Emotions

I am often filled with emotion. I take medication and it doesn’t seem to alleviate the malady. To be more specific it is better, it’s just not fixed. I can go for long periods of time with my emotions appropriately in proportion to every thing else in my life. And then there are those other times when my emotions seem to have a life of their own and they loom large in my daily life. I hate the fluctuation of my emotions. I don’t hate that they are constantly changing, I accept that as the nature of the beast. I hate that the volume pumps up periodically and really disrupts the peace of my life.

In Tibetan Buddhist teaching there is a distinction between emotions and feelings. Traleg Rinpoche teaches that “feelings are associated with the body and emotions are partly mental and partly physical. Emotions can be skillful or unskillful. Feelings cannot… Our thinking and our experience of emotions are intimately related; we cannot separate the two… What we believe in and how we think has a direct influence on the emotions we experience.”

There are times when I am completely, almost to the point of incapacitation, filled with emotion. My emotions can rage to the brewing over point, with all the fortitude my mental justification can muster. I keep thinking it is situational; that it is situations in my life and relationships that cause the flare-ups. Maybe that’s true. I don’t know. I need to find out. That is what my quest is at this point. Maybe it’s a fool’s quest.

Maybe it doesn’t matter why it happens. Maybe the key is in controlling it no matter what the stimulation. I don’t know the answer to that either. I do believe that my thoughts effect my emotions. I do know that if I change how I think my emotions will change. Is it merely an issue of looking at situations and realizing what I think is happening isn’t happening? I don’t know. Is there ever a case when situations or environments can do nothing but create raging thoughts and emotions in a person? I don’t know.

I think of people who experienced horrible atrocities, like war, extreme poverty or impending annihilation. What about their emotions? Are extreme emotions appropriate and healthy in that situation? Is it possible in those situations to find peace within yourself and control of your emotions regardless of the suffering imposed by the situation? If it is appropriate in those situations, when, or at what point, do they become inappropriate?

I don’t have the answer to any of these questions, certainly not in an experiential way. But I want to find out.