The Three Emotions

Emotions are interesting.

Why are we happy or sad?  We often ask questions:  What are my inner or outer causes of being happy or sad?  How can I be happier? 

Sometimes happiness and sadness seems to have nothing to do with what is happening right now.  Sometimes we use the past or the future to blame our happiness or sadness.

Further, you can ask: How can I know happiness without sadness?  How would I know the difference?  Therefore, I need to be sad sometimes.  Maybe…

The inner critic may yell at you for something or other that you did or did not do.  Or the inner critic may yell at you for being sad! 

The emotion wheel is an interesting way to think about the ranges of emotions:  

http://www.do2learn.com/organizationtools/EmotionsColorWheel/index.htm

Wiki gives a nice scientific overview, including neurochemistry: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion

I love to distill what is in front of me into the simplest considerations possible

(See my blog entry The Three Commandments). 

I will postulate that the wheel of emotions comes from just 3 basic emotions.  I think about these emotions as “stances” toward life and objects.  Like a martial arts stance, this is how you interact with life at each moment. 

1-Positive emotions are an attraction toward. 

2-Negative emotions are a pushing away from. 

3-The third emotion is ignorance. 

Yes, you can argue with me about how ignorance is not really an emotion.  Maybe... 

My argument is that ignorance might be the most important stance to uncover.  

It is easier to deal with any positive and negative emotions that might be getting in your way.  It is harder to deal with ignorance.  When you are not awake to what is present, then it is more difficult to develop a healthy stance in your life. 

My method toward uncovering my own ignorance, is to continually inquire deeply.  Ask inside, what am I not seeing?  Asking others, what am I not seeing? 

And really what is happiness or sadness anyway?  Another thought to inquire within. 

Remember this when you are sad, “clouds come, clouds go.” 

Treat happiness in the same way.    

Perhaps, take the practice of entering deeply into the depths of sadness, until the soft subtle light of life arises to dispel the darkness (see my blog poem, When I’m Lost). 

Inquire deeply into, “Who is feeling sad?”

Any inquiry into “Who I Am,” can bring up many emotions.  Excellent!  More fodder for inquiry!

Wei Wu Wei says:  Why are you unhappy?  Because 99.9 per cent of everything you think, and everything you do, is for yourself – And there isn’t one.

Try these experiments based on the work of Douglas Harding, using these 8 short videos by Richard Lang: 

http://www.headless.org/experiments-video.htm

Discovering who you are is a never-ending process of unfolding.  But, with each step, you can see more clearly.  Like climbing higher in a tree, in a building, in an airplane, you see everything with a larger perspective, including this construct you call “self.” 

Drop the attraction toward, and the repulsion from, and then enter into ignorance.   

Let blossom a deep appreciation of true beauty that transcends all emotions.