Mindfulness: Don’t Fight the Feeling
Taraniya - interview by Eleanor Rachel Luger
Not so very long ago, I was furious and smarting with envy. SOMEONE--someone
I hardly even knew--was being publicly praised and thanked for an assignment
SHE did that I felt should have been given to ME, should have been MINE
to be praised and thanked for. I was convinced SHE had not only taken
MY job, but SHE had taken MY praise, too. At that moment, I flushed from
my hair roots to my toenails. I could not speak, smile or move my body.
I wanted to jump out of my skin. I was consumed by wicked energy, and
I wanted to hurl it at those who I felt had betrayed ME and taken what
was MINE.
I realized a bit later that I had not even known that the assignment was
available to do, nor did the person who assigned it know I wanted to do
it. I began to view what felt like an outrage against me simply as a missed
opportunity--one I did not know had existed in the first place. I began
to understand there was no basis for my jealous reaction. It was a figment
of my imagination.
Slowly, my desire for doing the job and my indignation over the “bad”
intentions of those involved faded, too. But I was left wondering about
the avalanche of feelings that had overcome me. In the instant my emotions
were running highest, I was straitjacketed by their intensity, and
struggled to find the terra firma of my practice.
Finding the solid ground that practice offers to deal with painful emotions
such as these is the focus of “Mindfulness: Don’t Fight The Feeling,” a meditation course that Taraniya (Gloria Ambrosia) will lead on four Tuesday evenings in October. I spoke with Taraniya in early September, when she was between teaching engagements and visiting North Carolina.
Taraniya chose a topic which, she says, is rooted firmly in the Buddha’s
teachings. Though we know these uncomfortable feelings when they possess
us, I asked Taraniya to express them in words: “From the Buddhist perspective,
these are states that arise in our minds and hearts in reaction to people,
to situations and events we find difficult. These reactive states are
painful in-and-of themselves. But when we get caught up in them, and we
act out of them, they bring about even more pain. So it is in our interest
to learn about them and learn how to work with them.”
For Taraniya, sustained meditation practice is integral to learning how
to move beyond getting caught in these reactive patterns and, instead,
learning to stay with what we are actually experiencing or feeling. It
is no surprise then, when she points out that “waking up to the experience
of feeling is the key to awareness, the key to meditation.”
However, awakening is easier discussed than done for most of us. We roundly
resist and do not cultivate our ability to truly feel complex feelings.
Rather, says Taraniya, “We relate in our lives out of old mental and emotional
patterns and so we perpetuate old habits. In this mode, our lives don’t
change very much.”
To reach the feelings behind our conditioned responses, Taraniya explains
we first must watch “how we perceive our moment-to-moment experience.”
With consistent and long term practice, she affirms, “we are able to see
our own particular mind states.” Taraniya gives a ‘for instance’: “When
our powers of inner observation become more attuned, we are able to discern
the moment when pleasure turns into greed or when we wallow in our uncomfortable
feelings or push them away.” This is a critical skill that the meditator
develops.
In meditation, she observes, “We follow the breath because the breath
is neutral. There’s nothing much to be said about it. Sometimes it’s this
way. Sometimes it’s that way. But the mind will have all kinds of opinions
and views about it. This is what we need to see.” She stresses that while
we spend a lot of time concentrating on the breath, meditation is NOT
about attaining and sustaining perfect concentration on the breath. “Rather,”
she makes clear, “it is about seeing the way the mind is relating to the
breath. Through meditation we learn how to let the breath be. The breath
is fine as it is. When we want it to be some other way we are suffering.
It’s the same with life.”
Taraniya says during meditation we aim to be “with the breathing without
making it into something it’s not and without ignoring it or checking
out.” In time, this allows us to “recondition the mind to relate to things
in a disidentified way.” And what does that mean? It means we drop what
Taraniya characterizes as our “wish to figure things out or wanting them
to be a different way.” We also drop the question that dogs many beginning
meditators, “Am I doing this right?” as well as the desire to evaluate
time spent on the cushion. With experience, promises Taraniya, these questions
and concerns become something we “don’t bite on.” She says, “We break
the habit of wanting to analyze and we learn to just let things be. We
stop reacting to what happens in life—even our states of mind—and
we arrive at a direct experience of feeling. We learn for ourselves what
states are skillful and what aren’t. This is critical because so many
of our moods and mind states are unskillful and that’s why we suffer.”
In practice, all roads lead back to the hand-in-glove relationship of
developing mindfulness through a clear experience of the moment. As Taraniya
puts it, “We use the experience of pleasure and pain in the interest of
freedom. We feel the torment of the mind, the contraction of the body
and, over time, these intense and often negative mind states weaken. We
get ourselves out of the way so the magic of meditation can happen—
in spite of ourselves, not because of them.”
“And how do we do this?” I ask. In an instant Taraniya responds, “You
just have to be there as fully as possible for the experience of it. Don’t
fight the feeling.”
Taraniya cautions against another pitfall for practitioners: “If we don’t
understand how practice works and why we are doing it, we can use meditation
as a way to beat up on ourselves.” But understood correctly practice becomes
the means for self-acceptance. “Just being able to receive the breath
we become more adept at experiencing our true feelings, we learn how to
love and how to receive, and we learn how not move into self-hate and
loathing,” Taraniya assures us.
She continues, “Mindfulness is directed at experience, and it short-circuits
our getting hooked by negative emotional and mental states such as greed,
hatred and delusion. As we open to them, we see their ill-effects. We
become more compassionate towards ourselves. This has a wonderful carry
over. Having experienced the pain of our delusion and ignorance, we become
more compassionate towards that of others”
The “strong and painful emotional states” that Taraniya will touch on
include confusion, anger, frustration, longing, stress, hatred and revenge.
Sadly, this could be an inventory of the emotions stirred up in many New
Yorkers by the recent terrorist attacks. I asked her if that event would
affect the course content. She acknowledges it will: “Events such as these
recent ones bring us very close to the direct experience of the truth
of life’s uncertainty. We can think about impermanence and uncertainty
and imagine that we understand it rationally. But it is only through direct
experience of it that the deeper truth can penetrate our being, bring
about wisdom and understanding, and radically effect our behavior. The
good news is that such insights bring about a deep and lasting peace.
The bad news is that realizing them can be very painful.”
Taraniya recognizes there is a difference between talking about difficult
mind states and learning to live with them, so she will include practical
application of the material to life off the cushion. “We’ll look at how
to deal with different feelings on the spot, as they occur. Because that
isn’t always possible we’ll also look at how to deal with them later on,”
she says. I asked her to explain this in terms of the jealousy I had felt.
“When you are nose-to-nose and toes-to-toes [with the situation], really
feel the jealousy arising. If you recognize, ‘Ugh, there’s that feeling,’
that keeps the mind from gripping onto it. You begin to break the habit
of going into that state. Over time, you relate with more kindness and
restraint. You try not to go into it. You can also look at it later, when
you can see it more clearly.” Taraniya admits, “It’s not easy. It takes
many years to begin to get it.” However, the benefits are worth it, she
says, “We feel it in loving and receiving ourselves completely.”
Taraniya says the course format will consist of meditation and Buddhist
teaching, with “lots of time for questions and answers.” Attention will
be given to fine-tuning meditation practice, which will be approached
from a feeling level. Participants will explore the question, “What is
the experience of being here right now?”
Taraniya extends an invitation to all of us. “Come on,” she says, “get
your feet wet. I have this view, New Yorkers have an uncanny ability to
do this practice!”
