The aggregate of feelings — pleasant, unpleasant and neutral — is the principal way that karma ripens. Very often we think the objects that we contact are the causes of feelings and we react to the object. But actually, we are reacting to the feelings. If an object makes us feel pleasurable, we then attribute it to the object and get attached to it. But it is the pleasant feeling that we are attached to. Similarly, when we meet something disagreeable, like an object we do not like, we think that is the cause of our suffering. However it is simply because we cannot stand that unpleasant feelings, so we detest the object and we attribute it as the cause of our displeasure.

In our lives, it appears we are constantly reacting against people and objects. We are actually reacting to the feelings that are associated with them. We are terribly attached to pleasant feelings and will go to almost any length to get them. And we are horribly averse to any unpleasant feelings and totally freak out and do whatever possible to stop them. We are completely controlled by this attachment and aversion to our feelings.

So many afflictions arise in our minds as reactions to feelings. It is quite interesting to sit and observe the feelings singularly. In other words, observe the feeling without associating it with the object. Observe the feeling and try not to react to it with either clinging or hostility, but just experience the feeling as it is without all these reactions that we have around it. When we can do that, then how we experience the feeling begins to change because we can see that if we have an unpleasant feeling and we react to it with hostility, our mind is filled with anger and complaints, which creates a more unpleasant feeling, which we react with more hostility and resentment, and it just spirals on. Similarly, when we have a pleasant feeling and get attached to it, we get into the whole dynamic of wanting, spinning around in our head in a chain reaction to the feelings of pleasure. When we can focus on the feeling as it is without so much reactivity, our mind is much calmer and our experience of those feelings changes.

  “365 Gems of Wisdom” e-book is out now!