The great Buddha was once addressing a gathering . He was talking on pleasure and pain. He asked the audience this question. Suppose a man is struck with an arrow, will he experience pain?. The audience replied. Of course yes. Now what happens if the same man is struck with a second arrow. Will it be more pain?. The audience said " One is bad. Second one is worse since it comes when he is already experiencing the pain of the first".
Buddha then told them. The first arrow is given by life. The second and the third and much more are inflicted by us on ourselves . The first arrow may be a physical one while the second and more may be emotional reactions.
Emotions are triggered by life and its problems. For e.g. if we are scolded by someone, then we have emotions of anger, dislike etc. This is the first arrow. Now comes the second one. We start reacting to this situation by assimilating emotions on top of the first. This reaction happens unconsciously . We go on either accusing the other or create negative self image of ourselves. Nobody likes me. ( Second arrow). Nobody understands my problems( Third arrow). This goes on and on.
What is the solution?. It is often good to become aware of the emotion that happens due to the first arrow of experience and not react to it. Just watch what is happening in you through your awareness, but don't react to it. See how it vanishes without troubling you. This is how we develop a non reactive and welcoming attribute of our self . We remain curious, but never become indulgent.
As we move away from habitual responses to situations we get liberation from the poison of the arrows of life. Equanimity is a great trait. Treating pleasure and pain in the same way. Understanding the transience of all , just witnessing them come and go and being balanced always as our true nature.
Another reactionary response to pain and misery is to seek some other pleasure to take away our attention. It could be an indulgence in something like getting overtly engrossed in work, or emotional eating , taking sedatives and so on. Some people may even become rude to others to avoid their own pain. This shows that we are not in control . We want to replace our emotions because we know we would react. Understand this simple fact. There is only a single arrow. Just bear that . Not a deluge of them.
The spiritually untrained person gets identified with each and every bit of things in his mind. Instead of understanding that it is just a happening in consciousness, he gets identified with it and becomes affected . All happenings are modifications of the basic consciousness. A thought and emotion is made out of consciousness,just like a pot is made out of clay. The content of each a thought is not something real. It is just a name and a form and hence has a start and an end.We can never be a name and form. We are the background from which all these are made. It is like the clay thinking that it is only a pot. Clay is much more than that . It can arise in many forms but yet is independent of all. As we see each arising , just see them as experiences in us coming and going.
When you are experiencing some bad experience have you ever thought of something that happened sometime before say a week before?. Where is that bad experience now?. So if that can vanish, what about the current one?. Will it also not vanish?. So what is the importance of it ?.
There are two things about emotions. One is recognition of the emotion that is prevalent in you. Second is the acceptance of it without being reactive. Meditation is one place where you can accept even your wildest emotion to be there since you don't move during meditation!!!!. Understanding and accepting it will help it to dissolve into where it came from -->consciousness. By expressing it we become involved, by repressing it we become entangled.
Let me quote from the Damma of the arrow .
This is the difference, this the distinction, this the distinguishing factor between the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones and the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person.
The discerning person, learned,
Doesn’t sense a (mental) feeling of pleasure or pain:
This is the difference in skillfulness
Between the sage and the person run-of-the-mill.
For a learned person
Who has fathomed the Dhamma,
Clearly seeing this world and the next,
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
Undesirable ones bring no resistance.
His clinging
And rejection are scattered,
Gone to their end,
Do not exist.
Knowing the dustless, sorrowless state,
He discerns rightly,
Has gone, beyond becoming,
To the Further Shore.
Buddha then told them. The first arrow is given by life. The second and the third and much more are inflicted by us on ourselves . The first arrow may be a physical one while the second and more may be emotional reactions.
Emotions are triggered by life and its problems. For e.g. if we are scolded by someone, then we have emotions of anger, dislike etc. This is the first arrow. Now comes the second one. We start reacting to this situation by assimilating emotions on top of the first. This reaction happens unconsciously . We go on either accusing the other or create negative self image of ourselves. Nobody likes me. ( Second arrow). Nobody understands my problems( Third arrow). This goes on and on.
What is the solution?. It is often good to become aware of the emotion that happens due to the first arrow of experience and not react to it. Just watch what is happening in you through your awareness, but don't react to it. See how it vanishes without troubling you. This is how we develop a non reactive and welcoming attribute of our self . We remain curious, but never become indulgent.
As we move away from habitual responses to situations we get liberation from the poison of the arrows of life. Equanimity is a great trait. Treating pleasure and pain in the same way. Understanding the transience of all , just witnessing them come and go and being balanced always as our true nature.
Another reactionary response to pain and misery is to seek some other pleasure to take away our attention. It could be an indulgence in something like getting overtly engrossed in work, or emotional eating , taking sedatives and so on. Some people may even become rude to others to avoid their own pain. This shows that we are not in control . We want to replace our emotions because we know we would react. Understand this simple fact. There is only a single arrow. Just bear that . Not a deluge of them.
The spiritually untrained person gets identified with each and every bit of things in his mind. Instead of understanding that it is just a happening in consciousness, he gets identified with it and becomes affected . All happenings are modifications of the basic consciousness. A thought and emotion is made out of consciousness,just like a pot is made out of clay. The content of each a thought is not something real. It is just a name and a form and hence has a start and an end.We can never be a name and form. We are the background from which all these are made. It is like the clay thinking that it is only a pot. Clay is much more than that . It can arise in many forms but yet is independent of all. As we see each arising , just see them as experiences in us coming and going.
When you are experiencing some bad experience have you ever thought of something that happened sometime before say a week before?. Where is that bad experience now?. So if that can vanish, what about the current one?. Will it also not vanish?. So what is the importance of it ?.
There are two things about emotions. One is recognition of the emotion that is prevalent in you. Second is the acceptance of it without being reactive. Meditation is one place where you can accept even your wildest emotion to be there since you don't move during meditation!!!!. Understanding and accepting it will help it to dissolve into where it came from -->consciousness. By expressing it we become involved, by repressing it we become entangled.
Let me quote from the Damma of the arrow .
This is the difference, this the distinction, this the distinguishing factor between the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones and the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person.
The discerning person, learned,
Doesn’t sense a (mental) feeling of pleasure or pain:
This is the difference in skillfulness
Between the sage and the person run-of-the-mill.
For a learned person
Who has fathomed the Dhamma,
Clearly seeing this world and the next,
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
Undesirable ones bring no resistance.
His clinging
And rejection are scattered,
Gone to their end,
Do not exist.
Knowing the dustless, sorrowless state,
He discerns rightly,
Has gone, beyond becoming,
To the Further Shore.
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