08-26-2012, 08:39 AM
The balancing exercise has two distinct parts:
1. You experience, examine, feel, grasp the emotion. You let it become distinct so you can see all of its features.
2. You look within yourself for its opposite, that is, the emotion which contradicts it, as you described. Then you repeat the process for this emotion.
The emotions push us towards actions, but they need the ratification of the will in order for any action to manifest. Those with weak will ratify all emotions, hence their actions contradict. The balancing exercises foster a strong will through awareness. When you become aware of what it is you feel and why you feel what you feel, when you become aware of the motivations for your actions especially during the actions themselves (this is called "catching yourself in the act"), then you give your will the necessary information to choose which direction it wants to go. This is where the choosing that Spaced mentioned comes into play: if you learn that one of your desires is STO and the other is STS, then you know which one you want to encourage. To encourage a desire is to act on it. To discourage a desire is to allow itself to play out in your mind and then release the experience as satisfactory, or, even better, to see exactly why and how it is not an appealing prospect to manifest the desire.
Most importantly, however, the purpose of the balancing exercises is to release attachments, regardless of the content of the emotion. When we have conflicting desires, it is because we are attached to some aspect involving them. For me, the attachment was always a bias about what is "right" and "wrong". Thus, I have attachments to desires which align with certain social norms. But I also have attachments to desires which directly conflict with social norms. This is because telling yourself "you can't have that experience" causes you to want the experience, even if your heart does not truly desire it. If I can let go of the notion that I must abide by social norms, the desire to break the rules just for the sake of breaking the rules will fall away, just as will the desire to follow the rules. So the more you tell yourself "I need to have X eating habits," the more you will want to break that rule. Rather, if you observe exactly how you feel when you engage in your various dietary experiments, you will learn which feelings you want to encourage (by repeating the action) and which feelings you want to discourage (by ceasing the action). For my part, I have reduced the sugary foods in my diet, not by imposing a rule upon myself, but by observing that I do not like giving into the emotions that make me want to eat them and I do not like the effects they have on my body.
1. You experience, examine, feel, grasp the emotion. You let it become distinct so you can see all of its features.
2. You look within yourself for its opposite, that is, the emotion which contradicts it, as you described. Then you repeat the process for this emotion.
The emotions push us towards actions, but they need the ratification of the will in order for any action to manifest. Those with weak will ratify all emotions, hence their actions contradict. The balancing exercises foster a strong will through awareness. When you become aware of what it is you feel and why you feel what you feel, when you become aware of the motivations for your actions especially during the actions themselves (this is called "catching yourself in the act"), then you give your will the necessary information to choose which direction it wants to go. This is where the choosing that Spaced mentioned comes into play: if you learn that one of your desires is STO and the other is STS, then you know which one you want to encourage. To encourage a desire is to act on it. To discourage a desire is to allow itself to play out in your mind and then release the experience as satisfactory, or, even better, to see exactly why and how it is not an appealing prospect to manifest the desire.
Most importantly, however, the purpose of the balancing exercises is to release attachments, regardless of the content of the emotion. When we have conflicting desires, it is because we are attached to some aspect involving them. For me, the attachment was always a bias about what is "right" and "wrong". Thus, I have attachments to desires which align with certain social norms. But I also have attachments to desires which directly conflict with social norms. This is because telling yourself "you can't have that experience" causes you to want the experience, even if your heart does not truly desire it. If I can let go of the notion that I must abide by social norms, the desire to break the rules just for the sake of breaking the rules will fall away, just as will the desire to follow the rules. So the more you tell yourself "I need to have X eating habits," the more you will want to break that rule. Rather, if you observe exactly how you feel when you engage in your various dietary experiments, you will learn which feelings you want to encourage (by repeating the action) and which feelings you want to discourage (by ceasing the action). For my part, I have reduced the sugary foods in my diet, not by imposing a rule upon myself, but by observing that I do not like giving into the emotions that make me want to eat them and I do not like the effects they have on my body.
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