Q2-20000809-Larry_Rosenberg-CIMC-discussion_on_practice-8142 Leandra Tejedor

Talk: 20000809-Larry_Rosenberg-CIMC-discussion_on_practice-8142 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 00: 15:10 Display_question: What about the issue of wanting to experience something emotionally, to work through it as opposed to detaching and observing? Keyword_search: detachment, observing, awareness, mindfulness, participant observation, Japanese teacher-Dogen, awakened mind, intimacy, emotions, meditators, identified Question_content: Questioner: What about the issue of wanting to experience something emotionally, to work through it, as opposed to detaching, and observing. Larry: This practice not about detachment? No, no it's an important term, because it's often thought of as detachment. Observation, or awareness, or mindfulness, is participant observation. Quite different than detachment, where you kind of pull back, which there can be a struggle there, of that which you're looking at, and then that's separate, which is coping with it, or putting up with it, or looking at it from what is perceived to be, a safe angle. Participant observation is quite different. It's opening up to the experience, and allowing the experience to be there, only not getting lost in it. Questioner: Not getting involved in it. Larry: Yeah. Just being aware of it, you're allowing it in. Intimacy is an… intimacy with your experience is, the cutting edge of the practice. In fact, Dogen, a very great Japanese teacher, when asked, what is the awakened mind said, simply to be intimate with all things, starting with yourself. But seems like you're asking something else as well. Intentionally trying to feel certain emotions? Questioner: No, I mean, I'd rather experience the emotion, be in it in a sense, of what's happening. But is it also useful to just detach, and observe your thoughts, in a way that is not… that is not part of the emotion…. Larry: That are not what? Questioner: Where you are not involved in it, but intimate with it too? Larry: Yeah. I can only tell you what my understanding, of this practice. There are many, many things you can do. I'm not saying don't do them. Questioner: Right. Larry: In this practice, it's not about cutting off your emotions, at all. But let's look at it this way. Typically, we all have emotions. Meditators are not… if you're human, you have emotions. And typically, when we have an emotion, especially a strong one, we either deny it, repress it in some form, avoid it, or we get totally lost in it. We drown in it. We're totally identified with it. So, let's say, here would be… over here would be denial, and over here would be getting lost in it, fully. The practice is right in here, in the middle. We allow...we learn how to allow the emotion to be there, and we receive it. I would say that the direction the practice goes in is, to enlarge our capacity, to receive our own experience, and emotions would be an important part of our experience. It's not easy to do, because we tend to identify with emotions much more than, let's say, with a thought or with bodily conditions. Everyone's different. So, in principle, it's not about detaching from, or trying to do anything to, its allowing the emotion to fully tell its story, only you meet it in a rather different way. Questioner: Thank you. End_time: 00:18:25