I seem to say this about every chapter in this book, but I really do believe that Ch. 9, “River of Feelings,” is the most important chapter of the book for me. As some of you know, it was brought to my attention three years ago that I had a problem with expressing my feelings (or maybe it was in feeling my feelings—who knows!). This came as a huge shock to me. I had thought myself fairly expressive, and receiving this information from someone I had respect for caused me a high level of discomfort because I had to re-adjust my self-image—and, my very understanding of myself. So I’ve spent the last three years examining how I deal with feelings: through therapy, conversation with close friends, study and meditation, and periodic challenge matches with the person who brought this to my attention.
I’m not going to say that after all the time and attention that I’ve given to this issue that I can report I am now a fully functioning feeling person. That would be a joke! But I am happy to report that I can read “River of Feelings” and recognize something very different about the way feelings work, for us and within us. So in this post, I’m simply going to summarize for myself the key ideas that Kornfield addresses in this chapter. It’s my way of integrating the ninth principle of Buddhist psychology: “Wisdom knows what feelings are present without being lost in them.”
One paragraph of this chapter sums up my previous approach to feelings, and so it bears repeating: “When a painful experience arises we often try to get rid of it, and when a pleasant experience arises we try to grasp it. When a neutral experience arises we tend to ignore it. We’re always wanting the right (pleasant) feelings and trying to avoid the wrong (painful) ones. And when they are unpleasant we react endlessly, struggling to get it right.”
Wow. I have spent my entire life in this very process—avoiding pain and grasping after pleasure. I actually thought that was the whole purpose of life, and I’ve devoted a good deal of time, energy, money, and effort toward avoiding & grasping. I’m not sure when I started to actually get the Buddhist notion of aversion and grasping, but it’s safe to say it was fairly late in life. I can look back at the gradual shift that took place in me and see the initial resistance to the idea: “But I want to feel good ALL the time. Isn’t that the goal?” A dissertation could be written on the challenges that come our way when we believe that every moment of our lives is supposed to be happy. But now I can say this. When we practice accepting all experience (pleasure and pain and neutrality) without judgment or expectation, sitting with it in equanimity, everything changes. Everything in your life changes. And one of the biggest changes is that you suddenly begin to feel your feelings.
But who wants to feel unpleasant feelings? Ah, there’s the rub. And too, most of us have this perverse notion that feelings are permanent (or maybe we think they should be permanent). I know I’m guilty of this. When I got divorced seven years ago and was so sad about the break up of yet another marriage, I remember saying to my therapist, “It’s so awful that now I’m a sad person.” I really thought that I was going to be sad the rest of my life. But Kornfield says that feelings typically last about thirty seconds. OK, maybe the sadness of a divorce lasts a little longer than that, but most feelings are amazingly fleeting. Wait a minute and things will change. And if things don’t change, then K says these persistent feelings hold “important messages.”
In his book The Presence Process, Michael Brown also advocates paying attention to these persistent emotional messages. Ignore the messenger, he says, and focus on the message: which is the feeling that you are feeling. It will lead to insight that expands your heart and lends depth and understanding to your life experience.
So it boils down to this: stay with the feelings, no matter how painful or discomforting they may be. They are my best teachers. “Even when they are strong,” Kornfield says, “we don’t need to suppress them, nor grasp and identify with them. We don’t have to worry: no feeling is final.”
This is life-changing advice, and has become the focus of my practice these past few months. Of all the practices Kornfield has given us, this one has affected my life most profoundly. And of course, as the universe would have it, I have had LOTS of opportunities to practice!
