Transforming Anxiety
From a Gesture of Balance - A guide to Awareness, Self-healing,
and Meditation.
By utilizing the penetrative quality of direct awareness
we can become sensitive to our emotions before they arise
and thus begin to break our habit patterns and our attachment
to them.
Awareness is always accessible within ourselves, within
our energy. But when we are distracted or emotionally entangled,
we may have no idea what is actually happening in ourselves.
Everything may seem very dream-like, and we may find ourselves
going from one conversation or activity to another, moody
and anxious, or possibly with a false sense of spontaneity
and freedom. At other times we find ourselves thinking concurrent
'problems' inadequacies, hesitations, self-deceptions, fears,
infatuations, and guilts our energies so caught up in a variety
of emotional entanglements that we feel confused, worn out,
tense, and anxious. By working with these emotions in our
meditation, we can learn to free ourselves from their influence.
Emotions may not have eyes, mouths or stomachs, but they
can still suck our energies, hypnotize us, and destroy our
natural state of balance. Emotions have the power to lure
us into an artificial realm of sensation that is able to
gain control of our positive energies. People seem to need
emotions, like they need salt for food. But emotions are
dangerous and unstable, for what begins as pleasure, often
ends up as pain. And when we are in the midst of an emotional
situation, we can be blinded by the dynamics of the situation
so that our perceptions and perspectives are no longer clear.
One of the most difficult emotions to handle is anxiety.
On the surface anxiety may not be seem that great a problem,
but as far as our human consciousness is concerned, it can
disturb our meditative openness to the point where we completely
lose our balance. We let positive opportunities slip away
through loss of awareness; anxiety pushes and divides us,
creating separateness, confusion, and dissatisfaction. And
when we are not mindful of our anxiety it becomes increasingly
hard to control.
Needing can be very demanding. We continually feel the need
for what can satisfy me . . . my ego, my mind, my feelings,
my senses. Our lack of confidence causes us to feel the need
for support or stimulation by friends, intellectual perceptions,
or material objects. When we do not receive this contact,
we can sometimes feel so alone and without support, that
anxiety drains all the energy from our bodies. Once our energy
is gone, we feel empty, depressed, and even despairing.
It seems that the only way we know how to search for satisfaction
or self-fulfilment is through endless craving. Although we
sometimes manage to temporarily satisfy our desires, the
satisfaction usually lasts only a short time, and we are
left with disappointment that leads to even more anxiety.
Most human beings run on anxiety. Craving and grasping are
like a candle, and anxiety is the flame. One word for this
continual frustration is samsara, which means that we are
dissatisfied and unhappy because we can seldom get what we
want. We are continually seeking moving toward what is outside
ourselves. When we lack confidence in ourselves, our lives
often go on, day after day, having little meaning or value.
Eventually we realize that we cannot afford to spend our
entire lives on a seesaw of pleasure and pain, and that true
fulfilment comes by giving up our grasping and finding contentment
within ourselves.
No matter how our lives may seem on the surface, problems
always exist at deeper, subtler levels of consciousness.
There are various methods we can use to bring them to the
surface; but as soon as we think we have solved one problem,
more frustrations or dissatisfactions set in. It is like
digging in sand on the beach as soon as we remove a handful
of water, more water seeps in. So, we just continue to get
trapped in an endless progression of problems, temporary
solutions, and more problems. We can relieve some of the
surface tension by emotional outbursts and once these are
over, we may even feel a little lighter or more relaxed.
But this is like shifting weight from one place to another;
the problem still remains, even though we may wishfully sense
a change for the better. Because the underlying causes have
not been resolved, the same problems or patterns continue
to occur.
We may decide to fight these negative forces, but fighting
often just perpetuates the negative energies and further
alienates us from ourselves. It seem that the more we fight
our negativity, the stronger it becomes.
So we somehow need to find a positive approach to deal with
our problems. But first we need to understand that consciousness
is only a collection of habit patterns. No matter how fixed
or persistent they may seem, the patterns are not solid or
substantial we can change and rearrange them. Negative reactions
create forces which form a pattern; but this pattern can
be broken. Once we understand the way habit patterns operate
within the mind, and once the process of awakening awareness
begins, then awareness penetrates and transforms our problems
and obstacles. When we are mindful, instead of getting lost
in conflict and indulging ourselves in misery, self-condemnation,
or self-indulgent melancholy, we can quickly and easily see
through our difficulties and transmute negative energy into
positive energy. This takes some practice, but when we use
intrinsic awareness to learn to see and quickly change destructive
situations, our problems clear up, and peace and light begin
to grow within us.
When problems arise in meditation or in daily life, when
we are overly emotional or trapped in a pattern of behaviour
which causes us to suffer, that is the time to practice openness
and balance, and to awaken mindfulness. For example, when
we are extremely sad or angry, if we concentrate properly
on the emotion, looking at it intensely from above and below,
and then facing it directly, it can actually disappear because
we see that it is really 'nothing'. With practice, we can
quickly balance a depressing or frustrating situation by
switching the mind back and forth making it happy, making
it sad, making it happy again all the time watching what
is happening inside ourselves. First, we can do something
positive, then something negative. One time, switch the mind
to depression and really cry. Then, immediately switch to
laughter. What, really, are these emotions? Why should I
be controlled by these emotions? Why should I be controlled
by these transitory mental states? This exercise may seem
almost schizophrenic, but as we work on it we discover that
an important change takes place within our consciousness
and in the way we look at ourselves and the world. Sadness
is not so serious and happiness is not so frivolous.
Life is moving and changing much faster than even a few
years ago. Many exciting and fascinating things are happening
every day it is all a very beautiful dance, and every situation,
every activity, and every thought has its place in our practice.
Each experience can teach us how foolish it is to be so dramatic
and serious and that even our difficulties can be transcended,
for nothing is permanent.
Yet at the same time, this realization is not easy to put
into practice. We are so tied up in negative patterns that
we may even be strengthening our negative emotions without
knowing we are doing so. When we are unaware, when we are
sad, depressed, or unhappy, we are like bees trapped in a
jar they buzz around in restless patterns, with no way of
escape. Yet we are not completely trapped. Our emotional
problems and negative attitudes are in one way part of our
learning process.
By means of awareness we can become sensitive to our emotions
as they arise and thus begin to break our emotional patterns
and our attachments to them. The more our awareness increases,
the more time we have for positive action; three weeks for
the person who is aware are the same as three months for
the person who is not. When we remind ourselves to keep our
bodies and minds in harmony with our awareness, we become
familiar with every change in our thoughts and moods; and
we can remember to bring our awareness immediately into the
midst of any situation that could disturb our balance. This
practice is like learning to swim; once we learn the first
strokes, with practice we will gradually be able to swim
not just for five or ten minutes, but for as long as we like.
Similarly, we can develop continuous meditation if we sustain
an open attitude in whatever activities we are involved.
Because anxiety causes, consciously or unconsciously, many
of our problems, it is important to deal with it as soon
as it arises. The best antidote to anxiety is meditation.
When we learn to control the emotions through meditation,
we become less burdened by our problems; our bodies and minds
become very still, and anxiety then starts to dissolve in
calm relaxation and quiet. We can then begin to work with
our problems directly, for we no longer feel the need to
escape them. Our tenseness and blockages naturally ease.
Thus, we are no longer caught in a cycle of craving and anxiety,
and we can enjoy living in our bodies and minds. This is
the first stage of meditation.
| Authors
Details: Transforming Anxiety - Tarthang Tulku
Unknown Web Site |
Spiritual.com.au Editors Note: Anxiety
can be handled by understanding and mastering how your thoughts
and emotions work. Anxiety comes from a pattern of thought.
The emotion and the subsequent physical symptoms come from
what you are thinking. There are many articles on this subject
in the 'Aymen's
Articles' Section.
I have also written a book about this http://www.KeyToLife.info
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