The distorted Air element reaction to the intrinsic spaciousness of being is one of groundless anxiety and the tangent we take involves us in self-generating suspicion that accelerates in such a way as to make further acceleration the only possible option. We suspect that complex contrivances are in motion, born out of the sinister unknown, whose designs are to undermine us in ways that are not immediately apparent. We lack any sense of stability - we feel that whatever sense of somethingness which we are manipulating to counter the threat of oblivion exists ridiculously precariously in comparison to the lurking threat of that worrying 'nothingness'. We become tense, agitated and hyperactive as we keep our concentration continually moving - trying to keep everything under surveillance at once. We never know in which moment we could be tricked or treacherously betrayed if we falter in our vigilance. Our feelings range from envy through jealousy and suspicion to paranoia; and finally, psychosis.

In some ways, this pattern has similarities to the distorted water element reaction, but whereas in this style, we fear direct, coherent and obvious assault, the air style is one in which fear in the form of uncertainty and nervousness arises out of not knowing how and when suspected assault will manifest. So, rather than lashing out at 'obvious' but mistaken threats we engage in high-tension speculation. The water-style defence mechanisms are fairly direct and brutal - we could compare them to jet-fighter planes or battleships. But the air style defences are far more complex, intricate and indirect; there is absolutely no trust involved in anything - we wouldn't even get our fighter planes off the ground because we would become involved with interminable double-checking. We become obsessed with grotesquely convoluted analyses of the range of hidden plots against us - we could compare the air-style maladaptive pattern to counter-counter-counter-espionage against double/triple/quadruple agents.

The distorted Space reaction is fundamental, it underlies the other four because it is the initial misapprehension giving rise to the other four and into which they subsequently collapse. This fundamental distorted pattern is one in which we are quite simply and utterly overawed/overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of space. The tangent that we take is maybe better described as one in which we feel completely unable to take any kind of tangent - we become incapacitated and depressed. We cut off from the outside world and become introverted, locked inside ourselves - we play blind, deaf, dumb, insensate and numb to experience - we seek shelter in oblivion.

These five distorted reaction patterns exist within each other and most 'healthy' people have a balance of these patterns in their less tortuous manifestations. Some 'healthy' people have imbalances of one or more element patterns but their energy generates qualities, abilities and talents as well as destructive habits and tendencies. Some people have great elemental imbalances that become fuelled by circumstances to such an extent that we designate them as emotionally unbalanced or psychologically disturbed. But whatever the imbalance, the essence of tantric psychology is that our distorted element reactions to space are dynamically linked to our liberated potentialities.

The territorialism of the distorted earth element neurosis can be transmuted into non-referential appreciation and spacious generosity. The aggression of the distorted water element neurosis can be transmuted into clarity and insight.

The obsessiveness of the distorted fire element neurosis can be transmuted into active-compassion - the passion beyond passion. The paranoia of the distorted air element can be transmuted into uncodified confidence and self-accomplishing activity. The deliberate depression of the distorted space element reaction can be transmuted into ubiquitous intelligence and pervasive awareness.

Element	Response to Intrinsic Spaciousness	Reactions to the response	Effect of transmutation
Earth	Feeling of insignificance	Cultivation of solidity and power	Equanimity
Water	Fear, feeling powerless	Lashing out, recklessness	Clarity
Fire	Isolation, loneliness	Clinging to comforts	Compassion
Air	Anxiety, vulnerability, paranoia	Excessive analysis	Confidence
Space	Sense of being overwhelmed	Incapacitation, depression	Pervasive intelligence

With this model of perverted perceptual philosophies and emotional habit patterns (as distortions of the liberated energy of our emotions) we are able to see ourselves in a different light. The painful aspects of our emotional personalities (as well as the joyous aspects) are doorways to our liberated potential. Experiential familiarity with the Tantric view of the emotions enables us to recognise in ourselves, vibrant open qualities within what have come to be devalued as merely emotionalism.

If we look carefully at anger for instance, we can see many of the qualities of clarity, as distorted yet recognisable reflections. Anger is hyper-intelligent - often in a state of anger we release heightened capacities of wit and memory. Sarcasm is delivered with speed and unusual accuracy - we know just where the exposed emotional nerves are in others and we make rapier thrusts at them with the surgical sharpness of our hatred.

In this view of our emotions as 'reflections' of fields of liberated energy, our method of freeing ourselves is one of making direct contact with our emotional energies rather than one of becoming involved at the level of reactions which involve ourselves either in expression repression or dissipation.

These three familiar methods of working with emotions are linked to the three dualistic tendencies: attraction, aversion, and indifference. These are the ways in which we react to everything that presents itself as long as we 'hide' from the spaciousness of being. Attraction, aversion, and indifference underpin the fabric of our motivation as long as we equate the intrinsic spaciousness of being with annihilation, and as long as we have this conception that we can only react in these three ways. We continually scan our perceptual horizon in order to establish reference points to prove to ourselves that the intrinsic spaciousness of being is a figment. And so we are attracted to whatever makes us feel solid, permanent, separate, continuous and defined. (Solidity, permanence separateness, continuity, and definition relate to earth, water fire, air, and space.) We are averse to anything that suggests the opposite and indifferent to whatever we are unable to manipulate. It is this dense web of motivation and patterned perception that almost entirely restricts the natural 'sparkle' of our being. We cannot get rid of the cause of our painful feelings by repressing them, or by expressing them, or by dissipating them.

Many people have found that through being helped to express their anger (for example) they have overcome such problems as depression (which can be caused by repressing feelings of anger), but this has led to the mistaken view that it is healthy to express anger. In Tantric terms, to express anger is only to intensify the distorted reflection and to create further illusory distance from the liberated energy of that emotion. To express anger is only to condition us with a pattern of perception that triggers angry responses more readily in more varied situations. Simply speaking, if we regard our anger as a healthy release, we're just training ourselves to be angry people. We avoid the side effects of repression, but we acquire the side effects of expression. Dissipation is the least injurious activity in terms of side effects whether dealing with anger or with any emotion, but it doesn't deal with the root of the dilemma. Until that is directly confronted, an emotion will always re-emerge when our circumstances trigger one of our five distorted responses.

The practice of meditation in the context of embracing emotions as the path gives us another option. This option is one in which we neither repress, express nor dissipate our emotional energy. But one in which we let go of the conceptual scaffolding and wordlessly gaze into the physical sensation of the emotion. This is what we describe as 'staring into the face of arising emotions in order to realise their empty nature'. This is where meditation becomes an essential aspect of our method of discovery. The form of meditation we will discuss here comes from the system known as Trek-chod, which means ‘exploding the horizon of conventional reality’. Trek-chod involves finding the presence of awareness in the dimension of the sensation of the emotion we are experiencing. Simply speaking we locate the physical location of the emotion within the body (it may be localised or pervasive). This is where we feel the emotion as a physical sensation. We then allow that sensation to expand and pervade us. We become the emotion. We cease to be observers of our emotions. We stare into the face of the arising emotion with such completeness that all sense of division between 'experience' and 'experiencer' dissolve. In this way we open ourselves to glimpses of what we actually are. We start to become transparent to ourselves. Through this staring, the distorted energy of our emotions liberates itself. In the language of trek-chod it is said: 'of itself - it liberates itself', and ‘it enters into its own condition’. In order to use meditation in this way, we need to have developed the experience of letting go of obsessive attachment to the intellectual/conceptual process as the crucial reference point on which our sense of being relies. In short, we need to be able to dwell in our own experiential space without manipulating whatever arises to referential ends. We need to experience mind, free conceptual activity - yet qualified by the effulgence of pure and total presence.

Through the practice of meditation, we discover that we can make direct contact with the unconditioned essence of our spectrum of liberated energy. We can embrace our emotions and realise the unending vividness of what we are.