"How do we go about making peace with our own emotions? First, we have to focus our mind on the raw power of inner suffering. Instead of avoiding it or burying it away in some dark corner of our mind, we should make it the object of our meditation, without ruminating over the events that caused the pain or reviewing every freeze-frame from the movie of our life. Why is it unnecessary at this stage to dwell on the distant causes of our suffering? The Buddha offered the following image. Will a man who has just been struck in the chest by an arrow ask himself, "What wood is the arrow made of? What kind of bird do the feathers come from? What craftsman made it? Was he a good man or a scoundrel?" He certainly won't. His first concern will be to tear the arrow from his chest.
When a painful emotion strikes us, the most urgent thing is to look at it head-on and to identify the immediate thoughts that triggered and are fanning it. Then by fixing our inner gaze on the emotion itself, we can gradually dissolve it like snow in sunshine. Furthermore, once the strength of the emotion has been sapped, the causes that triggered it will seem less tragic and we will have won ourselves the chance to break free from the vicious circle of negative thoughts."
One way of thinking about the pivotal scene in Poe's story that resonates with this excerpt from Ricard is that the sailor undergoes a diminution in his ego. And that allows him to focus more fully on what is around him.
One way of thinking about the pivotal scene in Poe's story that resonates with this excerpt from Ricard is that the sailor undergoes a diminution in his ego. And that allows him to focus more fully on what is around him.
No comments:
Post a Comment