Here is an interesting dialogue:
-How are you?
- I'm neutral.
-Neutral? So does that mean good or bad?
-Neither.
-So do you ever feel happiness?
-even more so.
" man who is possessed by nothing possesses everything."
" When you stop loving one person only, you will be capable of loving all."
Circumstances have no value without an observer, we give judgment to good and bad, and usually judge things superficially. Instead of seeing all life as interconnected, each moment in time that leads to the next, we judge circumstances based on our current model of reality and somehow see things independent in a completely entangled life.
When we face circumstance, anything taking place before us is complimentary to the feelings, the biochemicals reactions we produce that give us a heightened state of emotion. "I like this", "No I don't", "this is bad, this is good." Is that all there is? Are the limits of our awareness ultimately the fundamental ground floor of all we experience? Is it really good or bad, or are we just perceiving it that way based on our personal associations?
" The two sisters ran towards each other at the airport, so excited to see each other, suddenly feeling a rush of joy, of liveliness. Then she found out her sister married her ex, and the happiness turned sour." We get excited because we are not experiencing situations openly, fully conscious or aware. We are in our heads, thinking, hoping, expecting, living in the existential rather than living in the present. We invest in things to such a degree that the neuro cells become hardwired with our emotional leanings until we are no longer consciously experiencing the event before us. We end up on emotional autopilot, lost in the mind. There is always more taking place than we are aware of, and it has nothing to do with our emotions, or judgments.
Creating, and pay attention to that word CREATING, emotions per situation leaning emotionally into the hopes of an outcome, or desired result. Whether it be a kind word, a smile, the expected feedback and role played by the second party. Instead of remaining aware, open and awake so we can learn from an experience and see if for what it truly us outside our attachments, we allow ourselves to be moved by the unknowing. We really don't know what is taking place but we are entertained and distracted, so like monkeys grasping at the moons reflection in water, we find enjoyment in the illusion fabricated by the mind.
Enjoyment dependent on association, circumstance and judgment is not real enjoyment. Of course if that same event which made us happy does not go our way, or goes sour, so do our emotions, so do we because we were emotionally leaning into the event. People trash their emotional balance and drift from one gratification to the next, until we think life's joy is based on our sense gratification only. One adverse condition, a casual remark or small setback, and our energy-mood collapses. Even as time goes on, the very thing they were excited about passes, the honeymoon ends and reality kicks in; revealing the explosion of emotional outpouring at the start was a scattering or wasting of energy and an inability to see circumstances as they really are.. simply circumstances.
There is a difference in acting and reacting. A fool tends to react, uncertain of whats taking place but nonetheless losing their footing and being emotionally swept away and caught up. Acting takes power of observation, a conscious participation and level of attention. Perhaps our emotions, having never been fully looked at or properly guided, react on tendencies, conditioning and responsiveness. To consolidate, cultivate your silent power, your groundedness in any circumstance is to be experiencing it, living it. You should always maintain a joyful mind, not because you want this to go your way, or reach a certain destination ( after all the journey is the purpose) but because true happiness is not dependent on your ability to hear, see or know it. It is a flow, a vibration and you simply need to tune in. You can be happy to be happy, simply uncaused and without a dependency on external stimulus. But happiness that comes from a deep resevoir of compassion, appreciation love and gratitude for each passing moment, no matter what it delivers. Whose reality of happiness or joy is stronger; The one who follows the patterns up and down while getting frustrated with life when it doesn't work their way, or the person who maintains a joyful mind even while facing adversity, seeing events through knowing they only bring us to new places, so you cannot judge them as they are happening?
We refer to our emotions as feelings. but that's not precise. Our emotions are in effect, reactions, which are generated by the positive negative responses of the ego. The personality establishes rules, when life complements those rules or ideas, the personality is happy ( positive emotion) when the personality is contradicted by circumstances its unhappy (negative emotion). Emotions are the outcropping of opinions and preferences. If you had no opinions or preferences life could not contradict you. Real feelings, real experiences develop as we become aware of our processes and thoughts and learn to control our tendencies through soft guidance. Real feelings reach through the quiet mind to the infinite knowing that resonates in the coexistence of all things. The personality prefers to hear, see, and feel things that please it, or endorse it. The mind focuses on what is congruent with its desires, and eliminates everything else. Perception is thus narrowed by selection. Our internal search looking out unto the world is only searching for things that validate and produce a biochemical, emotional dependency. We can train our minds to reclaim the subtlety of perception that we've programmed ourselves to disregard.
Generating emotion depends on judgment, judgment creates duality, duality creates distorted perception, distorted perception produces suffering in the mind. Thus all wrong seeing is born in consciousness. We separate and compartmentalize life when you really can't. The ancients felt that life had to be considered in its entirety and that separating moments, events as good or bad- into different categories was an intellectual effort that could not ultimately help in understanding what truly is. It is a challenge to accept the constant flux of life, but the greater challenge is learning to ride that flux. So as fools react, the wise are seldom disturbed or moved by the comings and goings of life. They see it all as the alternating motions of the great flow of life. Nothing is lasting, nothing is permanent, there is nothing that is not influx; there is nothing that is not simply part of the ongoing expansion and contraction of the universe, of life; of the empty space inside the bellows.
Therefore one who is aware does not cling to one thing and shun others. One who knows wisdom accepts all that comes, as it is, because ultimately it will pass and yet, life and that moment will continue to flow breaking any barriers of judgment or perception we held it in.
" Oh i like this, this is good, haha that was funny, that reminds me of something that happened to me years ago" which is associated with laughter, which is associated with a person who is then associated with unresolved emotions, feelings until we are no longer conscious but trapped in the mind. This leaning into circumstantial judgments are desires disguised. When all desires are negated, suddenly you are still. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to move. No wind is blowing. Desire is the wind that goes on blowing inside you and keeps your inner flame wavering, that's why you are not still, that is why you are not present. Even hope is a beautiful disguise for desire. Desire as a name is not as welcomed. Hope is dressed up desire. Best be hopeless. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing even really happens because there is no future right now; drop all ambition. Only this moment exists, so don't rush hither and thither; it is pointless, it is neurotic, it is mad.
Mo one thing, even circumstance is any different, better or worse than any other. What makes things seem better or worse, exciting or boring depends on the attachments and associations we hold. Whatever the primary object in our consciousness is what is "going on" for us, whatever bubbles up into our range sight. There is never nothing going on, but there is also never anything taking place that is different than any other circumstance. They are events, that is all. Anything outside of that is a distortion of reality, what we use to set markers on situations that help us feel valid, that help our ego thrive.
By never leaning toward either end of the extreme, but keeping unattached, quieting the chattering mind we can experience moments in life that transcend the normal chemical dependency of good/bad emotions. Nothing could disturb our piece, nothing could break us for we will be flexible. Like bamboo, pending to pressure but never losing its integrity, if we too remain empty, adaptive and aware we can see situations for what they really are, outside our judgments. We will enjoy life because there will be nothing that can reduce that joy; the simple act of being, of experiencing- there are no ordinary moments. But it takes losing your mind before you come to your senses.
