Aversion and Sadness

 Yesterday's meditation brought up for me two underlying emotions:  scared and sad.  

Van Gogh Prisoners Exercising (Prisoners Round), 1890

I'm sad about my relationship with my kids.  Maybe the relationship with Henry is starting to get better.  But it's distant.... I text once a week, get a reply 24-48 hours later.  I'm not "needed." And Charlotte is a constant mental burr.  I write 4x (or more) texts than she replies to.  She ignores requests to walk.  She ignores most everything.  She does text when I can act as a gofer for something.  For both kids, there's no movement towards any kind of normal relationship... stopping by for dinner, let's say.  And Charlotte is 16.  When I'm laying in bed awake, it's this that I think about. (Later in the day, the NYT reposted this article on estrangement in families.). Overall, it's sadness...  slowly simmering on the stove all day, behind everything else.

And there's apprehensive... scared.  I'm averse from many things at work.  Many tasks are intimidating (on a low level).  Many tasks I'd prefer not to.  Often this can feel like boredom or "I don't want to do that" or "I don't have the energy to do that..."  But underneath, there's aversion... and yesterday, I felt that it might involve being scared.  

I relistened to Joseph Goldstein's "Insight Hour" podcast #90: Aversion and Fear and learned that Aversion is one of Buddhism's "3 unwholesome roots." So, it's an important subject!

Goldstein says that aversion, hatred, discouragement, frustration, irritation, ill-will, irritation (all of these things) are rooted in more intense feelings like malice and hatred.

He shares that Carl Jung says we need to make darkness conscious.  This is the only way for improvement even those most people find the task disagreeable and unpopular.  To become more free, we need to illuminate the shadow side of mind

Goldstein says that we need to ask two questions: 1. What are the conditions that cause aversion to arise? 2. What are the conditions for removal of aversion.

What causes Aversion to arise?

We have a conditioned reaction to unpleasant things. We become averse to uncomfortable things.  This can manifest in us as dislike, or contraction, or impatience.

Also, strangely, we can have a similar reaction to the thought of things.  Goldstein cites a monk saying, "The thought of your mother is not your mother."  He asks us to observe how thoughts can cause emotion.  We can also project on others (especially when we’re tired).  Aversion also arises when we personalize situations (flight cancelled, traffic).

In the simplest terms, aversion arises when we don’t get what we want.  Goldstein gives us this image of frustrated desire, a young kid screaming “I hate you."  He says that we’ve muted the cry, as adults, but mindset is the same.  

Seen in this way, aversion is an unskillful (unwise, childish?) response to our environment.  It suggests that we will throw a fit (in some level) unless the environment provides us exactly what we want.

Conditions for removal

1. Being mindful of aversion, open to it as an arisen mindstate.  We should keep noting it until it goes away (note it 20X? 100x?).  “Noting," according to Goldstein, is poking tiny holes until the whole thing disperses.  It's freeing to remember that, sooner or later, that mindset will change.  Nothing remains the same.

2. If aversion persists, bring in quality of investigation,   

        First, check accuracy of noting.  Can you be more precise?

        Ask yourself. How am I getting hooked by this anger?   Investigate your relationship to anger.  This, at least, breaks you from your mind loop.

3. There’s a range of skillful responses to anger depending on what’s the one that’s right for your specific conditioning.   Thich Nhat Hahn says take care of your anger;  For other types of people,   just saying no, this thinking is a dead end.

It's worth thinking about what associated emotions are underneath the anger? Self righteousness? Fear? Hurt?  Identifying these might unlock the pattern.  

Use wise reflection.  Ask, am I seduced by the anger?  Anger, Goldstein quotes a monk, has a poisoned root and honey tip.  

Finally, ask yourself, what good will it do to hold on to it?  Who is it that’s suffering?  Holding onto anger is like holding on to hot coal.  Goldstein cites another monk saying, those who harbor these thoughts (he abused me, he robbed me..) do not still the hatred.  

The key point to this is that Hatred, annoyance, etc. is our own responsibility.  

* * *

And that thought -- that our emotions are our own responsibility -- is important.    It suggests that our emotions aren't something to TAME, but to investigate for further self-knowledge.  Nor is it "just an example of my personality coming out.   (And, in fact, taming might be a form of ignoring important elements of things that might be getting in the way of your freedom and happiness.). And it suggests that ALL emotions (hatred, but also excitement, bliss) are our own responsibility.  It's up to us to know what puts us in more pleasant states.  This (emotions are our responsibility) seems like a key idea in mindfulness.