Destructive Emotions: Western and Tibetan/Buddhist perspectives
Destructive emotions are those emotions that are harmful to oneself or others. What is the source of destructive emotions; from what do they actually arise?
Professor Owen Flanagan's interest in the role of emotions in the life of the mind crystallized in 1980, was fascinated by a scientific paper of Paul Ekman about the expression of emotion in the human face because it offered the first hard evidence that human emotions were universal. Published in 1991, Varieties of Moral Personality points out that being good -- virtuous -- would mean both happiness and mental well-being. In the worst case, one's ethics and emotions are at odds. To what extent do they coincide?
Prof. Owen addressed the issue of how emotions are viewed in Western philosophy:
In the West, we make a big distinction between saying "There are flowers in this room" and "There are beautiful flowers in this room". The first one is a fact, a description, whereas the second involves a value judgement or a norm, regarding aesthetics. In the west, that split is associated with objectivity and subjectivity. In the west, people begin the discussions of emotions by thinking first in Darwinian terms. We think of emotions as having been handed to us, perhaps by ancestral species of hominids that existed before Homo Sapiens.
The western view: essential compassion is not included.
In the western philosophical tradition there have been three main answers:
1. Rational egoists: each person watches out only for his or her own good, but sees rationally that only by being nice to others is it possible to get what he or she wants. In economics as well as in philosophy, people think that things work smoothly only because each of us is smart enough to see that our own good depends on treating others well.
2. Selfish and compassionate: if you see how fragile human infants are, there is no way they could survive unless there was compassion or sympathy on the part of their caretakers. So, clearly that whether you put compassion before or after selfishness, it's necessary for survival. Philosophers who believe that people are selfish and compassionate think that once we have taken care of our own basic needs, then there is time left over to be loving and compassionate of others. Then, it goes to the third one below.
3. Compassionate and selfish. The people who take the third position say that we are basically compassionate, loving creatures, but if there is scarcity of resources such as food, clothing, and shelter, then compassion will drop out and our selfish side will emerge.
Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics says that self-love is not always egotistical. It involves respecting yourself. In the west, a view is that you can love others only if you love yourself - that if you have low self-esteem, self-hatred, or lack of self-respect, then you are in no position to love other poeple. Sharon Salzberg (American Buddhist teacher) described teaching a meditation that starts with developing lovingkindness toward oneself before going on to others. One reason was that so many people in the west nowadays have very low self-esteem - even self-contempt.
However, the Tibetan term for caring or compassion, tsewa, includes both self and others, with the wish "May I be free of suffering, and free of the sources of suffering", and then there is empathy, on the basis of which one can recognize the kinship of self and others, then feel compassion for others. Compassion is more than simply feeling for another - empathy - but a concerned, heartfelt caring, wanting to do something to relieve the person's suffering. That holds whether the being involved is oneself, someone else, or an animal. The concept of self-loathing is foreign here.
Summed up: in Tibetan term, the terms for both lovingkindness and compassion apply both to oneself and to others, whereas, in the western context, compassion pertains only to others, then the mental state that is directed to yourself might be in opposition to compassion for others. In west, there is a concept of feeling sorry for yourself, as not very positive, but an excessive feeling that things aren't going well for you. Again, it is selfish. There are terms in Buddhism that would set compassion for oneself in opposition to compassion for others, usually translated as "self-cherishing", which implies a "me-first attitude", setting one's own well-being as the highest priority - as opposed to cherishing others.
In the west, guilt is an important emotion, related to shame. There are views about whether feelings of anger, contempt, or indignation are sometimes appropriate and sometimes in appropriate. The basic rationale for including these emotions ties in with the way we think about evolution. We think that humans evolved as social animals - we need each other. Social interaction involves opportunities for being treated well or being treated badly. Each of these emotions arises in response to social situations. "I become fearful if a person is threatening to harm me. I feel love when someone has treated me well, possibly in response to my treating him or her well." The unifying idea behind the so-called moral emotions is that they are used to structure our social life to go as smoothly as possible. It's less important in western tradtion to think about how to structure your own soul. It has so much focus on the self -- self-worth and self-esteem -- but much less of a tradition of trying to harmonize yourself internally. These emotions and moral principles governing all involve social relations.
Imannuel Kant said that it is one thing to be happy; it is another thing to be good. The best way to think about Kant's distinction between happiness and goodness, or virtue, is to ask whether happiness involves just feeling a certain way or being a certain way. When Kant said that it's one thing to be happy but another thing to be good, he thought first of all that the demands of being a good person are so hard- that there are always temptations. The demands of living a morally good life are such that you might have to sacrifice all the things that would bring you happiness. You might have to give up your life. You might have to ask your children to give up their lives for somet important cause. Kant went so far as to think that if you performed a moral action because you were emotionally pushed to do it, it had no moral worth. For example, he thought that although the love between parents and children is natural, it has no moral worth -- because morality has to involve struggle against the self. He thought that if there is a kind of happiness you have to give up when you stand by an important moral cause, that is a price you should be willing to pay.
Plato says that the good person is happy and the happy person is good. They necessarily go together. But people who read Plato realize that his happy person doesn't sound happy in the sense of a child getting presents. It's a very calm state of being.
Aristotle's term eudaimonia, for years was translated as 'happiness' and is now generally translated as 'flourishing'. It's a plant metaphor, the idea is that the plant doesn't actually have to feel happy to be flourishing.
John Stuart Mill in Utilitarianism said "Every human would seek to be Socrates dissatisfied rather than a pig satisfied". There's something about the capacities that Socrates has that are the kinds that people naturally and appropriately want to realize. That's one way of thinking about higher and lower ones.
How the emotions themselves have been characterized in the west?
Plato use the metaphor that reason is a chariot driver with two wild horses, emotion and temperament, that are always trying to get out control. Among Greek philosophers, there is a tradition that reason must conquer the emotions -- moods and temperament -- which are the cause of all trouble. Temperament is a certain emotional style, like being a shy or a moody person, it's a trait. Anger is an emotion; a person with an irritable temperament is constantly prone to being angry. Plato argued that the emotions, temperament, and appetites for sex or food are all causes of trouble, and human reason needs to take control.
Aristotle (Plato's student) took a different view. He had the idea of happiness as a kind of flourishing, and articulated the Doctrine of the Mean, which is very close to Buddhist. Aristotle thought that there was a set of virtues -- including courage, friendship, and compassion -- that should be in a harmonious relation inside each person. This comes about through being exposed to wise elders who display those characteristics. Aristotle also thought that every virtue involves an emotional component. There is a time when it is appropriate to show anger, but you need to express just the right amount of anger in just the right way, to the right person at the right time. It's no easy task. Aristotle thought that the virtuous response generally came from learning through imitating elders, or through phronesis, which means 'practical wisdom'. If you confronted with a new situation, you would need to think more about it. But usually, knowing how to moderate your emotions so that they lead to positive action and good feeling will come naturally, automatically.
Tibetan's term of so sor togpa, meaning "discerning intelligence' comes quite close.
For centuries in the west, thinking about virtue was inseparable from religion. During the 18th and 19th of Age of Enlightenment (sometimes calld the Age of Reason); philosophers started to realize that the good life need not be based on any particular religious view, to defend different principles that would govern moral action. Most westerners, especially if they are not religious, will fall into either the utilitarian camp or the Kantian camp, which have a huge amount in common. In Kant's case, he was pietistic Lutheran, so Kant's ethical philosophy is not unrelated to a religious perspective.
The utilitarian claimed that it might be morally justified, if a hundred people gained pleasure out of doing something harmful to one person. But then, that shows disrespect for the person, which is a higher value, a higher good. Utilitarian would say that logical consistency requires you to act for the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people in the long run. (How long is the long run? Forever. It is very hard to put into effect). The usual objection to utilitarianism says that if you have to sacrifice one person to save the lives of a hundred people, you ought to do that. A Kantian will put a restriction on that and say that even if a hundred people will die as a result of your decision, you ought never to violate the principle of not killing. Neither principle involves worrying about how you feel emotionally about anybody, they are both based on the idea that you must be consistent.
Destructive and Constructive States of Mind (Western Perspectives)
Destructive states of mind:
Low self-esteem
Overconfidence
Harboring negative emotions
Jealousy and envy
Lack of compassion
Inability to have close interpersonal relations
Constructive states of mind:
Self-respect
Self-esteem (if deserved)
Feelings of integrity
Compassion
Benevolence
Generosity
Seeing the true, the good, the right
Love
Friendship
Integrity means that you follow your principles you live your life according to your beliefs (none of terms in Tibetan's close to this).
Self-esteem 'if deserved'; there are a lot of people walking around who have excessive self-esteem. They think they're people of integrity - yet, they're not. So these feelings of self-esteem are constructive only if they're deserved.
The English term of "emotion" is very general, comes from the latin root "emovere" -- somethint sets the mind in motion, whether toward harmful, neutral, or positive action.
In Buddhist term, one would call emotion something that conditions the mind and makes it adopt a certain perspective or vision of things. It doesn't refer necessarily to an emotional burst arising all of a sudden in the mind (which such an event would be called as a gross emotion -- e.g. when it's clear you are either angry, or sad, or obssessed)."
Fundamentally, a destructive emotion (also refereed to as an obscuring or afflictive mental factor) is something that prevents the mind from ascertaining reality as it is. With a destructive emotion, there will always be a gap between the way things appear and the ways things are. Excessive attachment -- desire, for instance, will not let us see a balance between the pleasant and unpleasant, constructive and destructive, qualities in something or someone, and causes us to see it for a while as being 100% attractive -- and therefore makes us want it. Aversion will blind us to some positive qualities of the object, making us 100% negative toward that object, wishing to repel, destroy, or run away from it. Such emotional states impair one's judgement, the ability to make a correct assessment of the nature of things. That is why we say it's obscuring: it obscures the way things are. Eventually it also obscures a deeper assessment of the nature of things as being permanent or impermanent, as having intrinsic properties or not. And so at all levels it will be obscuring. Thus, obscuring emotions impair one's freedom by chaining thoughts in a way that compels us to think, speak, and act in a biased way.
By contract, constructive emotions go with a more correct appreciation of the nature of what one is perceiving -- they are grounded on sound reasoning.
Actions are not in themselves good or bad because someone decided they should be so. There is no such thing as good and bad in an absolute sense. There is only the good and bad -- the harm in terms of happiness or suffering -- that our thoughts and actions do to ourselves or to others.
Destructive and constructive emotions can also be distinguished according to the motivation that inspires them egocentric or altruistic, malevolent or benevolent. So both the motivation and the consequences of one's emotions have to considered. One can also distinguish between constructive and destructive emotions by examining the ways they relate to each other in terms of antidotes.
Consider, for example, hatred and altruism. Hatred can be defined as the wish to harm others or to ruin something that belongs to or is dear to others. The opposite emotion for that is something that acts directly as an antidote to that wish to harm: altruistic love. It acts as a direct antidote to animosity because, although one can alternate between love and hatred, one cannot feel, at the very same moment, both love and hatred toward the same person or the same object, thus, the more one cultivates lovingkindness, compassion, altruism -- the more they pervade your mind -- the more their opposite, the wish to harm, is forced to diminish and, possibly, disappear. When we say an emotion is negative, it's not so much that we are repudiating something, but that it's negative in the sense of less happiness, less well-being, less lucidity and freedom, more distortion.
However, when one speaks of hating one-self, hate is not really at the core of the feeling. You might be upset with yourself, but this could be a form of pride, a sense of frustration arising from the realization that you don't live up to your expectations. But you can't truly hate yourself. Thus, there's no such thing as self-loathing in Buddhism, because that would be against the basic wish of any living being to avoid suffering. You may feel you hate yourself because you want to be so much better than you are. You may be disappointed at yourself for not being what you want to be, or impatient for not becoming so fast enough. Self-loathing actually includes a lot of attachment to the ego. Even someone when commits suicide does s not out of self-hatred but because of thinking that it's a way of escaping a greater suffering. A Buddhist perspective on suicide: one is not escaping anything, because death is just a transition to another state of existence. So it would be better to try to avoid the suffering either by endeavoring to solve the problem in the here and now or, when that is not possible, by changing one's attitude toward this same problem.
From childhood to old age, we change all the time. Our bodies are never the same and our minds acquire new experiences with every instant that phases. We are in constant transformation. Yet we also have the notion that at the center of all that, there is something that defines us, something that has remained constant from childhood that defines "me". This "I", called as "ego clinging" -- constitutes our identity. It's not simply the thought of 'me' that comes to our mind when we wake up, when we say 'I feel hot or cold' or when someone calls us. Ego clinging refers to a deeply ingrained grasping to an unchanging entity that seems to be at the very core of our being and defines us as a particular person. We feel this "I" is vulnerable and need to protect it and please it. Whatever might threaten this "I", and attraction toward whatever pleases or reassures this "I" and makes it feel secure, happy; from these two basic emotions, attraction and repulsion, a host of diverse emotions will come.
In Buddhist scriptures, one speaks of 84,000 kinds of negative emotions, reflects the complexity of the human mind and gives one to understand that methods to transform this mind need to be adapted to the great variety of mental dispositions. This is why one speaks of 84,000 entrance doors to the Buddhist path of inner transformation. These multifaceted emotions boil down to 5 main ones: hatred, desire, confusion, pride, jealousy.
Hatred is the deeply felt wish to harm someone else, to destroy their happiness. It is not necessarily expressed in a burst of anger. It's not expressed all the time, but ti will manifest when meeting with circumstances that trigger one's animosity. It is also connected with many other related emotions, such as resentment, bearing grudges, contempt, animosity, and so on.
Then the opposite is attachment. the is the plain desire for sensual pleasure or for an object we want to possess. There is also the subtle aspect of attachment to the notion of "I", to the person, and to the solid reality of phenomena. Essentially, attachment has to do with a kind of grasping that makes you see things in a way that they are not. It will make you think that things are permanent -- that friendship, human beings, love, possessions, will last -- although it is clear that they will not. So attachment means clinging to one's way of perceiving things.
Then, ignorance, the lack discernment between what needs to be accomplished or avoided in order to achieve happiness and avoid sufferings. Ignorance is not normally regarded as an emotion in western culture, but it is clearly a mental factor that prevents a lucid and true ascertaining of reality. It is thus a mental state that obscures ultimate wisdom or knowledge, considered to be an afflictive aspect of mind.
Pride: being proud of one's achievements, feeling superior to others of holding them in contempt, wrong assessments of one's own qualities, or not recognizing others' good qualities. It often goes with not recognizing one's own defects.
Jealousy can be seen as an inability to rejoice in others' happiness. One is never jealous of someone's suffering, but of their happiness and good qualities. If our goal is precisely to bring well-being to others, we should be happy if they find happiness by themselves (Buddhist perspective). Part of our work is already done -- there is that much less to do.
A very deep approach in Buddhist philosophy and practice to try to examine if that "I" is just an illusion, just a name we attach to that stream and flux in continuous transformation. We cannot find the "I" in any part of the body, or as something that would pervade the body in its entirety. We might think that it lies in the consciousness, but consciousness is also stream in continuous transformation. The past thought is gone, the future one has not yet arisen. How can the present 'I' truly exist, hanging between something that has passed and something else that has yet to arise?
If the self cannot be identified in the mind or the body, nor in both together, not as something distinct from them, it is evident that there is nothing we can point to that can justify our having such a strong feeling of "I". It is just a name one gives to a continuum. But yet when we cling to it, when we think there is a boat on that river, that is when all the troubles come, when we begin clinging to this notion of "I" as something truly existing, that needs to be protected and pleased. Aversion, repulsion, afflictions, and eventually 84,000 aspects of afflicting emotions will unfold.
3 Levels of Consicousness
According to Buddhism, there are 3 levels of consciousness: gross, subtle, and very subtle. The gross level corresponds to the functioning of the brain and the interaction of the body with its environment. The subtle level corresponds to the notion of the 'I' and to the introspective faculty with which the mind examines its own nature. It is also the mind stream that carries on tendencies and habitual patterns. The very subtle level is the most fundamental aspect of consciousness, the mere fact that there is a cognitive faculty rather than not. It is sheer consciousness or awareness, without a particular object upon which consciousness is focused. We generally do not percieve consciousness in such way, this takes contemplative training.
Emotions concern the gross and the subtle level but do not affect the most subtle one. The very subtle level is sometimes referred to as 'luminous,' refers simply to the basic faculty of being aware, without any coloration from mental constructs or emotions. This basic awareness sometimes called the ultimate nature of mind, fully and directly realized, without veils, this is also considered to be the nature of Buddhahood.
The next step is to determine whether it is possible to free oneself entirely from destructive emotions. This is possible only if negative emotions are not inherent in the ultimate nature of mind. If negative emotions, like hatred, were inherent in the most subtle aspect of mind, they would be present at all times. Even though majority people experience negative emotions at various times, that does not mean that such emotions are inherent in the nature of mind. A pieces of gold lie in dusty place but does not change the nature of gold itself. Destructive emotions are not embedded in the basic nature of consciousness, rather, they arise depending on circumstances and various habits and tendencies that express themselves from the outer core of consciousness.This opens the possibility for working with those emotions and the tendencies that breed them. If destructive emotions were inherent in the mind, there would be no point in trying to gain freedom from them, like washing a piece of charcoal which can never become white. The possibility of being free is the starting point of the path of inner transformation. One can drive away the clouds and find that behind them the sun has always been there and the sky has always been clear. To consider whether those destructive emotions are part of the basic nature of mind, we need to examine them. A strong burst of anger seems irresistible, very compelling. We feel almost powerless not to feel angry, this is because we don't really look at the nature of anger itself. Buddhist practice: is anger like an army commander, like a burning fire, like a heavy stone? But the experiment will show that the more you look at anger, the more it disappears beneath one's very eyes, like the frost melting under the morning sun. When one genuinely looks at it, it suddenly loses its strength. There is an aspect of clarity, of brilliance, that is at the very core of anger and is not yet malevolent. Indeed, a the very source of destructive emotions there is something that is not yet harmful. Thus, the negative qualities of emotions are not even intrinsic to the emotions themselves. It is the grasping associated with one's tendencies that leads to a chain reaction in which the initial thought develops into anger, hatred, and malevolence. If anger itself is not something that is solid, it means anger is not a property that belongs to the fundamental nature of mind.
How to deal with negative emotions?
As negative emotions creep continually into the mind, they transform into moods and eventually into traits of temperament. Therefore one needs to begin by working with emotions themselves. The first way, try to avoid the negative consequences of the destructive emotions that bring unhappiness to self and others, by using antidotes. There is a specific antidote for each emotion. We cannot feel hatred and love simultaneously for the same object, thus love is a direct antidote to hatred. Likewise, one can contemplate the unpleasant aspects of an abject of compulsive desire, or try to have a more objective assessment. For ignorance, or lack of discernment, try to refine our understanding of what needs to be accomplished and what avoided. In jealousy, try to rejoice in others' qualities. For pride, try to appreciate others' achievements and open our eyes to our own defects to cultivate humility.
The next step, to find if there is an antidote that could work for all of them, which is to be found in meditation, in the investigation of the ultimate nature of all negative emotions. One finds they don't have an inherent solidity -- that they exhibit what Buddhism calls emptiness. It's not that suddenly they all vanish into the sky, but that they are not as solid as they seem. doing so enables one to demolish the apparent solidity of negative emotions. This antidote -- the realization of their empty nature -- acts on all emotions, because although emotions manifest in various ways, they are identical is not having a solid existence.
The last way, which is also the most risky, consists not in neutralizing emotions or in looking at their void nature, but in transforming them, using them as catalysts for swiftly freeing oneself from their influence. It is like someone who falls into the sea and takes support from the water itself to swim and reach the shore.
These methods are compared with three possible ways of dealing with a poisonous plant: to uproot the plant carefully and remove it from the ground completely (using the antidotes); or pouring boiling water onto the plant (using meditating on emptiness); or using the peacock which was traditionally thought to be able to feed on poisonous substances (the peacock not only is not poisoned when other animals might die, but its feathers become even more beautiful --> correspond to the practice of using and transforming the emotions as a means of enhancing one's spiritual practice). But it only works for peacocks -- lesser animals would get into serious trouble.
A common goal of three methods is: for no longer enslaved by negative emotions, and we progress toward freedom.
Does one deal with such emotions after they arise, at the time they arise, or before they arise?
The beginner's approach: after they arise, because usually one realizes the negative or destructive aspects of some emotions only after having experienced them. You then use reason to investigate their consequences -- seeing that a strong burst of hatred, which makes one perceive someone as entirely evil, can cause much suffering to others and certainly does not make us happy either. In this way, we can distinguish the emotions that bring happiness from those that cause suffering. It will then become clear that the next time such emotion are ready to arise, it is best not to give them free rein.
The next stage is to deal with emotions as they arise. The crucial point here is to free emotions at the moment they surge in one's mind, so that they don't trigger a chain of thoughts that proliferate and take over the mind. For this, by asking whether it has a shape, location, color, and so on, to discover that its true nature is emptiness. Tibetan word for meditation means 'familiarization'. One becomes familiar through practice, with this way of seeing thoughts come and go.
The final step: even before an emotion might arise, you are ready in such a way that it will not arise with the same compelling, enslaving power. This step is linked to realization, a state of achieved transformation, where the destructive emotions don't arise with nearly the same strength. When one has lovingkindness soak his mind, it becomes second nature, so hatred is expelled from one's mind and there is no way that one would harm someone willingly. Hatred no longer arises, and there is nothing to be repressed.
If one gets rid of all emotions, one will not become unresponsive as a log. When the mind is free, it is lucid and clear. Who is completely at peace and free from disturbing emotions has a much greater sensitivity and concern toward other's happiness and suffering. He has a much finer sense of judgement and a wider compassion. People might say that if you don't express emotion, might lead to unhealthy states of mind. But emotions can be expressed in many different ways. We don't need to repress our emotions but channel them into a dialogue with our intelligence, using them to understand the nature of our mind, watching how they subside of their own accord without creating more seeds for their future arising.
The final question: whether it is possible to rid oneself completely of negative emotions? The answer has to do with wisdom and freedom. If you consider that destructive emotions restrain our inner freedom and impair our judgement, then as we get more free from them, they will not have the same strength. We will have more freedom and happiness.
We should distinguish pleasure from happiness. Happiness is understood here to refer to a deep sense of fulfillment, accompanied by a sense of peace and a host of positive qualities such as altruism. Pleasure depends upon the place, the circumstances, and the object of its enjoyment. One can get pleasure at certain times and not at others. It is bound to change. something that is pleasurable at one point might soon give rise to indifference, then to displeasure and suffering. Pleasure exhausts itself in the enjoying just like a candle that burns down and disappears.
A deep sense of fulfillment does not depend upon time, locations or objects. It is a state of mind that grows the more one experiences it. It is different from pleasure in almost every way. What we seek by disentangling ourselves from the influence of destructive emotions is the kind of inner stability, clarity, and fulfillment that we are referring to here as happiness.
Private thoughts, public feelings
The critical issue in the western understanding of emotion that, the beginning moment -- a crucial process -- is something that we can only wonder about, but, we don't know. We only become aware once we're in the emotion. We're not the master at the start.
Emotions are public, not private. The expression signals to others, in the voice, face, posture, what emotion we feel. Our thoughts are private, our emotions are not. Others know how we feel -- and that is very important for how people get along with each other. Many thoughts involve emotions, but not all thoughts. If the thought is connected to an emotion, then you will see a sign of the emotion.
In Shakespeare, Othello killed Desdemona. He was right in seeing that she was afraid, but he was wrong in what he attributed it to. He thought it was a woman afraid because she had been caught in an infidelity, but it was a woman afraid for her life from a jealous husband. Sometimes the emotion precedes thought, sometimes it is simultaneous, sometimes it comes after.
Getting moving without thinking
When an emotion begins, it generates changes in our expression: face, voice, the way we think, impulses to action. These occur involuntarily, and if we don't go along with them, we experience it as a struggle to control to not show or to not speak, or to not act. A defining aspect of emotion is the fact that it takes us over for a moment, or sometimes many moments. Emotions can be very brief, possible to last no more than a second or two. Or an emotion can continue over some length of time. It is an evolutionary view of emotion. Our emotions evolved over the course of our history to deal with the most important issues of life -- with child rearing, friendship, mating, antagonisms, -- and the function of emotion is to get us moving very quickly without having to think.
Moods are related to but different from emotions, in their duration. Emotions could come and go in a matter of seconds or minutes, but a mood can last a whole day. We wake up in an irritable mood or in a very positive mood. Of we experience amusement again and again in a short period of time, it will be a very euphoric mood. If we experience furious again and again, then will have a long period of irritable. So those are two different routs to a mood. We don't really know as much about the causes of moods as about the causes of emotions.
Professor Owen Flanagan's interest in the role of emotions in the life of the mind crystallized in 1980, was fascinated by a scientific paper of Paul Ekman about the expression of emotion in the human face because it offered the first hard evidence that human emotions were universal. Published in 1991, Varieties of Moral Personality points out that being good -- virtuous -- would mean both happiness and mental well-being. In the worst case, one's ethics and emotions are at odds. To what extent do they coincide?
Prof. Owen addressed the issue of how emotions are viewed in Western philosophy:
In the West, we make a big distinction between saying "There are flowers in this room" and "There are beautiful flowers in this room". The first one is a fact, a description, whereas the second involves a value judgement or a norm, regarding aesthetics. In the west, that split is associated with objectivity and subjectivity. In the west, people begin the discussions of emotions by thinking first in Darwinian terms. We think of emotions as having been handed to us, perhaps by ancestral species of hominids that existed before Homo Sapiens.
The western view: essential compassion is not included.
In the western philosophical tradition there have been three main answers:
1. Rational egoists: each person watches out only for his or her own good, but sees rationally that only by being nice to others is it possible to get what he or she wants. In economics as well as in philosophy, people think that things work smoothly only because each of us is smart enough to see that our own good depends on treating others well.
2. Selfish and compassionate: if you see how fragile human infants are, there is no way they could survive unless there was compassion or sympathy on the part of their caretakers. So, clearly that whether you put compassion before or after selfishness, it's necessary for survival. Philosophers who believe that people are selfish and compassionate think that once we have taken care of our own basic needs, then there is time left over to be loving and compassionate of others. Then, it goes to the third one below.
3. Compassionate and selfish. The people who take the third position say that we are basically compassionate, loving creatures, but if there is scarcity of resources such as food, clothing, and shelter, then compassion will drop out and our selfish side will emerge.
Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics says that self-love is not always egotistical. It involves respecting yourself. In the west, a view is that you can love others only if you love yourself - that if you have low self-esteem, self-hatred, or lack of self-respect, then you are in no position to love other poeple. Sharon Salzberg (American Buddhist teacher) described teaching a meditation that starts with developing lovingkindness toward oneself before going on to others. One reason was that so many people in the west nowadays have very low self-esteem - even self-contempt.
However, the Tibetan term for caring or compassion, tsewa, includes both self and others, with the wish "May I be free of suffering, and free of the sources of suffering", and then there is empathy, on the basis of which one can recognize the kinship of self and others, then feel compassion for others. Compassion is more than simply feeling for another - empathy - but a concerned, heartfelt caring, wanting to do something to relieve the person's suffering. That holds whether the being involved is oneself, someone else, or an animal. The concept of self-loathing is foreign here.
Summed up: in Tibetan term, the terms for both lovingkindness and compassion apply both to oneself and to others, whereas, in the western context, compassion pertains only to others, then the mental state that is directed to yourself might be in opposition to compassion for others. In west, there is a concept of feeling sorry for yourself, as not very positive, but an excessive feeling that things aren't going well for you. Again, it is selfish. There are terms in Buddhism that would set compassion for oneself in opposition to compassion for others, usually translated as "self-cherishing", which implies a "me-first attitude", setting one's own well-being as the highest priority - as opposed to cherishing others.
In the west, guilt is an important emotion, related to shame. There are views about whether feelings of anger, contempt, or indignation are sometimes appropriate and sometimes in appropriate. The basic rationale for including these emotions ties in with the way we think about evolution. We think that humans evolved as social animals - we need each other. Social interaction involves opportunities for being treated well or being treated badly. Each of these emotions arises in response to social situations. "I become fearful if a person is threatening to harm me. I feel love when someone has treated me well, possibly in response to my treating him or her well." The unifying idea behind the so-called moral emotions is that they are used to structure our social life to go as smoothly as possible. It's less important in western tradtion to think about how to structure your own soul. It has so much focus on the self -- self-worth and self-esteem -- but much less of a tradition of trying to harmonize yourself internally. These emotions and moral principles governing all involve social relations.
Imannuel Kant said that it is one thing to be happy; it is another thing to be good. The best way to think about Kant's distinction between happiness and goodness, or virtue, is to ask whether happiness involves just feeling a certain way or being a certain way. When Kant said that it's one thing to be happy but another thing to be good, he thought first of all that the demands of being a good person are so hard- that there are always temptations. The demands of living a morally good life are such that you might have to sacrifice all the things that would bring you happiness. You might have to give up your life. You might have to ask your children to give up their lives for somet important cause. Kant went so far as to think that if you performed a moral action because you were emotionally pushed to do it, it had no moral worth. For example, he thought that although the love between parents and children is natural, it has no moral worth -- because morality has to involve struggle against the self. He thought that if there is a kind of happiness you have to give up when you stand by an important moral cause, that is a price you should be willing to pay.
Plato says that the good person is happy and the happy person is good. They necessarily go together. But people who read Plato realize that his happy person doesn't sound happy in the sense of a child getting presents. It's a very calm state of being.
Aristotle's term eudaimonia, for years was translated as 'happiness' and is now generally translated as 'flourishing'. It's a plant metaphor, the idea is that the plant doesn't actually have to feel happy to be flourishing.
John Stuart Mill in Utilitarianism said "Every human would seek to be Socrates dissatisfied rather than a pig satisfied". There's something about the capacities that Socrates has that are the kinds that people naturally and appropriately want to realize. That's one way of thinking about higher and lower ones.
How the emotions themselves have been characterized in the west?
Plato use the metaphor that reason is a chariot driver with two wild horses, emotion and temperament, that are always trying to get out control. Among Greek philosophers, there is a tradition that reason must conquer the emotions -- moods and temperament -- which are the cause of all trouble. Temperament is a certain emotional style, like being a shy or a moody person, it's a trait. Anger is an emotion; a person with an irritable temperament is constantly prone to being angry. Plato argued that the emotions, temperament, and appetites for sex or food are all causes of trouble, and human reason needs to take control.
Aristotle (Plato's student) took a different view. He had the idea of happiness as a kind of flourishing, and articulated the Doctrine of the Mean, which is very close to Buddhist. Aristotle thought that there was a set of virtues -- including courage, friendship, and compassion -- that should be in a harmonious relation inside each person. This comes about through being exposed to wise elders who display those characteristics. Aristotle also thought that every virtue involves an emotional component. There is a time when it is appropriate to show anger, but you need to express just the right amount of anger in just the right way, to the right person at the right time. It's no easy task. Aristotle thought that the virtuous response generally came from learning through imitating elders, or through phronesis, which means 'practical wisdom'. If you confronted with a new situation, you would need to think more about it. But usually, knowing how to moderate your emotions so that they lead to positive action and good feeling will come naturally, automatically.
Tibetan's term of so sor togpa, meaning "discerning intelligence' comes quite close.
For centuries in the west, thinking about virtue was inseparable from religion. During the 18th and 19th of Age of Enlightenment (sometimes calld the Age of Reason); philosophers started to realize that the good life need not be based on any particular religious view, to defend different principles that would govern moral action. Most westerners, especially if they are not religious, will fall into either the utilitarian camp or the Kantian camp, which have a huge amount in common. In Kant's case, he was pietistic Lutheran, so Kant's ethical philosophy is not unrelated to a religious perspective.
The utilitarian claimed that it might be morally justified, if a hundred people gained pleasure out of doing something harmful to one person. But then, that shows disrespect for the person, which is a higher value, a higher good. Utilitarian would say that logical consistency requires you to act for the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people in the long run. (How long is the long run? Forever. It is very hard to put into effect). The usual objection to utilitarianism says that if you have to sacrifice one person to save the lives of a hundred people, you ought to do that. A Kantian will put a restriction on that and say that even if a hundred people will die as a result of your decision, you ought never to violate the principle of not killing. Neither principle involves worrying about how you feel emotionally about anybody, they are both based on the idea that you must be consistent.
Destructive and Constructive States of Mind (Western Perspectives)
Destructive states of mind:
Low self-esteem
Overconfidence
Harboring negative emotions
Jealousy and envy
Lack of compassion
Inability to have close interpersonal relations
Constructive states of mind:
Self-respect
Self-esteem (if deserved)
Feelings of integrity
Compassion
Benevolence
Generosity
Seeing the true, the good, the right
Love
Friendship
Integrity means that you follow your principles you live your life according to your beliefs (none of terms in Tibetan's close to this).
Self-esteem 'if deserved'; there are a lot of people walking around who have excessive self-esteem. They think they're people of integrity - yet, they're not. So these feelings of self-esteem are constructive only if they're deserved.
The English term of "emotion" is very general, comes from the latin root "emovere" -- somethint sets the mind in motion, whether toward harmful, neutral, or positive action.
In Buddhist term, one would call emotion something that conditions the mind and makes it adopt a certain perspective or vision of things. It doesn't refer necessarily to an emotional burst arising all of a sudden in the mind (which such an event would be called as a gross emotion -- e.g. when it's clear you are either angry, or sad, or obssessed)."
Fundamentally, a destructive emotion (also refereed to as an obscuring or afflictive mental factor) is something that prevents the mind from ascertaining reality as it is. With a destructive emotion, there will always be a gap between the way things appear and the ways things are. Excessive attachment -- desire, for instance, will not let us see a balance between the pleasant and unpleasant, constructive and destructive, qualities in something or someone, and causes us to see it for a while as being 100% attractive -- and therefore makes us want it. Aversion will blind us to some positive qualities of the object, making us 100% negative toward that object, wishing to repel, destroy, or run away from it. Such emotional states impair one's judgement, the ability to make a correct assessment of the nature of things. That is why we say it's obscuring: it obscures the way things are. Eventually it also obscures a deeper assessment of the nature of things as being permanent or impermanent, as having intrinsic properties or not. And so at all levels it will be obscuring. Thus, obscuring emotions impair one's freedom by chaining thoughts in a way that compels us to think, speak, and act in a biased way.
By contract, constructive emotions go with a more correct appreciation of the nature of what one is perceiving -- they are grounded on sound reasoning.
Actions are not in themselves good or bad because someone decided they should be so. There is no such thing as good and bad in an absolute sense. There is only the good and bad -- the harm in terms of happiness or suffering -- that our thoughts and actions do to ourselves or to others.
Destructive and constructive emotions can also be distinguished according to the motivation that inspires them egocentric or altruistic, malevolent or benevolent. So both the motivation and the consequences of one's emotions have to considered. One can also distinguish between constructive and destructive emotions by examining the ways they relate to each other in terms of antidotes.
Consider, for example, hatred and altruism. Hatred can be defined as the wish to harm others or to ruin something that belongs to or is dear to others. The opposite emotion for that is something that acts directly as an antidote to that wish to harm: altruistic love. It acts as a direct antidote to animosity because, although one can alternate between love and hatred, one cannot feel, at the very same moment, both love and hatred toward the same person or the same object, thus, the more one cultivates lovingkindness, compassion, altruism -- the more they pervade your mind -- the more their opposite, the wish to harm, is forced to diminish and, possibly, disappear. When we say an emotion is negative, it's not so much that we are repudiating something, but that it's negative in the sense of less happiness, less well-being, less lucidity and freedom, more distortion.
However, when one speaks of hating one-self, hate is not really at the core of the feeling. You might be upset with yourself, but this could be a form of pride, a sense of frustration arising from the realization that you don't live up to your expectations. But you can't truly hate yourself. Thus, there's no such thing as self-loathing in Buddhism, because that would be against the basic wish of any living being to avoid suffering. You may feel you hate yourself because you want to be so much better than you are. You may be disappointed at yourself for not being what you want to be, or impatient for not becoming so fast enough. Self-loathing actually includes a lot of attachment to the ego. Even someone when commits suicide does s not out of self-hatred but because of thinking that it's a way of escaping a greater suffering. A Buddhist perspective on suicide: one is not escaping anything, because death is just a transition to another state of existence. So it would be better to try to avoid the suffering either by endeavoring to solve the problem in the here and now or, when that is not possible, by changing one's attitude toward this same problem.
From childhood to old age, we change all the time. Our bodies are never the same and our minds acquire new experiences with every instant that phases. We are in constant transformation. Yet we also have the notion that at the center of all that, there is something that defines us, something that has remained constant from childhood that defines "me". This "I", called as "ego clinging" -- constitutes our identity. It's not simply the thought of 'me' that comes to our mind when we wake up, when we say 'I feel hot or cold' or when someone calls us. Ego clinging refers to a deeply ingrained grasping to an unchanging entity that seems to be at the very core of our being and defines us as a particular person. We feel this "I" is vulnerable and need to protect it and please it. Whatever might threaten this "I", and attraction toward whatever pleases or reassures this "I" and makes it feel secure, happy; from these two basic emotions, attraction and repulsion, a host of diverse emotions will come.
In Buddhist scriptures, one speaks of 84,000 kinds of negative emotions, reflects the complexity of the human mind and gives one to understand that methods to transform this mind need to be adapted to the great variety of mental dispositions. This is why one speaks of 84,000 entrance doors to the Buddhist path of inner transformation. These multifaceted emotions boil down to 5 main ones: hatred, desire, confusion, pride, jealousy.
Hatred is the deeply felt wish to harm someone else, to destroy their happiness. It is not necessarily expressed in a burst of anger. It's not expressed all the time, but ti will manifest when meeting with circumstances that trigger one's animosity. It is also connected with many other related emotions, such as resentment, bearing grudges, contempt, animosity, and so on.
Then the opposite is attachment. the is the plain desire for sensual pleasure or for an object we want to possess. There is also the subtle aspect of attachment to the notion of "I", to the person, and to the solid reality of phenomena. Essentially, attachment has to do with a kind of grasping that makes you see things in a way that they are not. It will make you think that things are permanent -- that friendship, human beings, love, possessions, will last -- although it is clear that they will not. So attachment means clinging to one's way of perceiving things.
Then, ignorance, the lack discernment between what needs to be accomplished or avoided in order to achieve happiness and avoid sufferings. Ignorance is not normally regarded as an emotion in western culture, but it is clearly a mental factor that prevents a lucid and true ascertaining of reality. It is thus a mental state that obscures ultimate wisdom or knowledge, considered to be an afflictive aspect of mind.
Pride: being proud of one's achievements, feeling superior to others of holding them in contempt, wrong assessments of one's own qualities, or not recognizing others' good qualities. It often goes with not recognizing one's own defects.
Jealousy can be seen as an inability to rejoice in others' happiness. One is never jealous of someone's suffering, but of their happiness and good qualities. If our goal is precisely to bring well-being to others, we should be happy if they find happiness by themselves (Buddhist perspective). Part of our work is already done -- there is that much less to do.
A very deep approach in Buddhist philosophy and practice to try to examine if that "I" is just an illusion, just a name we attach to that stream and flux in continuous transformation. We cannot find the "I" in any part of the body, or as something that would pervade the body in its entirety. We might think that it lies in the consciousness, but consciousness is also stream in continuous transformation. The past thought is gone, the future one has not yet arisen. How can the present 'I' truly exist, hanging between something that has passed and something else that has yet to arise?
If the self cannot be identified in the mind or the body, nor in both together, not as something distinct from them, it is evident that there is nothing we can point to that can justify our having such a strong feeling of "I". It is just a name one gives to a continuum. But yet when we cling to it, when we think there is a boat on that river, that is when all the troubles come, when we begin clinging to this notion of "I" as something truly existing, that needs to be protected and pleased. Aversion, repulsion, afflictions, and eventually 84,000 aspects of afflicting emotions will unfold.
3 Levels of Consicousness
According to Buddhism, there are 3 levels of consciousness: gross, subtle, and very subtle. The gross level corresponds to the functioning of the brain and the interaction of the body with its environment. The subtle level corresponds to the notion of the 'I' and to the introspective faculty with which the mind examines its own nature. It is also the mind stream that carries on tendencies and habitual patterns. The very subtle level is the most fundamental aspect of consciousness, the mere fact that there is a cognitive faculty rather than not. It is sheer consciousness or awareness, without a particular object upon which consciousness is focused. We generally do not percieve consciousness in such way, this takes contemplative training.
Emotions concern the gross and the subtle level but do not affect the most subtle one. The very subtle level is sometimes referred to as 'luminous,' refers simply to the basic faculty of being aware, without any coloration from mental constructs or emotions. This basic awareness sometimes called the ultimate nature of mind, fully and directly realized, without veils, this is also considered to be the nature of Buddhahood.
The next step is to determine whether it is possible to free oneself entirely from destructive emotions. This is possible only if negative emotions are not inherent in the ultimate nature of mind. If negative emotions, like hatred, were inherent in the most subtle aspect of mind, they would be present at all times. Even though majority people experience negative emotions at various times, that does not mean that such emotions are inherent in the nature of mind. A pieces of gold lie in dusty place but does not change the nature of gold itself. Destructive emotions are not embedded in the basic nature of consciousness, rather, they arise depending on circumstances and various habits and tendencies that express themselves from the outer core of consciousness.This opens the possibility for working with those emotions and the tendencies that breed them. If destructive emotions were inherent in the mind, there would be no point in trying to gain freedom from them, like washing a piece of charcoal which can never become white. The possibility of being free is the starting point of the path of inner transformation. One can drive away the clouds and find that behind them the sun has always been there and the sky has always been clear. To consider whether those destructive emotions are part of the basic nature of mind, we need to examine them. A strong burst of anger seems irresistible, very compelling. We feel almost powerless not to feel angry, this is because we don't really look at the nature of anger itself. Buddhist practice: is anger like an army commander, like a burning fire, like a heavy stone? But the experiment will show that the more you look at anger, the more it disappears beneath one's very eyes, like the frost melting under the morning sun. When one genuinely looks at it, it suddenly loses its strength. There is an aspect of clarity, of brilliance, that is at the very core of anger and is not yet malevolent. Indeed, a the very source of destructive emotions there is something that is not yet harmful. Thus, the negative qualities of emotions are not even intrinsic to the emotions themselves. It is the grasping associated with one's tendencies that leads to a chain reaction in which the initial thought develops into anger, hatred, and malevolence. If anger itself is not something that is solid, it means anger is not a property that belongs to the fundamental nature of mind.
How to deal with negative emotions?
As negative emotions creep continually into the mind, they transform into moods and eventually into traits of temperament. Therefore one needs to begin by working with emotions themselves. The first way, try to avoid the negative consequences of the destructive emotions that bring unhappiness to self and others, by using antidotes. There is a specific antidote for each emotion. We cannot feel hatred and love simultaneously for the same object, thus love is a direct antidote to hatred. Likewise, one can contemplate the unpleasant aspects of an abject of compulsive desire, or try to have a more objective assessment. For ignorance, or lack of discernment, try to refine our understanding of what needs to be accomplished and what avoided. In jealousy, try to rejoice in others' qualities. For pride, try to appreciate others' achievements and open our eyes to our own defects to cultivate humility.
The next step, to find if there is an antidote that could work for all of them, which is to be found in meditation, in the investigation of the ultimate nature of all negative emotions. One finds they don't have an inherent solidity -- that they exhibit what Buddhism calls emptiness. It's not that suddenly they all vanish into the sky, but that they are not as solid as they seem. doing so enables one to demolish the apparent solidity of negative emotions. This antidote -- the realization of their empty nature -- acts on all emotions, because although emotions manifest in various ways, they are identical is not having a solid existence.
The last way, which is also the most risky, consists not in neutralizing emotions or in looking at their void nature, but in transforming them, using them as catalysts for swiftly freeing oneself from their influence. It is like someone who falls into the sea and takes support from the water itself to swim and reach the shore.
These methods are compared with three possible ways of dealing with a poisonous plant: to uproot the plant carefully and remove it from the ground completely (using the antidotes); or pouring boiling water onto the plant (using meditating on emptiness); or using the peacock which was traditionally thought to be able to feed on poisonous substances (the peacock not only is not poisoned when other animals might die, but its feathers become even more beautiful --> correspond to the practice of using and transforming the emotions as a means of enhancing one's spiritual practice). But it only works for peacocks -- lesser animals would get into serious trouble.
A common goal of three methods is: for no longer enslaved by negative emotions, and we progress toward freedom.
Does one deal with such emotions after they arise, at the time they arise, or before they arise?
The beginner's approach: after they arise, because usually one realizes the negative or destructive aspects of some emotions only after having experienced them. You then use reason to investigate their consequences -- seeing that a strong burst of hatred, which makes one perceive someone as entirely evil, can cause much suffering to others and certainly does not make us happy either. In this way, we can distinguish the emotions that bring happiness from those that cause suffering. It will then become clear that the next time such emotion are ready to arise, it is best not to give them free rein.
The next stage is to deal with emotions as they arise. The crucial point here is to free emotions at the moment they surge in one's mind, so that they don't trigger a chain of thoughts that proliferate and take over the mind. For this, by asking whether it has a shape, location, color, and so on, to discover that its true nature is emptiness. Tibetan word for meditation means 'familiarization'. One becomes familiar through practice, with this way of seeing thoughts come and go.
The final step: even before an emotion might arise, you are ready in such a way that it will not arise with the same compelling, enslaving power. This step is linked to realization, a state of achieved transformation, where the destructive emotions don't arise with nearly the same strength. When one has lovingkindness soak his mind, it becomes second nature, so hatred is expelled from one's mind and there is no way that one would harm someone willingly. Hatred no longer arises, and there is nothing to be repressed.
If one gets rid of all emotions, one will not become unresponsive as a log. When the mind is free, it is lucid and clear. Who is completely at peace and free from disturbing emotions has a much greater sensitivity and concern toward other's happiness and suffering. He has a much finer sense of judgement and a wider compassion. People might say that if you don't express emotion, might lead to unhealthy states of mind. But emotions can be expressed in many different ways. We don't need to repress our emotions but channel them into a dialogue with our intelligence, using them to understand the nature of our mind, watching how they subside of their own accord without creating more seeds for their future arising.
The final question: whether it is possible to rid oneself completely of negative emotions? The answer has to do with wisdom and freedom. If you consider that destructive emotions restrain our inner freedom and impair our judgement, then as we get more free from them, they will not have the same strength. We will have more freedom and happiness.
We should distinguish pleasure from happiness. Happiness is understood here to refer to a deep sense of fulfillment, accompanied by a sense of peace and a host of positive qualities such as altruism. Pleasure depends upon the place, the circumstances, and the object of its enjoyment. One can get pleasure at certain times and not at others. It is bound to change. something that is pleasurable at one point might soon give rise to indifference, then to displeasure and suffering. Pleasure exhausts itself in the enjoying just like a candle that burns down and disappears.
A deep sense of fulfillment does not depend upon time, locations or objects. It is a state of mind that grows the more one experiences it. It is different from pleasure in almost every way. What we seek by disentangling ourselves from the influence of destructive emotions is the kind of inner stability, clarity, and fulfillment that we are referring to here as happiness.
Private thoughts, public feelings
The critical issue in the western understanding of emotion that, the beginning moment -- a crucial process -- is something that we can only wonder about, but, we don't know. We only become aware once we're in the emotion. We're not the master at the start.
Emotions are public, not private. The expression signals to others, in the voice, face, posture, what emotion we feel. Our thoughts are private, our emotions are not. Others know how we feel -- and that is very important for how people get along with each other. Many thoughts involve emotions, but not all thoughts. If the thought is connected to an emotion, then you will see a sign of the emotion.
In Shakespeare, Othello killed Desdemona. He was right in seeing that she was afraid, but he was wrong in what he attributed it to. He thought it was a woman afraid because she had been caught in an infidelity, but it was a woman afraid for her life from a jealous husband. Sometimes the emotion precedes thought, sometimes it is simultaneous, sometimes it comes after.
Getting moving without thinking
When an emotion begins, it generates changes in our expression: face, voice, the way we think, impulses to action. These occur involuntarily, and if we don't go along with them, we experience it as a struggle to control to not show or to not speak, or to not act. A defining aspect of emotion is the fact that it takes us over for a moment, or sometimes many moments. Emotions can be very brief, possible to last no more than a second or two. Or an emotion can continue over some length of time. It is an evolutionary view of emotion. Our emotions evolved over the course of our history to deal with the most important issues of life -- with child rearing, friendship, mating, antagonisms, -- and the function of emotion is to get us moving very quickly without having to think.
Moods are related to but different from emotions, in their duration. Emotions could come and go in a matter of seconds or minutes, but a mood can last a whole day. We wake up in an irritable mood or in a very positive mood. Of we experience amusement again and again in a short period of time, it will be a very euphoric mood. If we experience furious again and again, then will have a long period of irritable. So those are two different routs to a mood. We don't really know as much about the causes of moods as about the causes of emotions.
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