Mindfulness Of Feelings

This is a guided meditation on Mindfulness of Feelings, one of the 'Four Foundations of Mindfulness' from the Insight Meditation tradition. I give you an overview of what feelings are according to Buddhist wisdom, and then I lead you through a guided meditation on working with emotional states; pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. This ends with a short story on how this technique has helped me in letting go of attachment to feelings and thus reducing suffering for myself and others around me.

Transcript

So hello and welcome to this meditation on mindfulness of feelings or Vedana as it's called in the Pali language which was the language at the time of the Buddha two and a half thousand years ago in India. So I have put as a prerequisite to this meditation the two previous meditations mindfulness of body and mindfulness of thoughts. So this is a series which is the four foundations of mindfulness which is basically the foundational teaching of vipassana or insight meditation from the Buddhist tradition. The name of the teaching on the four foundations of mindfulness in the Pali language is the Satipatthana Sutta. So sutta or sutra means thread or a teaching and sati is translated as to recollect or to bear in mind or to remember and then patana translates as setting forth or putting forward something like the origin or starting point. So the Satipatthana Sutta is to recollect the origin or the starting point of our insight meditation practice. So our vipassana meditation practice which gives us insight into the true nature of mind body and emotions. So in the order that I've laid them out here we have the first one mindfulness of body which is kaya in the Pali language. We have mindfulness of mind or thoughts which is chitta in the Pali language. We have mindfulness of feelings or sensations which is this meditation which is vedana in the Pali language and then we have mindfulness of mind objects or really it's like phenomena so mindfulness of all of the phenomena of life which is dhammas in the Pali language. So for this mindfulness of feelings guided meditation first I'd like to invite you to take your meditation position ideally seated cross-legged with a straight back not leaning against anything you may want to sit on a cushion that helps you have a straight back or you may want to sit on a chair place your feet firmly on the ground see if you can have a straight back also in the chair and not be leaning against the chair and place your hands in your lap so left palm in right and just finding your comfortable position first taking a few breaths noticing the rhythm of your breathing noticing the in-breath sensations of the breath coming in noticing the out-breath noticing if your body is tense or relaxed right now noticing the heaviness of your body on the ground or on the chair feeling the support of the ground chair and then before we start our guided section of this meditation I just want you to take an inhale deep breath in and scrunch your shoulders up to just below your ears hold for one two three four five and release one more deep breath in scrunch your shoulders up to below the ears hold for one two three four five and release and one more deep breath in hold for one two three four five and release just noticing the difference in your shoulder area from before and after from those shoulder scrunches so now bringing your attention back to the tip of the nose in breath and outbreath in breath and outbreath so this is going to be your anchor for this practice if you find your mind wandering at any point just come back to noticing the sensation of the air as it comes in the nostrils and as it leaves again so let's start out this meditation on mindfulness of feelings by just investigating what feelings are so Buddhism understands that all of the information that arrives to us in our human bodies comes from the six sense stores so these are the eyes that give us vision the ears through which we hear sound the nose through which we smell odors the tongue through which we experience taste the body through which we experience touch and the mind through which we experience thoughts so these are our six sense bases from which information comes to us and feelings can come from any of these six senses so we see something something beautiful for example that we like beautiful flower and this gives us a pleasant sensation because it's beautiful we might also smell the flower we might also touch the flower and that's three of our senses that are engaged with this beautiful flower and then as a result of this the information coming to us we have a pleasant feeling so in the same way we might experience something that is unpleasant so perhaps through touch if we if somebody pinches us our skin or if somebody hurts us by hitting us then this is information coming through the sense of touch which is unpleasant not a nice feeling then we can also have feelings which like compassionate empathetic feelings for other people so if we receive some information through our six sense stores we see for example a homeless person who may be suffering in that moment they may look cold or hungry or lonely this is information that's coming again through our six sense stores getting processed in our mind in our consciousness and then we're feeling feelings that result from this which might be anything from sadness for this person might be a level of grief it might also be a feeling of anger at a society that we live in that permits people to live in this way so all of this information again is coming through our sense stores to us and we're processing it in our consciousness in this case unpleasant sensations unpleasant feelings and then we also have a third category of feelings so we have pleasant feelings we have unpleasant feelings and then we also have neutral feelings so we might see hear touch or taste something that gives us just a neutral sensation or a neutral feeling for example a person that you don't especially connect with you don't particularly like them or you don't dislike them in your interactions with them through the words that they say through the way that they look through perhaps the way they smell the impression that you receive is just an impression of neutral you could take it or leave it you can take them or leave them so this is our third feeling state unpleasant pleasant and neutral so the thing that we notice about all of our feelings if we look at these examples that I've given is that they're all transitory so they're all arising and passing away all of the time based on our sense impressions so based on the information that's coming to us through our six sense doors so something beautiful we notice pleasant sensation arises stays for some time and then passes away something ugly or difficult for us to see painful arises stays for some time and then passes away again also with the neutral sensation something we don't particularly like or dislike we interact with that whether it's a thing or a person or an experience it stays for some time and then it passes away so just as our thoughts are constantly arising and passing away our feelings also are constantly arising and passing away so if we find that we reaching after pleasant feelings wanting to hold on to a pleasant feeling we find that we are unable to so for example if you think of something like eating a beautiful ice cream a beautiful tasty gelato ice cream of your favorite flavor it's so pleasant that you want it to last forever but you know even in the moment that you're tasting that ice cream that it's going to end it's transitory so if you find yourself grasping onto this pleasant sensation of this taste of this ice cream you might then buy another ice cream but again even though you've you've lengthened a little bit your pleasant sensation it's still ending and the same thing goes for more difficult or unpleasant feelings with the homeless person in the street we feel a sadness anger whatever other feelings are arising we might feel compelled to do something to help them give them something but then we will pass on and continue with our day and we all likely forget in a few hours about this unpleasant feeling that we experienced so from this we can see that it's neither wise to try and hold on to our pleasant feelings nor is it wise to be attached to our unpleasant feelings to let those sensations remain in our mind space for a long time it's also not beneficial for us so for example with the homeless person if we let this sadness or this grief that we experience stay with us for the whole day or the whole week this is only going to be causing us more suffering and sadness and it's not going to be changing in any way the reality of the lived experience of that person so with that in mind I'm going to ask you now to bring up in your consciousness a time when you experienced so from memory from a time from the past see if you can access a memory from a time where you experience really intense joy might have been something you achieved you might have finished some long project or a university degree you might have got married you might have had a child you might have been on a very exciting adventure you might have reached a summit of a mountain you might have learnt or mastered a new skill so bring to mind this this thrilling feeling of joy that you experienced at this time see if you can remember what the physical sensations in your body were you might have had tingling in your fingers you might have had nervousness in your stomach might have had kind of an opening feeling in the heart you might have had a lump in your throat you're so excited you might have been crying it was so emotional this joy for you so bring up see if you can refill those feelings and those sensations and remembering that experience of joy just asking yourself is there anything about that sensation that feeling of joy that is really particularly personal to you can you really call that that joy feeling my joy or is it something perhaps that you can understand that many people have this same feeling when they experience a joyful moment in their lives is it more of a universal feeling this joy this elation this excitement this bubbling over emotion so looking at it this way we can see this feeling as just a feeling so the feeling of joy arose in my past thanks to a particular experience thanks to the contact from the six sense doors with that particular experience I experienced the sensation of joy and the physical physiological sensations were I had an open heart I had tingling in my fingers my blood was rushing more quickly around my body I felt uplifted somehow this was the sensation of joy in the past for me now if you can bring up in your mind's eye an unpleasant experience so might be ideally not something really big not like a death of someone not anything that's going to be traumatic for you to think about could be something like falling over breaking a bone having an accident could be a fight that you had with a friend which was unpleasant difficult you had feelings of anger or sadness or grief could even be a sensation of eating something of a very with a very unpleasant taste that you reacted you had a strong reaction to of dislike it could be an odor a very disgusting smelly odor gave you a strong feeling of unpleasantness so bring this memory to mind now and see if you're able to re-experience those sensations unpleasant sensations unpleasant feelings see if you're able to name them what were these what were these unpleasant feelings was it sadness was it anger was it disgust perhaps if it's a very smelly odor or an awful taste was it grief was it physical pain bodily pain of falling over so a sharp bodily pain it's bringing this to mind and again remembering where these sensations arose in your body what was it like what did this disgust feel like was it a contracting in the throat was it a contracting of the shoulders was it a screwing up of your face what did this sadness feel like was it a like a heavy stone in the bottom of your stomach it's like a contracting of the heart what did physical pain feel like see if you can re-experience these feelings and then asking yourself again is this is there anything about this unpleasant feeling that is particular to me that is really mine do I have any ownership of this feeling or is it perhaps a feeling that I know is universal that many thousands and millions of people have felt before me and then asking yourself how long this feeling lasted how long did the actual physical sensations last and then how long did the imprint the mental imprint affect you at that time and also bringing to mind if there was a desire to get away from this painful feeling or sensation at that time in the past was there a desire to shorten that experience so just like with a pleasant sensation there may have been a desire to lengthen that feeling with the unpleasant you may have had the desire to shorten to get away from it to stop it but again knowing that you don't have this power that sensation is arising it's staying for the period of time that it stays and then it passes away and if you are pushing it away and not able to really experience that feeling in that moment it will actually be more likely to stay to linger on longer because that feeling somehow wants to be felt and now bring you to mind letting go of the unpleasant memory bring you to mind a situation where you felt just a neutral feeling so it might have been a meal that you ate that you didn't especially like or dislike just neutral was just food feeling your need to eat to satisfy hunger or it might have been a person also that you did not have a particular reaction to didn't have a strongest like or a strong like they're just a person no special feeling might have been a smell again that you didn't have any kind of strong reaction to so just bringing this to mind neutral feelings what these feel like in your body was a bodily sensation like what is the feeling of indifference like physiologically is there a tightness or a looseness in the body is there an allowing or a pushing away of that sensation is there a spaciousness or is there contraction and is this neutral feeling particular to me or two is it particular to you can you call this neutral feeling me mine or is that feeling perhaps something that you recognize that millions of other people would have felt the same at various times in their lives and letting go of our neutral feeling so we can see that these three kinds of feelings the pleasant feelings happiness joy elation success the unpleasant feelings like sadness anger frustration grief loss physical pain and the neutral feelings just of indifference not elated not stricken with any kind of anger or sadness or grief just indifferent noticing that all of these feelings are not you so they're not personal to you noticing that they are arising and passing away all of the time and noticing that no matter how hard we try and prolong the pleasant feelings or we try and avoid or get away from the unpleasant feelings we don't really have that much control over them what we do have control over is our reaction to these feelings so we can recognize that I am experiencing a pleasant feeling we can enjoy that pleasant feeling we can enjoy that ice cream without reaching without craving to make that ice cream experience last longer than it is meant to last because we have mindfulness we recognize that it's arising we're experiencing that delicious taste that delicious sensation and then it'll pass away and we can enjoy it in that moment without clinging without grabbing without craving and in just the same way if we're experiencing unpleasant sensations pain physical emotional or mental pain we can recognize also that this is temporary it will pass away we don't need to forcefully try and push it away we can experiencing we can experience that sensation that feeling we can allow it knowing that it too is passing away so in this way we are not creating a version to our unpleasant feelings we're allowing the unpleasant feelings so that they can be and give us whatever information they need and then pass away when we can fully feel them then they're less likely to create long-term imprints of unpleasantness in our consciousness because we've felt them in the moment and let them go so with mindfulness of feelings we can wisely allow our feelings the space in our consciousness that they require and equally allow them to pass away we can be non attached we can recognize that these pleasant or unpleasant or neutral feelings are not me they're not mine they're just sensations that present themselves physiologically in all these different ways give me this information I need and then pass away and this way we are not creating any further suffering for ourselves because we're wanting to prolong the pleasant feelings or we're wanting to avoid or get away from the unpleasant feelings so I just want to share a quick story with you about how I managed to create some space around some unpleasant feelings for myself recently and was then able to stop the proliferation or the becoming as the Buddhist term it which is like the flowering of suffering that comes if we are attached to our to our feelings so I had the experience where somebody in the community I live in said something to me which was quite hurtful and unnecessary as I saw it at that time and right in the moment when this hurtful thing was said I did experience quite some pain emotional pain and I was hurt in that moment I responded in what I hoped was an appropriate way by not hurting her back by just expressing my my feelings my in reaction to what she'd said but then in the following days I noticed a very strong ongoing feeling of anger towards this person for this speech that she had for what she had said to me so this anger in me wanted to hurt her back in some way unconsciously consciously my feeling was I need to tell her that she's done something wrong that what she said was inappropriate that she shouldn't do this again I need to explain why and as you can imagine I had a big long letter that I needed to write her about this incident and I actually did write this letter and I wrote probably two different versions over a couple of days and I sat with this feeling of anger which was still present and there were some days where I was almost to the point of giving her this letter because I felt that she deserved it because of her really unkind unpleasant speech towards me I had this feeling that she needed to know that its effect on me but I just waited I waited I waited more days I didn't give her the letter and then eventually after about seven days this anger in me had dissipated I understood that if I was to give her the letter I would actually just be further proliferating this anger this anger and this pain would flower in my life more so rather than reducing the angry feeling and the pain and the also some sadness this would have flowered and I saw that it would not have really changed anything in the way this person behaves she behaves the way she behaves because of her past conditioning and it doesn't really have anything to do with me so anything that I do or say to her is not necessarily going to make her change her behavior but it might actually increase my own suffering so I managed to eventually not give any letters not speak to her about this because I really saw that it was not something that I would be able to change in her it was it was a part of her character that was just there and being expressed to me and I could choose to recognize this that it's her character and not take a personally and let go of that anger and perhaps learn from this experience a ways to better react in the future should she say the same thing again so this was a very interesting experience for me because I noticed I was really able to notice the surge the wanting to proliferate the anger and I was able to stop it so this is what this practice of mindfulness of feelings will give you if you can really consciously practice with watching your feeling states arising so unpleasant and pleasant and neutral and detaching from them seeing that they're not personal slowly slowly you'll be able to reduce the suffering that comes from attaching to these feelings the suffering that comes from the all of the stories that can be born of these attachment to these feelings so coming to the end of our meditation it's coming back to noticing the breath in breath out breath in breath noticing sensations of the air and the nostrils coming in notice the temperature out breath the same noticing the sensations noticing the temperature noticing if you have any particular feeling present in your consciousness right now is there any pleasant feelings or unpleasant feelings or is it more of a neutral state so this practice also noticing physiologically what happens when you're experiencing a feeling will help you to detach from that feeling to take it less personally when you're actually experiencing a really strong feeling so see if you can remind yourself to be present in your body to notice the tingles in your fingers to notice the blood circulating to notice the tightness in the belly to notice the constriction maybe in the throat notice all of these physical sensations in the moment that they're happening and tell yourself right now I'm experiencing whatever it is feeling see if you can name the feeling and see if this has a change can affect a change in the way you relate with your feelings giving you more space between the feeling and the one who is feeling the feelings thank you for listening many blessings and wishing you a wonderful day morning or evening wherever you are right now

Reviews

Very mellow. Part talk, part meditation, all nice.