Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

As a seeker of a spiritual path one may have begun a meditation practice, maybe one has already practiced for several years. At the beginning, meditation has the aim to calm down the restless state of mind, and as one makes further progress, the practice can expand into a deeper insight. Now, it seems that the tendency to place too much emphasis on being peaceful and without any emotional involvement could even hamper this insight. The following essay by Thrangu Rinpoche — a well-known master of Mahamudra meditation — addresses this very pertinent stumbling block. People who have some familiarity with trying to “find the thinker/knower” during the meditation state will appreciate this excerpt.
Erik Pema Kunsang

Utilizing Emotions
You may have achieved some degree of recognizing your nature during the meditation state, but variations occur—sometimes it is very easy and pleasant, other times we feel strong emotions. You may also encounter various hardships and obstacles such as illness, accidents and social unrest. Sometimes, these may be so overwhelming that one feels swept away and loses the continuity of practice. By applying the teachings on utilizing, instead of being harmed or defeated by difficulty, suffering or mishap, they become helpers to enhance one’s training.
The timing, namely when to apply these practices and how to behave in those situations, includes three specific occasions. The first is when things are going well, we have success, luxuries and enjoy good health, but we become so preoccupied with worldly affairs that we lose interest in practice. Often at such times, we do not feel that it is necessary to practice because everything is fine and so our perseverance and diligence fades away. Another is when we run into difficulties, whether internal or external, physical or emotional, or when our friends or family members are facing major problems. An example of an inner difficulty is a rush of thoughts and selfish emotions, which makes it seem hard to practice. External difficulties are painful situations such as sickness, death and so forth. When meeting difficulties and hardship, sometimes one can feel quite worried and begin to doubt the teachings or it can interrupt one’s practice or weaken one’s resolve, etc. It can sometimes feel like one is unable to continue the practice because of these problems, but unpleasant situations can also be used to progress. The third occasion is a situation that is neither pleasant nor painful, but we are still unable to progress due to latent thought patterns. During such times, it is necessary to employ the practices known as utilizing.
To begin with, we should again clarify the difference between thoughts and emotions. Remember emotions are thoughts—strong, blatant thoughts that occupy our attention. The Tibetan word has a connotation of disturbing, being harmful toward others. The five negative emotions are attachment, anger, dullness, pride and envy. Thoughts, on the other hand, merely disturb the serenity of mind, disrupting the state of samadhi.
Whether you are training in the meditation state or whether you are involved in any other kind of spiritual activity, virtuous deeds, or are just being as you are, taking it easy, sometimes thoughts become too forceful, you cannot help it and you get caught up in your emotional patterns and do not really know what to do. Whenever one of the negative emotions occurs in your mind is the time for utilizing the situation to develop the strength of samadhi.
Just as in the case of thoughts, emotions arise whether you like it or not. An ordinary person, who does not have a spiritual practice, usually regards getting involved in emotions as a good quality, as something valid to do. Hinayana practitioners are afraid of any involvement in emotions and try to avoid them. A Vajrayana practitioner, especially one training in the practice of Mahamudra, is neither supposed to regard getting engrossed in emotions as an admirable quality, nor to regard an emotion as a terrible obstacle. Instead, without getting involved—trying to avoid them or being overcome by them—we should simply look into the nature of the emotion. Even though an emotion seems very strong, like a water bubble which can be enormous and appear solid, when we look inside there is nothing. When we discover the empty nature of our emotional states, the emotion is self-liberated; it naturally dissolves. We call this taking emotions as the path or utilizing emotions.
How do we deal with these negative emotions when they arise? Sometimes we can get so angry that we cannot control ourselves. Is it a matter of accepting the emotion and going along with it, expressing it? No, that will not help. Nor do we have to change one emotional state into another. Nor, at this point, should we resort to analyzing intellectually what an emotion is, where it comes from and then proceed to form a logical conclusion that emotions are empty. Instead of theorizing, we should simply look into what the emotion actually is. When we look into anger itself, where it comes from, not intellectually but experientially, we find that there is actually no ‘thing’ that is angry. No emotion ever actually arose. In addition, as we see that it is utterly devoid of any real substance, this seeming emotion is also seen to be harmless and vanishes all by itself, without causing any damage and without any extra effort on our part. Utilizing emotions, therefore, means allowing them naturally to dissolve by simply discovering that they have no concrete identity.
Let me use the quote from Ratna Lingpa once more: “The essence of your angry mind is clear awareness.” When furious, one feels very alive and vibrant—really present. But if you look into its identity, it is empty all by itself, as he said, “Bright and empty the moment you recognize it.” Look into what is angry, where it comes from, where it stays, what it is made out of, what actually performs this act of anger, etc. and you find no thing whatsoever. As there is nothing to find, this anger too is empty. This is not only true for anger but for all the other negative emotions as well—attachment, jealousy, pride, and the rest. Luckily, emotions by nature have no concrete existence; they simply vanish when we notice that their identity is empty. If one merely follows the pattern of the emotions, then, as the Buddha said, they become “poisonous.” By being caught up in the emotion’s energy, things get worse; however, simply look into and recognize that emotions are already devoid of any real existence, and they will vanish of their own accord.
Thoughts and emotions belong to inner obstacles because they are events of a mental nature. Being caught up in thoughts and emotions is one of the main reasons people have worries and problems and why it seems so hard just to be. Rather than continuing like an ordinary person, we can use these instructions to overcome our habitual tendencies to be overwhelmed by thoughts and emotions.

Excerpt from Crystal Clear, Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 2003. Translator: Erik Pema Kunsang; editor Michael Tweed.

US $18, ISBN 962-7341-51-7 (PBK.)