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    title: 'Guided Meditation: The Emotions of Thoughts'
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  - date: '2022-08-10'
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    speakers:
    - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal
      speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1
    talk_start_time_seconds: 1981
    title: 'Dharmette: Thoughts and Emotions (3 of 5) Thinking''s Emotions'
    url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/16791
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location_city: Redwood City, CA
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  title: 'Guided Meditation: The Emotions of Thoughts; Thoughts and Emotions (3 of
    5) Thinking''s Emotions'
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# Guided Meditation: The Emotions of Thoughts; Dharmette: Thoughts and Emotions (3 of 5) Thinking's Emotions - [Gil Fronsdal](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1)

*This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.*


## [Guided Meditation: The Emotions of Thoughts](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/16790)

Good morning. I find myself unexpectedly kind of quiet and without easy access to words, but they're here. 

So, one of the very interesting things to realize about oneself is that we're not in any fixed way who we are. Who we are is changeable and changing in context and situations. And also, who we are is a question mark. Who are we? Do we really know who we are from day to day, minute to minute, year to year?

To begin, one of the things about some of us is that we might have a place within maybe our thinking, or feeling, or some somatic experience that we most associate with who we are. When that is thinking or when that is emotions—but especially thinking—we might limit ourselves by identifying with ourselves in a particular way, like, "This is who I am." 

For example, I think I said this a couple of days ago, that I find that how I think privately to myself is differently than how I would talk out loud to myself. It's almost like a different part of the brain that's working, and so I'm accessing different things. I speak different languages, and I'm a little different personality, or have a little different connection to different parts of myself depending on the languages I speak. It's almost like a little different self. I've known people who spoke two different languages, and their personality to me was dramatically different in each one.

I'm saying this as we look at our thinking, or are mindful of our thinking, that we have to be very sensitive that we don't overly identify with the thinker, with the way that we're thinking. Because then we might overly believe in, participate in, or be burdened by the particular thoughts that the thinker has, the particular attitudes that come along with our thinking, or the particular emotions that the thinking is part of—the ecology that it's part of.

What I'd like to suggest today is, for those of you who are willing—you can ignore it if you'd like—to spend this meditation period more as an exercise than as a meditation. It's an exercise which maybe won't help you be as calm and centered as you maybe can be in meditation, but you'll learn something about yourself that will support your ability to be mindful, to meditate much better in the future, I hope. It's kind of a little stepping aside for a moment to do an exercise for ongoing growth here.

That is to begin noticing aspects of your thinking. The thinking phenomena, the thinking process that normally you don't notice. In particular, to notice the mood, the emotionality of the thinking. What emotions do thinking come with? What emotions do they come out of?

If you pay careful attention to your thinking, what is the attitude that's behind the words or the images you have, the ideas you're thinking about? What is the mood? What is the emotional quality of it? Is it apprehensive and afraid? Is it harsh, judgmental? Is it kind and supportive, compassionate? How is it?

But then the more difficult part of the exercise may be whatever you notice it to be—if it's not particularly supportive for you, doesn't maybe feel particularly supportive for meditation—call upon a different part of your thinking mind and think in ways that are supportive for meditation.

There are two ways to do it. Either think kind, generous thoughts, be compassionate. The other is to offer yourself meditation instruction. Think instructions. Think about, "Okay, now do this, not do that," but do it in a gentle, non-harsh way, with a very different attitude than the unhelpful attitude you've noticed that's part of your thinking process. This isn't necessarily meaning that you're jettisoning how you're thinking or pushing away the attitude, but you're bringing something else into the ecology of the mind. Maybe you're disidentifying with the usual thinking mind that you have. That doesn't have to be you.

The authority of how it feels, and its attitudes, are just an attitude and a feeling and an emotion. It's not like, "This is the truth; this is really what's happening." 

So, we'll see how it goes. Taking a meditation posture and gently closing your eyes.

It's still valuable to settle in for this exercise. Taking a few long, slow, deep breaths. As you exhale, relax and settle.

Breathing in, relaxing.

Breathing in and feeling your whole body.

Letting your breathing return to normal, and spend a couple of minutes gently relaxing the body, the face, the shoulders, the chest, the heart center, the belly.

And then another couple of minutes of just being simple and centering yourself on the breathing. Allowing more things to just settle and quiet. Being here.

And now, if you would like to do this exercise, allow yourself to think rather than letting go of thoughts. As they occur, just let them be, and let the mind think.

Notice some of the qualities of that thinking. Is it fast or slow?

Is there a lot of energy to think, or is it kind of calm thinking?

Are you thinking more in words, or thinking more in images, or a combination?

And as you're thinking, are you strongly pulled into the world of thinking, or can you track yourself thinking? Can you be aware of the momentum of thinking?

Aware of what you're thinking about?

Aware of how you're thinking?

Does your thinking have a location? Is it centered somewhere in the head, or the heart, in the forehead, in the brain? Back of the brain, front of the brain?

The eyes, if it's imagery? Are the images centered in front of you?

And then, as you're sitting here, become aware of any emotion connected to your thinking.

Maybe there's a mood or emotional attitude with which it's expressed, or in the middle of it. Or maybe it's propelled by an emotion. What emotion or emotions are connected to your thinking?

Sometimes the emotion can be identified by feeling the pressure to think. Is there any pressure to think? And if there is, is there an emotion connected to that?

Sometimes the emotionality might be like the atmosphere or the weather that surrounds a person walking in the countryside. Your thinking might be surrounded by an atmosphere of an emotion, mood, or attitude.

The emotion might be subtle, just a hint. Or might be quite loud, even predominating.

Sometimes the fuel or pressure to think comes from the emotions associated with thinking.

And if the emotions connected to your thinking don't feel supportive for meditation, or it feels like you identify with them more than necessary, see if you can now think in a different way.

Almost like you're calling upon a different person to speak. Leaving the other one alone, but gently, maybe kindly, lovingly, say words about yourself and for yourself here that are supportive and kind.

Say supportive words that direct the mind, the attention, to do the meditation practice of mindfulness. If you want to be mindful of the emotions, it's like you're stepping back and with a soft, supportive voice encouraging yourself with the words or ideas to just feel the emotions. Where are the emotions felt in the body?

Are the emotions somehow dynamic and processes? Are they vibrating or changing or shifting in any way?

Where in your body do you feel your emotions?

With those kinds of instructions, direct your mindfulness to be present for this other part of you that's doing the automatic thinking. And let the conscious, intentional thinking that you do be relaxed, easeful, with no pressure.

It's an alternative to being identified with your old way of thinking.

And now, as we come to the end of the sitting, call upon a voice, an inner way of thinking or imagining that taps into your capacity for goodwill, well-wishing of others. Perhaps your kindness, perhaps your generosity, perhaps your love and compassion.

Imagine that your attention now goes out into the world in concentric circles from where you're sitting. The people near you, people in neighborhoods and counties, provinces, outwards across the continent you're in, and around the globe.

And think some thoughts with an inner voice. Say words of well-wishing. Speak from your heart quietly, silently, your care, your well-wishing for others.

And experiment with a voice, with an inner way of being that brings forth some of the best qualities that might be available right now.

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be safe.

May all beings be peaceful.

And may all beings be free.

## Reflections

Thank you. While I'm drinking some water here, transitioning for the talk, if some of you would like to put a few words in the chat about whether that exercise was useful for you—if you discovered or learned something about yourself in that process—it would be kind of nice to read a little bit of that before I give the talk.

## [Dharmette: Thoughts and Emotions (3 of 5) Thinking's Emotions](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/16791)

Thank you. Yes, if I talk and no one's there, am I really talking? It's a question for our minds when we talk to ourselves: who's there?

So thank you very much to those of you who wrote comments in the chat about what it was like to do the exercise we just did. Not surprisingly, I think there was a fair number of people who mentioned anxiety and fear. It's very common to have fear, anxiety, or apprehension be the drive for thinking. Especially if thinking is a lot to do about planning. Spending a lot of time planning tends to be fear-based. Not always—sometimes it's delight-based.

If meditators get the message that all they're supposed to do is let go of their thoughts and go back to their breathing, that can be a very nice instruction and very helpful sometimes to keep it that simple. But it also is a way of dismissing thinking and not really bringing a lot of mindfulness to this whole process of thinking. Ideally, in this mindfulness practice we're doing, we're learning how to bring a clarity of attention, care, and respect to all aspects of our lives. To keep letting go of something and not really taking time to really get to know it is a kind of disrespect; we're not inspecting it again and again.

There comes a time when we want to really turn our attention to the thinking mind itself and be mindful of that. Maybe the meditation becomes thinking meditation. Not in the sense of actively thinking and contemplating something, but thinking meditation in the sense that the thinking is the object of the quiet, attentive mindfulness we're doing. Just like we would bring quiet, attentive mindfulness to breathing, where it's not about breathing exactly, but it's about being present for it. Being present for thinking, but maybe without participating in the thoughts.

There's a lot to discover in that world of thinking. Without discovering it, without seeing how it works, what drives it, how we're pulled into it, the energy in it, or how we identify with thinking, those things will operate in thinking anyway. Some people get confused about, "Why do I keep thinking the same thing?" or "Why am I always feeling the same way?" Some people won't understand the teachings about not-self[^1] in Buddhism because they're so strongly identified with their thinking: "I think, therefore I am, and who am I if I'm not thinking?" That's the locus; that's the center of it all. But to be able to step back and watch it and see it, and realize that the watcher is not the thinker. And if we're able to step back far enough, the watcher can do it more quietly, silently, or from a different place.

One of the things to discover is that certain emotions are the fuel for our thinking. They provide the pressure to keep thinking the same thing over and over again. If that's the case, then it's really valuable to do a mindfulness of emotions, to respect the emotions, get to know them more deeply, and practice with them. Some people know how to practice mindfulness of emotions when emotions are kind of their own thing. But when emotions are embedded in our thinking, it's more subtle, or we don't really take time to look at it. One reason not to look at it is that if we think we are the thoughts, we are the thinker, and who we are is observing the world, it doesn't occur to us to turn around and look at the thinker. The thinker is the one that's looking, not the one that's being looked at. So we might miss a whole bunch of aspects of our inner life because of not having that ability to look back on what we think is the self, who we are.

Over time, we start being much more relaxed about having this central locus, a central coagulated center of "This is who I am." We are something, of course, but we don't have to have any stress, contraction, and compaction around that self. Often it has to do with our thinking. Sometimes it has to do with our emotions—some people are more emotionally based—and some people are more somatically based. All these places are valuable, but we don't have to be based in them. We don't have to be centered in them as if that's who we are. The idea is to be more fluid and inclusive, holistic, and include it all.

If we're not blinded by our thinking, we can look at thinking, turn around, and look at it. And if we see the emotions or the moods there, then we can do mindfulness of the emotion. Say, for example, there's a lot of future thinking that's driven by anxiety. The anxiety comes with some authority, some power, some sense of alarm that we have to do something, something has to go on. So we get pulled in, seduced in a sense, to have those thoughts—problem-solving, fixing, imagining all the possibilities so maybe we can become safer. But it can be so repetitive, over and over and over again.

If you turn around and feel the anxiety—and for some people, they have never taken time, never felt it was possible or of interest to turn around and feel the anxiety in the body—you help the anxiety feel safe, give space for the anxiety to be there. It's almost as if the thinking is the signpost for the anxiety; it's the messenger. We stay with the messenger, and we don't read the message. The message is the emotions that are there, and so we might practice with the emotions.

The other thing that we might notice when we start noticing the emotions of thinking is that having the thoughts is one thing. The thoughts we have influence us in one way, but the emotions might influence us in a different way. Sometimes the primary influence on the ongoing mood and concerns we have might be the underlying emotion, not the content of the thoughts themselves.

Certain emotions influence the kind of thoughts we have. Fear thoughts might produce thoughts of danger, all the possible dangers we might run into. Anger thoughts and a mood of aversion might predispose us to have thoughts about all the things that are wrong and what we don't like. If the underlying mood is one of desire, we might be thinking fantasies of desire, looking for things we want and can have. So the underlying mood can affect the kind of thoughts and motivations we have.

And then when we have those thoughts that are shaped by the emotion, they, in return, will feed back on those emotions. There's a feedback loop that goes on, a feedback circle. We can get caught in these circles and spend all day there. Sometimes, if they're not very powerful and there's not too much suffering in them, they can just continue all day. Especially if we identify with it, if we take it as, "Oh, this is who I am." If we've done this for so long that it's normal, normal becomes invisible to us. "This is how everything is and how it's supposed to be. This is the order of the universe, to have these kinds of thoughts or have this kind of mood." And this is so normal.

Maybe there's no normal for this mind of ours. It's a dynamic, fluid process. The more free we are, the more we can kind of surf and navigate it all, and not be unduly influenced or caused by any of it, but respectful for all of it.

This ability to look at the underlying mood, emotion, and tone of our thinking is eye-opening for some people; it's kind of revolutionary. It's like the missing link. It can be quite disturbing for some people because it upsets what's normal. It reveals things sometimes that we haven't admitted before. In the short term, it could be a little bit disorienting. But in the long term, this is the way to find some real inner stability, some real ability to be creative and present, and let the best of who we are give it a chance to surface and come in a way it can't if we're over-identified with a particular mood or attitude of thinking. We don't even know it's there sometimes, or we so strongly think this is normal that we're kind of caught in its grip.

With enough care, with mindfulness practice, all the grips relax. Not automatically, but I want to encourage you to have confidence that this practice leads to the de-gripping, relaxing the clinging that goes on in the mind.

Perhaps today you can spend the day kind of looking at this. Throughout the day, what are the emotions that seem to be behind the thoughts that you have? See if you can—almost like you're speaking in a different language—call upon a different part of the mind and start thinking a different way. Not pushing away or denying the fact that maybe you are thinking with a lot of fear, anxiety, or whatever it might be for you, but simply see if you can find on the side of that somewhere else a place of confidence, or generosity, or kindness, or maybe even humor, playfulness, all kinds of possibilities. 

See today whether you can kind of shift and change, and pay attention to your mind, and find if there are different ways of thinking, and in the process begin to de-identify with one particular way. As you de-identify, you might become a greater observer of it all.

So thank you very much, and I look forward to continuing tomorrow.

---

[^1]: **Not-self:** A translation of the Pali term *Anatta* (or Sanskrit *Anatman*), a central Buddhist teaching which points to the absence of a permanent, unchanging, independent self or soul within the phenomena of our experience.