Feelings in DO vs. Complex feelings or Emotions

Important distinctions in experience

I talked about feelings and cravings in Dependent Origination (DO). A feeling is described as pleasant, unpleasant, or neither pleasant nor unpleasant. In the context of DO a feeling arises after contact is made with the world through one of the senses; taste,touch,seeing,smell, or hearing. Bhante calls these the “sense doors”. No need to cue ‘doors of perception’ poetry and go woo-woo, its just our direct sense of the world. You see something, a feeling may arise, done.

In terms of DO a feeling arises because of contact with the world; contact is actually one of the links of DO, but I’ve focused on the feeling and craving links because we can easily grasp those. Seeing something or hearing something is a direct expereince, and a feeling that arises from seeing something is also a direct experience.

What about Love? What about rage, anger, awe,wonder,curiosity, joy, ecstacy and all of the other Big emotions or feeling that we feel?

The short answer is that feelings that arise because of contact defined in DO aren’t the same as the complex emotions in life. The complex emotions are generally things that occur either later on or in DO or are at right angles to it.

DO isn’t a complete map of everything. There isn’t a “love” link in DO, and yet we experience love. Anger and rage are forms of aversion and are part of suffering, and are for sure the result of clinging and a part of DO.

Awe and curiosity are also direct experiences but are not explicitly part of DO, at least that I can tell where I am now. Maybe in a few years I’ll have some insight that changes my perspective.

Side trip: Its ok if I’m not “right” about everything, I’m a practicioner. I’ve gained certain insights that are consistent with my experiences, and I have more to learn. For purposes of talking about TWIM I’m confident that its a good idea to put strong emotions and feelings in a separate basket from the feelings in DO as a way of avoiding distraction. (hand wave) “those big things are over there, not important to place them in this bucket here that I’m talking about now”.

Those of a certain age remember Rube Goldberg and his drawings of funny machines that do something in a series of steps, all to turn on a light or something. A ball would swing and hit a fork, which would spin and open a latch, etc. There are many fun videos that show contraptions like this.

Here is a link to a fabulous machine from the band OK Go

These contraptions have a beginning, middle and end. Each step in the machine causes another step, and each step depends on the previous step completing. This stepwise action is how DO works.

The Buddha’s great insight was into the fact that DO exists, he saw that the mind operated according to a series of links, one triggering another.

At a certain point in the links, just after feeling arises, we have the ability to choose what happens next, if our mindfulness is well cultivated. Mindfulness is the quality of mid that lets you catch yourself in the act of having a feeling that arises so that you can make choice about how to respond.

However, the feelings of DO are very basic, pleasant, unpleasant, and neither pleasant nor unpleasant. They are steps, building blocks.

There are those in Buddhism that prescribe everything to DO, but I’m not sure I buy it. To me Love isn’t a feeling, its an expression of connection. Our feelings of love arise and pass away, so to that degree they are part of the never ending arising and passing away of existance, but to me that's not rubber-meets-the-road DO when we’re working with feelings and craving.

More like DO is an example of arising and passing away, a mechanical part of our experience in the world. I may be wrong about this, but it has not hindered my progress to not drink any kool aid that seems too far fetched or is nowhere close to what I directly experience.

Meditation produces direct insights into the nature of mind, you see it right in front of you, over and over and over and over. As your mindfulness gets sharper you see more and more detail. If you haven’t experienced it yet, its just a story that someone else is telling. More on that later.