Hi,
My name is Nya,
And I'm here today to talk to you about the emotion of interest.
Let me tell you a little bit about myself and my background.
I grew up as a biracial child in the 70s and 80s.
I was very sensitive and had strong emotions,
And belonging was often hard for me.
I didn't quite fit in anywhere.
But over time,
Through art and yoga and meditation,
I learned that my emotions were a great source of creativity,
And acknowledgment of them and deep exploration of where these emotions were coming from,
What they meant,
Could be incredibly healing for me.
So I discovered that getting in touch with my emotions without trying to change them,
I could use them as a source of creativity and personal understanding.
And paying attention to my emotions became an incredible healing practice,
And that's what I'm sharing with you.
The idea of looking at emotions,
What they mean,
Without judgment or shame.
My exploration of my emotions and the emotions across many wisdom traditions led me to make an e-book and a set of cards called the Emotional Wisdom Deck.
I've explored emotions through journaling,
Meditation,
Writing,
Art,
And I have notes in my sketchbooks and journals dating back to the late 80s.
Clarissa Pencole-Estes,
One of my favorite authors,
Writes that late bloomers are the most beautiful flowers in the garden.
I'm in my mid-50s now,
And I'm just picking out some of my dreams that I left behind in my teens and 20s.
And this series of talks and meditations is part of that journey.
Each one of the talks or meditations that I'll be offering explores a single emotion,
And the object is not to master it,
As in the Rasa Sadhanas in yoga.
I'm not offering mastery.
I'm offering opening a space to listen.
I don't think of emotions anymore as problems to solve.
I consider them inner guides,
And as we explore them,
We can move towards wholeness.
I'm starting these talks with the emotion interest,
Which is not an emotion that a lot of people think of first.
Usually emotions are love and hate,
Anger.
Those are the ones that we tend to move towards or away from,
But I think interest is really helpful.
Interest is an emotion that drives us to pay attention,
And across many wisdom traditions,
Interest is the lifeblood of inquiry,
Reverence,
And devotion.
It is the sacred attentiveness that draws us deeper into the mystery of existence.
I think of interest as focusing my gaze,
Sharpening my perception,
And opening a path to understanding.
Our interests,
All of our interests,
Reflect our values and our longings.
The act of paying attention is intimate,
Revealing,
And can be transformative.
When we're truly interested in something or someone,
We offer focused,
Sustained awareness.
That sounds like meditation,
No?
Focused,
Sustained awareness.
So let me break this down across some wisdom traditions,
And I think it's helpful to look at what the sages,
The wise ones,
Felt about interest.
In early Buddhist teachings,
There's this idea of chanda,
And it can be translated as intention or interest or desire to act.
It is one of the five object-determining mental factors.
It's really vital in the cultivation of positive mental states,
And particularly in the context of spiritual practice.
Chanda is the initial spark of motivation,
The eagerness to engage and move toward a desired outcome.
It's the act of saying yes to whatever is focused upon.
There's a text in the Kashmir Shaivite tradition,
It's called the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra,
And it guides the seeker to become fully absorbed in simple acts.
I love that,
To be fully absorbed in simple acts.
And these could be things like gazing at the sky,
Listening to music,
Or tasting food.
These experiences are approached with cultivated attentiveness,
A reverent curiosity that becomes the gateway to divine awareness.
You can think of interest here as sacred presence.
If we go to a different tradition,
Taoism,
The Tao Te Ching invites us to see the great and the small.
Interest is about alignment with the world.
The Taoist principle of the wu-wei,
Effortless action,
Relies on deep attunement to the rhythms of nature.
It's where one listens,
Watches,
And moves in harmony with it.
So you can think of this interest as a quiet engagement with the hidden harmonies that pulse beneath the visible.
If we move towards Western Europe and the Celts,
Celtic spiritual traditions honor sacred awareness through the practice of threshold places.
And what are these threshold places?
They're locations between the worlds where attention could pierce the veil between the visible and the invisible.
And these threshold places include holy wells,
Standing stones,
And there are times of year like solstice,
Where practitioners would enter in what is called the thin place.
And I'm reminded a bit of Outlander if you've seen it or read the books.
And this thin place is a focused state where ordinary awareness gives way to deeper perception.
The Celtic prayers remind us that the eye that sees the visible must be closed so that the eye that sees the invisible may open.
And I love that.
I'm going to say it again.
The eye that sees the visible must be closed so that the eye that sees the invisible may open.
So now I'll move to Polynesia.
Polynesian navigators had these extraordinary powers or attunements.
Extraordinary attunements to nature's subtle cues.
Traditional Polynesian wayfarers could cross thousands of miles of open ocean without instruments like compasses.
They were guided by reading the stars,
The currents,
Winds,
And wildlife patterns.
And there's a navigator,
Ninoa Thompson.
He talks about the state.
The state of being so present that the ocean speaks directly to you.
He talks about the navigator having this kind of attentiveness that receives information from all the senses simultaneously.
It's quite amazing.
And then if we go to Africa,
To West Africa,
And the Yoruba Ifa tradition can think about interest as a sacred engagement with mystery.
The Baba Lao,
The traditional diviner,
Reads patterns on coconut shells and palm nuts or on kauri shells.
And they do this by paying profound attention.
Their interest is devotional.
It's about alignment.
Alignment with the inner head or soul's destiny.
And this interest is not about mastering the world,
But about listening deeply to the earth's spiritual architecture.
So what I find really fascinating and I want to share with you is that across these wisdom traditions,
We were with the Celts,
We were with the Yoruba,
Polynesians,
Taoists,
Chaivites,
Buddhists.
Interest is a sacred emotion.
And it's a sacred emotion that opens us to complexity,
Depth,
And transformation.
It's focused.
It's enduring.
And it requires patience.
You know,
There's time built into interest.
But also a humility and definitely a presence.
I really believe the cultivation of interest is a radical act.
Because when you cultivate it,
You have to resist distraction and really care deeply.
And you do this by looking again and again and again.
I hope you were able to find some meaning for yourself in this talk.
And come back tomorrow and we'll do a practice about interest.
I think it's really helpful to not only listen to a lecture,
But also experience interest in an embodied practice.
So take care and many blessings.
Stay interested,
Everyone.
