Unclear mumbling of your consciousness
When you look inside yourself, the first thing you meet is the constant mumbling of your consciousness. Buddhists compare the consciousness with the restless and noisy monkey, constantly jumps from branch to branch, not staying anywhere.
It is possible that most of the time you will listen to the silent chatter of your mind, not even realizing it. Mumbling of consciousness can take the form of memories of the past, building pictures of the future or attempts to solve the problems of the present. Whatever the content of this chatter, the consciousness constantly communicates with itself, promoting, for example, some story where the main character is you. (Research shows that only a very small percentage of people do not have such a constant internal dialogue - they are replaced by feelings or images that occasionally appear in their consciousness.)
Strong or recurrent emotions
Just like a sharp film or romantic comedy, the dramatic stories that your mind is constantly spinning around cause you to play with feelings. If, for example, you are thinking about a profitable deal or evening with an attractive young person, you may have fears and doubts or excitement and lust. Unjust attitudes can lead to anger, anger, resentment and resentment. These emotions are accompanied by certain physical sensations, such as tension, agitation, heart pain, nausea or headaches.
What is the difference between thoughts and feelings
Here are a few tips to help you understand the difference between thoughts and feelings.
- Feelings arise as a set of sensations in your body that can be easily distinguished from any other sensation. For example, when you get angry, you may feel tension in your shoulders and jaws; you may also feel a hot wave coming from the back of your head. Sadness manifests itself through heaviness in the chest and heart and breathing. As you meditate, you will understand how feelings can be felt as feelings and learn to separate them from the thoughts and stories that give rise to these feelings.
- Thoughts are images, memories, perceptions, judgments, and opinions that go through your mind and often cause you to feel something. If a word seems to accompany a word that, perhaps, implies a thought or representation, not a feeling at all. You can practice your feelings by asking yourself questions: "What are the thoughts and images in my mind caused by the feelings I am experiencing now?"
Thoughts not only cause feelings, but also often try to pass themselves off as feelings, trying to talk to you through your feelings, judge your feelings, or completely suppress them. The better you can distinguish between thoughts and feelings, the more clearly and consciously we can communicate and express our inner experiences.
Some feelings give you pleasure, others are unpleasant and even painful. But emotions are not a problem in themselves. By reacting to the dramas you have in your mind, you cut yourself off from others, from the deeper and more important aspects of your being - and you may lose sight of what is happening around you.
Gripping and repulsive
On a more subtle level of experience than thoughts and emotions, we can notice a constant play of sympathies and antipathies, affection and disgust. Buddhists teach that the key to happiness and satisfaction is to want what you are already having and not to want what you do not have. However, we are often not satisfied with what we have, but at the same time passionately desire what we do not have, and strive to get it by all means. It also happens that we are extremely attached to what we have and then suffer when time and circumstances change what we have or take away. Change is inevitable, and the habit of either clinging to our own experiences or rejecting them can cause us constant suffering.
Negative perceptions and life scenarios
Here's another natural metaphor for you. Imagine that your thoughts, emotions and even dramas running through your brain are the leaves and branches of an inner bush or tree. What, in your opinion, is the root from which leaves and branches germinate all the time?
You will probably be surprised to learn that this root is a set of images and stories (many of which are negative), formed as a result of actions and words of different people - especially your loved ones. These notions and stories are intertwined and have formed a kind of life scenario that determines who you think you are and how you perceive others and the circumstances of life.
Conclusion: your tendency to fully identify yourself with your life script limits the range of your possibilities and causes you suffering, acting as a filter through which you interpret your life in a negative light. Returning to the metaphor with the bush, you can continue to cut off the branches on that bush, but you will not protect yourself from further living (repetition) of the same old story unless you pull out that bush with root.