Throughout my practice, I have been too much in my head and not enough in my heart. I’ve found that as I increasingly move into my heart, I’m unlocking all sorts of other feelings that I have been repressing, some of which are very unpleasant. I’ve realized that I have been running away to my head to escape not knowing how to deal with my unpleasant feelings. It’s basically been my coping mechanism.

While at one level it has protected me from being hurt, it has likewise prevented me from getting into my heart. But I need to get into my heart. The whole point of Dharma practice is to have the Dharma touch and ultimately reside at our heart. To put it in Star Trek terms, I need to see past my Vulcan like tendencies and embrace my human side. 🙂

I’m realizing that, to a certain extent at least, I have been inadvertently using the Dharma as just another inner coping mechanism to escape dealing with my unpleasant feelings. The Dharma is always good for us, but relating to it in unhealthy ways is, um, unhealthy. Many people develop unhealthy relationships with the Dharma and it usually ends badly, both for the person and for the faith of others – and sometimes for the whole tradition.

For me, it seems it is my non-acceptance of my unpleasant feelings that is at the root of all my unhealthy coping mechanisms, both externally like turning to self-destructive behaviors or internally such as guilt, self-discouragement, hopelessness, etc. I suspect I am not alone.

While it’s absolutely true that our feelings are empty and changing our discriminations will change what feelings arise, from a practical point of view of daily experience, feelings arise and we need to respond to them with good discriminations. To put it in karmic terms, feelings are the karmic effects of our previous discrimination kamric causes.

But karma ripens with a lag. The karma that is ripening now (in other words, the feelings arising in my heart) is the result of actions I engaged in long ago, some of which were good, some bad, some pure. How I respond to those feelings determines what new karma I create now.

Sometimes unpleasant feelings arise. Instead of thinking I need to shut them down or change them, I need to accept them wholeheartedly – welcome them into my heart, allow them to pass through me. Accepting them (as opposed to repressing them or thinking they are a problem) enables me to train in correct discriminations towards them, embracing them as teachings, purification, empowerments, and opportunities to train my mind.

In short, unpleasant feelings are not an object of abandonment, delusions and negative actions are. Responding to unpleasant feelings with delusions and negative actions is. Unpleasant feelings, like pleasant ones or even pure ones, are just another condition for our practice. We know sufferings, we abandon origins.

Accepting them, welcoming them, no-longer fearing them, are all part of being a healthy Kadampa. They will still arise, but they won’t be a problem for us.

Eventually, through training long enough, we will change our karma and they will no longer arise for us. We will have exhausted or purified all the karma giving rise to them and we will no longer create any more karma for future unpleasant feelings, but long before that we will have overcome our fear of them. Indeed, we can start doing that right now.