Sharing this practice based on what was written in Ezra Bayda's latest book: The Authentic Life.
I am halfway thru it, it is very good, so go grab it at your nearest bookstore!
I am sharing this after sitting a one day intensive with Gregg Howard (another Charlotte Joko Beck's Dharma successor) who also shared about the 5 steps during his Dharma talk. This is a very important part of my own spiritual practice, I spoke about the 3 R in another post earlier (based on Ezra's wife's teaching and is a variant of this 5 step approach) and for past couple years, I have been using a variant of this approach to work with my emotional difficulties. I am grateful to Ezra's clarification of this approach in his latest book as well as grateful to Gregg for refreshing it during today's Dharma talk.
When emotional difficulty arise...
1. Notice it! From my own experience, recognising it is not necessarily an easy task. Sometimes anger outbursts come and go without any light of awareness being shine on it at all. It is also during such times that I realise the extent of my "waking sleep".
2. Seeing it as our path. This is about overcoming our resistance to practice. Our habitual energies can be so strong that we might choose to wallow in our anger rather than to seeing it as our practice. I also find myself many a times stuck at this stage, noticing but choosing to continue to wallow in my vexations. Another realisation of the extent of my "waking sleep".
3. Clarifying our beliefs. Getting this far is quite an achievement. Sometimes asking "how is it supposed to be?" shines light on where I am stuck. Other times this stage may be just a realisation of "its xxx again." where I catch myself playing out some of my "favourite tunes". Sometimes it is not so clear. In any case, from my experience, it is important not to get stuck at this stage as it may mean more ruminating which adds fuel to the fire of the emotion.
4. Experiencing. What I see as the most important step. At this stage we move beyond the thinking mind and return to feeling the physical energy of the emotion. When the emotion is intense, it can be quite difficult to stay present with the physical sensations. But when I am to do so, to fully experience the emotion such as anger, the energy usually dissipates. For more intense emotions, it may not dissipate, but definitely I can feel the energy becoming more porous and more workable.
5. Letting go. The whole process is about letting go of the emotion. But to say to me "let go" when I am caught up in an emotional storm is unlikely to be very useful! We want to let go but we cannot. So this is where this 5 step comes into play. It can truly help us to let go of vexations in our life. While I am still very much a beginner in this practice, but having tasted some of the lower hanging fruits, I must say that this has become one of my primary practices.
May all of us continue to enjoy our practice and be well and happy.
Amituofo. =)
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