Seeing into the True Nature of Emotions #1
by Lama Gendun Rinpoche

The text on which the teaching is based is a work by Chagme Rinpoche, a learned and experienced lama of the 17th Century.

"We are always ready to let our mind be taken over by these emotional states. But when it comes to actually experiencing the suffering that results, we are less enthusiastic."
Those who practice the vajrayana, the secret tantric teachings, have a sacred commitment not to reject the emotions of attachment, anger, ignorance, pride and jealousy. The reason for this is that if they give them up, they will never be able to discover the wisdom which is intrinsic to them. In abandoning the five poisons, we abandon at the same time any possibility of realizing the five wisdoms, since they will never be found anywhere other than in the emotions.
That is why when we are engaged in tantric practice, we must work with the different objects that give rise to emotional reactions in order to experience the corresponding wisdom. The very objects of attachment, hatred and so forth, become the means to liberation from emotional conflict.
Practically, this means that when one of the five poisons appears in the mind, we have to look directly at its essence until we understand that in fact it has no real existence at all.

What is Emotion?
It is important to be clear about what we mean by the word emotion.
We use the word daily to describe something that can be readily identified, a definite feeling in the mind that is both a reaction and a driving force. In Buddhism however, emotion is much more than that. It is a mental state that starts the instant the mind functions in a dualistic mode, long before the normal person is conscious of it.
Emotion is the habitual clinging that makes us automatically categorize our experiences according to whether our ego finds them attractive (desire), unattractive (anger), or neutral (ignorance). The more clinging there is, the stronger our reactions will be, until we reach a point where they finally break into our conscious mind and manifest as the obvious feelings we usually call emotions.
The above reactions are termed the three poisons, to which are added those of considering our own experience as predominant (pride) and judging our own position in relation to the object perceived (jealousy), to give the five poisons. The word poison is used because these reactions poison our mind and prevent the appearance of its intrinsic wisdom.
In reading the instructions of Chagme Rinpoche as expressed by Lama Gendun, we must therefore be careful to understand each word for the five emotions in their widest possible sense. By not doing so we make it impossible for us to really grasp the full import of the teaching.

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