or bowl looks messier as the residue spreads. Actually, though, the plate isn’t getting messier; the dried food is dissolving.

The third possibility is that emotions may just remain at the same level, neither diminishing nor intensifying. That’s also great! Why? Because we can use an emotion—and the thoughts, images, and physical sensations that accompany it—as strong supports for attention practice. So often, we allow our emotions to use us. Applying attention practice, we use our emotions as a focus for developing awareness, an opportunity to look at the “looker.” Just as we need sound to look at sound, form to look at form, we need emotions to look at emotions. In fact, intense emotions can be our best friends in terms of stabilizing the mind, giving the restless bird a branch on which to rest.

Focusing on form, sound, or physical sensations develops your capacity to look at long-term, overwhelming emotional states.

Step Two: Try Something Different

In the beginning, it can be difficult to immediately address strong emotions or the biases that have developed over long periods. Emotions can color perception, behavior, even physical sensations. They can seem so solid, so big, that we can’t bring ourselves to face them. As one student of mine commented recently, “Working with big emotions—the longterm ones like low self-esteem that kind of define your life—is like trying to climb Mount Everest before we’ve even learned how to climb a hill.”

So, bearing in mind that the goal of shamatha practice is to develop stability of awareness, I offer people the advice given to me by my own teachers. Rather than try to tackle powerful or long-term emotions, focus instead on something smaller and more manageable.

One method is to generate, by artificial means, another emotion, something simpler or smaller and not so intense. For example, if you’re working with loneliness, try working with anger. Imagine a situation in which you’re having an argument with a coworker who messed up your files or someone who cuts ahead of you in line at the grocery store. Once you begin to feel that anger, use that to focus your awareness. Focus on the feeling of anger, the words that cross your mind, the physical sensations, or the image of the person cutting ahead of you. Practicing in this way, you can gain experience on how to deal with emotions.

Once you’ve achieved some proficiency in dealing with artificially generated emotions, you can start to look at past experiences and deliberately recall situations in which you may have felt anger, jealousy, embarrassment, or frustration. Bear in mind that the point of trying something different is to develop a stability of awareness—to discover the looker rather than being overcome by what is looked at.

Working with artificial or smaller emotions builds up the strength to work attentively with larger or long-term emotions, such as loneliness, low selfesteem, or an unhealthy need to please. In a way, this approach is like starting a physical workout regimen. When you go to the gym, you don’t start off by lifting heavy weights. You begin by lifting weights that are manageable. Gradually, as your strength improves, you can begin lifting heavier weights. Drawing attention to emotional states works the same way. While there is some benefit in addressing large or long-standing emotional issues directly, sometimes we have to build up our emotional muscles a bit more gradually, remembering that the goal of attention practice is to develop stability of awareness.

Another approach involves using the physical symptoms of emotion as objects of focus. For example, a woman attending a public seminar confessed that she had suffered for years from severe depression. She had been taking medication prescribed by her doctor, but she couldn’t escape the feeling that her body was filled with burning lead.

“Where do you feel this burning lead?” I asked.

“All over,” she replied. “It’s overwhelming.”

“Okay,” I told her. “Instead of looking at the overall pain, focus on one small part of your body. Maybe your foot. Maybe just your toe. Choose a small place to direct your attention. Look at small parts of your body one at a time, instead of trying to work on your whole body at once. Remember that the goal of shamatha practice is to develop stability of awareness. Once you’ve achieved stability by focusing on your foot or your toe, you can begin to extend that awareness to larger areas.”

Applying attention to smaller emotions—or simply focusing on form, sound, or physical sensations—develops your capacity to look at long-term, overwhelming emotional states. Once you begin to grow your “attentional muscles,” you can begin drawing attention to larger emotional issues. As you do so, you may find yourself directly confronting the underlying self-judgment and judgment of others as “enemies.” You may unravel the belief in being stuck, or the blind spot that inhibits your awareness of your potential. Almost certainly, you will confront the “myth of me,” the tendency to identify with your loneliness, low self-esteem, perfectionism, or isolation.

It’s important to remember that such confrontations are not battles but opportunities to discover the power of the mind. The same mind that can create such harsh judgments is capable of undoing them through the power of awareness and attention.

Step Three: Step Back

Sometimes an emotion is so persistent or so strong that it just seems impossible to look at. Something holds it in place. Another approach that can be especially helpful when dealing with particularly strong emotions, or mental or emotional habits that have developed over a long period is to take a step back and look at what lies behind the emotion—what you might call the support or “booster” of the emotion. For example, there were times when I would try to look directly at the panic I felt as a child, and I just failed. I couldn’t sit still, my heart would race, and I’d sweat as my body temperature rose. Finally I asked my teacher, Saljay Rinpoche, for help.

“You don’t want to feel panic?” he asked.

“Of course not!” I answered. “I want to get rid of it right now!”

He considered my response for a few moments and then, nodding, replied, “Oh, now I see. What’s bothering you is the fear of panic. Sometimes, the fear of panic is stronger than the panic itself.”