Angie and John,

This reminds me of a teaching i was given on the nature of phenomena. Imagine there were an illusionist on a stage who placed a stone on the table in the center of the stage. She says some magic words and a spell comes down over the rock to make it appear like a pile of gold. The people in the audience see the pile, and immediately begin to think thoughts such as “I want the gold, I wish to be rich, I need to be faster and more cunning than the person next to me to get that gold, etc etc.” The magician knows its a rock, but was part of the spell, and so even though she knows it is a rock, it still looks like gold.

For the magician, there is only the cloudy perception, and she knows it is cloudy so she doesn’t have the cravings for the gold. For the audience, there is a cloudy perception and no knowledge of its true nature, so there is craving. The Buddha, or one who is awake, sees the rock.

Said differently, the moment we experience the trauma is the rock. Immediately the mind casts a spell on the rock to make it appear permanent, continuous, gold. That is trauma, this is me. As we practice, we become aware that it is a rock, but it still initiates grasping in the mind because the painful emotions feel “real” or “permanent” or “lasting”. When we have a direct perception of the spellcasting, we see that it is impermanent, empty of qualities of gold-ness. In the Buddha, because there isn’t a view arising in the mind, she or he can listen to the descriptions of the object on the table from whomever, and cast the anti-spell which frees the magician to see the rock directly and the audience to know that the gold is a rock (even though they continue to see gold).

Angie, if you’d like more information, would you be willing to be more specific? Different problems manifest in unique ways, and with a little more information we may be able to help more directly!

John, all things which arise have within them the conditions for their cessation. Said differently, agitation looks like agitation when we are agitated, and luminous potential we are at rest.

With warmth,
Matt

Trixie-Belle,

The answer to your question is the same as the answer for Angie, in that each lock has a certain key. Said differently, it depends on the attachment in question. Otherwise it becomes very general, such as “opening up the space around the emotion” or “sitting meditation” or “metta practice”. The Buddha said that the solution to all suffering is following the 8 fold path, but unless one knows what is absent it is difficult to know what to do, what strings to cut.

Part of cultivating the path of awareness of self is to recognize where you are suffering. It is not pertinent, for instance, to attempt to remove the painful feelings, because painful feelings are only there to make us alert. If we put our hand in the fire, it is good and just to feel pain. That way we know to remove our hand. We only need to let go of the painful emotions that arise from blaming the fire for being hot. Said differently, where are you burned? Where have you been blaming others for your painful feelings? What have you been doing that has left you feeling empty and restless?

I’m not omniscient, nor enlightened, so I can not target without more information present. 🙂 It is like asking someone how to cook better. Cook what? What ingredients? Speaking of that, dinner’s ready… 🙂

With warmth,
Matt