“Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.”
Pema Chodron”
We've been talking about a couple of ways of investigating our emotions and the impact they have on our peace of mind and balance in life.
On the one hand we can look for the "I" on whose behalf emotions arise. If we take a feeling like sadness, for example, we begin by wondering "Who or what is hurt or upset when I'm feeling sad?" We look to Awareness first and find that it is simply aware of thoughts, emotions, sensations and perceptions as they arise. It is empty of an objective "I" that is hurt or upset. We look to thoughts and sensations and find they they themselves cannot be hurt or upset, so again we find no objective "I" that is hurt or upset. Naturally, then, when this "phantom" self is seen for what it is, the emotions that arise on its behalf have no real function and can dissipate on their own.
On the other hand we can look directly at the emotions themselves as they appear. We quickly notice that they are made of thoughts and sensations that are"velcro-ed" together. The thoughts take the form of the story of "I am sad or upset because of . . . " If we unhook the story from the sensations and remove it or set it aside, just the physical sensations remain. Then, remembering that sensations come and go and since they are no longer supporting a story of hurt or upset, they dissipate naturally. And, what of the story that was created? Returning to the story, we see it is a network of thoughts, beliefs, opinions and assumptions that also come and go. When untethered from the physical sensations and unpacked from each other they also dissipate naturally.
The good news is that there is an "I" that is always present, just covered over when emotions are present -- that "I" is our Awareness and Knowing of experience -- it is the "I" that is our True Being - Our essential Self. We can rest in the awareness.