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Emotions as the Path
of Tantra is delightfully picturesque and poetic in the way that it draws 'analogies' between the elements and the states of mind to which they are linked." |
Colours and Elements in Tantric Psychology Part One Only through direct experience can we begin to perceive our world differently. Philosophical speculations and intellectual conjecture that are not experienced cannot be integrated into our fundamental perception of the world, - it will remain abstractions. It follows that the experience of meditation practice is essential as a means of realizing the Buddhist view, for it is only within the development of the meditational experience that we become transparent to ourselves through witnessing the mechanics of our stylized perception. According to the Tibetan Tantric view there are three spheres of being: the outer world of our surroundings, the inner world of our perceptions, and a spatial continuum that underlines and interpenetrates both. This spatial continuum displays itself as five fields of primary energy, which make up the elemental basis of both external and internal phenomena. These fields are solidity or earth, fluidity or water, combustion (heat) or fire, motility or air wind, and emptiness or space without content. The primary purpose of Tantra is transmutation, which, rather than trying to 'get rid of our problems', facilitates the transformation of their intrinsically enlightened energy. Tantra sees us as being symbols of ourselves: we are not the ‘real thing’, simply colourful energetic displays of vibrant free energies that are utterly real. The enlightened being that you actually are, and have always been - this is ‘the real thing’, rather than the collection of neuroses, anxieties, and habits with which we are familiar. So, the pattern and individual character of our psychological and emotional framework is 'symbolic' in the sense that we symbolize our own enlightened being in ways that take the form of one or a number of the elemental fields: earth; water; fire; air; and space. Our expressed personality is derived from the encyclopaedia of symbols of our enlightened nature. As such it offers the key to discovering that nature. Every state of mind, however distressed or distressing, is linked dynamically to an aspect of the intrinsic freedom of the non-dual play of our free elements. The Tantric methods reveal that mind is intrinsically free (unconstrained by symbols), and that this complete openness of mind needs to be personally disclosed rather than created. There is no concept here in which one has to artificially re-structure oneself according to a spiritually healthy philosophical perspective - all positivist intellectual formulations, are based either on wishful thinking or naïve idealism rather than on direct experience. So, although the view of our distorted emotional patterning which we are now about to explore may be a positively creative perspective, if it remains in the realm of theory it won't actually be of any real use. As soon as we are able to witness our stylized perception directly we will become aware whether what we are exploring is heartfelt or intellectually fabricated. When we are able to see ourselves in operation, then other people also become increasingly transparent to us, and this may facilitate compassionate responses of less restricted scope. In healing ourselves, we may develop the clarity and insight essential if we are to facilitate the healing of others. To discover the raw methodology of embracing emotions as the path, we need some understanding of the tantric perspective, in which human beings are seen as lacking psychological health and freedom. In Tibetan medicine, the first premise which prospective doctors have to acknowledge is that they themselves are ill. The doctor/therapist - patient relationship is considerably influenced by the fact that Tibetan doctors see themselves as having specific knowledge to help others suffering from more severe and externally manifested variants of their own illness - the illness of duality. This duality is the mind-constructed division of emptiness and the forms which continuously arise from (and dissolve back into) emptiness. When we polarize emptiness and form, and then reject emptiness is favour of form, we enter into duality. This occurs when we react inappropriately to the intrinsic spaciousness of being in terms of mistaking the intrinsic spaciousness of being as emptiness. This maladaptive reaction appears to be our 'characteristic human predilection', and seems to evolve in five recognizable patterns of distorted experience. The five patterns take their character from the elements (earth, water, fire, air and space) as they manifest in terms of our emotional/psychological energies. These maladaptive behavioural patterns are all designs or scenarios that we have personally evolved, their performers, to create the sensation of well being or security. We all have these perceptual philosophies' and ultimately, although we may consider ourselves to be well-balanced, emotionally stable people - we all are subject to the continual irritating prickle of 'life', which is never quite what we want or need it to be. The people whom we may describe as being emotionally/ psychologically unstable or unbalanced have merely complicated these 'perceptual philosophies' and act out highly convoluted 'sub-plots' that can be farcical or tragic. If we have such problems, it is because our life circumstances have 'conspired' to facilitate our integration of increasingly distorted 'perceptual philosophies'. In order to unlearn these unhelpful 'skills', we first need to examine the apparent benefits we derive from implementing them. These peculiar benefits take their characteristics from our distorted reactions to the 'intrinsic spaciousness of being'; each characterized by the qualities of the five elements. Exploring the nature of each maladaptive habit pattern requires that we examine the nature and functioning of the natural elements. From a merely intellectual point of view, the psychology of Tantra is delightfully picturesque and poetic in the way that it draws 'analogies' between the elements and the states of mind to which they are linked. To the practitioner of Tantra, however, they are not analogies, but dynamically linked configurations of lived experience. The system of elements and their subtle psychological/emotional counterparts enables tantric practitioners to see the phenomenal world as a psychological teaching aid. We have explored these ideas more fully and in less condensed language in Spectrum of Ecstasy (Ngak'chang Rinpoche & Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997). Let us look at these five distorted elemental reaction patterns. The reaction of the distorted Earth element to the intrinsic spaciousness of being is one of insignificance and insubstantiality, and the tangent we take leads us to cultivate solidity and power. The need to surround ourselves with overt displays of wealth and dominion grows out of our deep-seated sense of poverty and worthlessness. To compensate for this hollowness, we become builders of empires - we hoard wealth and accumulate seemingly cogent definitions of who we are in terms of status, ownership, control, fame, worship and dominance. Concretisation and obduracy feed the rigidity of our frames of reference - territorialism and arrogance lead us further into antisocial interpersonal behaviour. The distorted Water element's reaction to the intrinsic spaciousness of being is one of fear, and the tangent that we take is aggression, in which we feel justified in lashing out. Justification feeds our anger and sense of resentment and we see the world as a field of combat. We come to regard 'emotional-overkill' as an effective means of keeping our fear at bay. If we feel ourselves to be powerless, we necessarily feel compelled to arm ourselves with physical, intellectual and emotional weaponry. We magnify the 'strike-potential' of others out of all proportion, because we identify them with the spaciousness we fear. We rapidly 'learn' that attack is the best form of defence. But when we feel ourselves to be naturally empowered and confident, we can afford to be gentle and tolerant. The distorted Fire element reaction to the intrinsic spaciousness of being is one that gives rise to the feeling of isolation and separation, and the tangent that we take is one in which we generate the compulsion to consummate, and to cling to the comforting proximity of people, places, things and ideas. We find our world to be an emotional desert and attempt to crowd out our loneliness by indiscriminately grabbing at the experience of union with any focus of our fleeting attention. In some ways, this pattern is similar to the distorted earth-style reaction - but whereas the distorted Earth style finds only the sensation of emptiness and insubstantiality in the process of hoarding and scanning, the distorted fire style finds only the emptiness of isolation and separation in the process of consummation. In the earth style we misinterpret the discovery of insubstantiality as the need to consolidate further; we need to scan mightier ramparts and bastions of personal reality. In the fire style, we misinterpret the discovery of isolation/separation as the need to unify as quickly as possible with further and yet further focuses of seductive proximity.
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