Book 3 - The Four Divine Virtues - Appreciative Joy
By Ajahn Amaro
“Just one more …”
“Just one more …” is a desire or craving. ‘Because it’s a
pleasant feeling, then, more of it would be better’ or ‘If this is followed,
then, I would be happy.’ As we’re developing a consistent, comprehensive
mindfulness around feelings, we are training ourselves not to believe those
promises. If the mind was once
inclined towards resentment of the success of others, and the driving force of
many of our desires was from seeing what they had and wanting the same, now the
mind is more able to appreciate and consciously enjoy the happiness of others.
When we are feeling that restless, distressed, lonely, jealous,
incomplete feeling, rather than seeking to get away from that or fill up that
space with something that is pleasing, instead, the encouragement is to let it
in, to let the results of that action, of that attitude be fully known. That
opening to the painfulness of it is found to be what helps the habit to be
broken, what helps the causes of the habits to dissolve and what strengthens
the wisdom faculty – that clarity of mind that intuits’ I don’t have to be
caught up in this.’
We first let the mind be as quiet and spacious as possible
and then we deliberately drop a memory or a thought or a person’s name that we’re
particularly averse to or obsessed with in order to trigger that emotion. When
the emotion is felt, we take the attention off the stories and we bring it into
the body; What does jealousy/anger/desire feel like? Where is it? What’s its
texture?’
So we allow it in, let it be known in the body, let it be
sustained for a few minutes, and then consciously let it go, using the out
breaths to relax the body and to release that reactive pattern. ‘This is a feeling,
this is something that has a beginning and an end. It’s not something that’s
absolutely real and solid. It’s not completely who and what I am.’
Keep letting the out-breath have its effects, gently, steadily,
supporting the quality of release, relinquishment, relaxation.
We’ve watched that mood, that emotion born from
nothing, born from the arousal of a memory, bust into being, rise up, flower
and fade away; the flowers bloom and fade, the fruits fall, the leaves drop,
sink back into the earth, and then it’s all gone. It comes out of nothing
and returns to nothing.
… Whatever feeling they feel …they abide contemplating impermanence,
fading, cessation and the relinquishment of those feelings. Contemplating thus,
they do not cling to anything in the world. When they do not cling, they are
not agitated. When they are not agitated, they personally attain Nibbana.
Culatanhasankhaya Sutta (‘The Shorter Discourse on the Destruction
of Craving’) M 37.3
