Oakville Zen Meditation
By tradition, we differentiate our thoughts from our emotions, but Zen is teaching us that they are, quite often, tightly entangled like 2 sides of the same coin. They are our mental twins. Therefore, a vicious circle can build up between our thoughts and emotions, feeding each other back and forth between our subconscious and conscious minds.
Example:
A conscious or subconscious thought such as thinking of a scheduled important presentation could create a magnified reflection of itself in the form of an emotion such as worry, and, in return, the vibrational energy of the created emotion will keep feeding the original thought.
This is the most frequent scenario; however, the reverse also exists when an emotion generates thoughts.
Example:
Sudden guilt often triggers a series of thoughts in the form of questions such as "Why/ whom/ How." Every time the question is posed, the guilt reappears, and the related thoughts come back.
So:
A vicious circle involving our thoughts and emotions may happen since the resulting emotion or thought is repetitively feeding its causal factor.
Can we stop thoughts, emotions, and their entanglement?
Of course not, but we can minimize their frequency and intensity by trying to break
their vicious circle in which each of them energizes, and feeds the other one.
How?
Zen is telling us to watch our thinking and emotions regularly, and then by asking ourselves the following question:
Is my current emotion generated by a thought or my thought by an emotion?
Try to dig in. If you find the link, and the initial causal factor, you can break their vicious circle and stop this auto-feeding.
Pay attention to this culprit in a mindful that is to say no analytic, judgmental, or decisional process.
The entanglement will ease if not disappear.
Breaking this vicious circle and dual feeding is one way among many to enhance our serenity and eventually our Awakening.
Our body is a great proxy of our mental negativities, but this is another subject. Thanks
