Expert: Anandapanyo Bhikkhu - 1/5/2012

Question
Hello. I have recently become very interested in Buddhism and plan to begin attending classes at a local center when the next round begins next week. However, as I read more and more about it, the question that my wife and I keep coming to concerns emotions. It seems that as you progress in your Buddhist journey, you become less emotional. I am probably not being as clear as I hope, but it seems hard to be as joyful as you were before when you think constantly about impermanence, duality, and that your joy will pass. For instance, few things bring me as great pleasure as watching my favorite pitcher on my favorite baseball team strike out an opposing hitter from a rival team. But if all I think about is the fact that the hitter is losing every time my pitchers has a victory over him, it seems like the joy would be sucked out of the experience. I don't think I want that to happen to my life.

Answer
Dear Eric,

Thank you for your question and the opportunity for me to answer it.

This is not the first time I have encountered this type of question - both in my personal development and in my teaching experience. What it comes down to is a simple misunderstanding about HOW to think, HOW to contemplate impermanence.

Please allow me to point out some points of PERMANENCE in your question:

"It seems that as you progress in your Buddhist journey, you become less emotional."

This is both true and not true. We do become less emotional - but not because we lose our emotions. But rather because we better understand our emotions and how they can cause us pain and suffering. Therefore, we strive to control them better. We strive to be angry less, we strive to be mean less, we strive to be selfish less. So in our journey, we do not become LESS emotional, but rather, we become more in control of our emotions. We still have the same amount of emotions, be we let them out a lot less.

This is like owning a dog that barks a lot. He has always had the capacity to bark and will always bark. However, we can find ways to control how much he barks. We can feed him, we can put a muzzle on him, we can put him in other rooms away from people..But we dont lose the dog, we dont kill the dog, and the dog doesn't need to disappear.

In fact, the MORE we progress on our journey, the more we realize that we HAVE emotions, therefore it actually seems as if we become MORE emotional. What we used to consider normal responses, we now know to be EMOTIONAL responses. Therefore, we have MORE work to do because we seem to have become MORE emotional.

"but it seems hard to be as joyful as you were before when you think constantly about impermanence, duality, and that your joy will pass."

You are only looking at one side of the coin here. True, your joy is impermanent and will one day, but you forget the other side. Your SUFFERING is also impermanent and will one day fade. If you DIDN'T consider impermanence, your HAPPINESS and SUFFERING would fade anyways. Your happiness fades into suffering, your suffering fades into happiness.

Fearing that your happiness will fade is only looking at half the moon, half the coin, half the equation. This is what causes you REAL suffering. This is the wrong way to contemplate impermanence. This is seeing that Happiness will fade. This is NEGATIVE thinking...which is a non- IMPERMANENT thought.

If you contemplate that Suffering will fade into happiness, this i POSITIVE thinking...which is also a non-IMPERMANENT thought.

The correct way of thinking is to see BOTH sides of the fading and impermanence of emotions. This is the correct way, the middle way, the proper way.

I can go into more detail about HOW to properly contemplate impermanence.

"But if all I think about is the fact that the hitter is losing every time my pitchers has a victory over him, it seems like the joy would be sucked out of the experience. I don't think I want that to happen to my life."

This is also NEGATIVE thinking. Thinking like this only hurt you and depresses you.

But we do not see the actual problem, the problem is that we are attached to one outcome, to seeing one thing...that is our team winning. Correct viewing of impermanence is seeing that it is all impermanent, something that we can cling to temporarily, not permanently. The fact that you are relying on some part of your happiness coming from "your favorite pitcher" is a scary notion. It might seem like a good thing, but how do you feel when your pitcher loses, or gets injured? You forget to see the suffering that your "source of happiness" gives you also. This is the PERMANENCE that you missed. It is easy to see the good side of things. But to be real..to be realistic..to see the impermanence..we must see that the source of your happiness is not one that can be relied on permanently. We should rely on things that are reliable, such as our own goodness, our own kindness and the control of our actions in the right way.

Correct understanding of Impermanence will lead to MORE happiness due to less guessing and incorrect reliance on impermanent things. If you understand impermanence, you will be more centered, more controlled and more intelligent in choices dealing with reliance.

I will stop here for now, I do not want to give too long of an answer. If you need more explanations, please ask a follow - up question.

Sincerely,

Phra Anandapanyo

anandapanyo.kpyusa.org