When I look at an object, like the cup on the table next to my laptop right now, the visual feel of the object is entirely driven by the physical object itself. In this case, I am not imagining or making up the visual feel of the cup. It looks the way the cup intends to appear. The color of the cup is entirely driven by the cup itself. I cannot choose to see a red cup when it’s grey. In other words, the visual feeling I have of the cup is not my reaction to its physical existence – rather it’s a causally evoked feeling, albeit a visual one.
Similarly, the tactile feel of the cup I experience when I hold the cup is entirely driven by the cup itself. I am not choosing to feel the cup’s surface as soft or rough or whatever else. It feels the way the cup’s surface intends to be felt.
The word intend is in italics, because I don’t want it to convey that the cup is consciously choosing to be felt in a specific way. However, by the very nature of its existence, it feels the way it feels when I touch it.
Similarly, when I touch a hot plate – I am not choosing to feel the heat. The feeling of heat is not my chosen reaction to having touched a hot plate. The plate feels hot when I touch it. For sure the degree to which I feel the heat depends on how numb or sensitive my hands are at that time. But the point is that the actual feeling of the hot plate is not my doing. It feels the way it intends to be felt.
The “taste feel” of something is entirely driven by the thing that’s being tasted. Bitter coffee tastes the way it tastes, juicy mango tastes the way it tastes, and pickle tastes the way it tastes because they all intend to taste the way they do. None of our experience of how they taste is our reaction to them.
The same can be said of sound too. When rusted iron rub off on each other, they sound the way they sound – because that’s how they intend to be heard. Sure one could argue that the auditory feeling of a sound is contingent on how good one’s ears are and the thoughts and emotions the sound evokes.
For sure, the degree to which we can feel any physical sensation is contingent on how good and sensitive the corresponding physical sense organs are. And, of course, physical sensations may spawn multiple threads of thoughts and emotions.
For some people, the sound of an old song evokes nostalgia, while for others it may evoke boredom. One way to understand it is that people are choosing to feel songs a certain way, but upon looking at it closely we can see that people don’t choose “how to feel” in the moment – the feeling comes up automatically. From that point of view, it’s far better to adopt the perspective that “sounds feel the way they do because the sound intends to be felt that way when it’s in the vicinity of the certain body-mind systems”. If this appears like a wild conjecture, let’s take a second look at it when we talk about mental sensations later in this article.
Anyways, let’s generalize this now for physical sensations – shall we?
The way physical sensations feel is entirely driven by the object of the sensation and the way in which it interacts with the sense organs we have. We do not choose how they feel, they feel the way they feel because that’s how they intend to be felt.
So far, we have covered the feelings that come from the sensation of vision, sound, touch, taste, and smell, and I think you will agree with me that the way an object feels visually, tactically, and so on is entirely driven by the object and our sense organs that come in contact with the object. In other words,
the way an object feels is encoded in the object itself
I realize that I have skipped mentioning sense-bases (or sense-organs) in the quote above. For sure, the capacity to feel aspects of the object, and the feeling itself is determined by the human-hardware, but we can ignore it as it is a common denominator among human beings.
Perhaps, it’s safe to conclude that the feeling of an object is not mine, but that of the object itself?
None of us here are granting a visual, auditory, tactile, taste, or olfactory feeling to objects out of conscious choice. They happen all on their own accord, which means they are not created by us and we don’t have to own them and make them belong to us. Like all sensations, they come and go, are largely unstable, and don’t belong to the Self.
That’s as far as physical sensations go.
Let’s get to mental sensations now.
Mental sensations aka thoughts can be broken down into mental images and mental talk, and are felt as emotions.
When we think, we often experience a kind of mental movie, where hazy visuals set the scene and context of the thought. In this internal movie, one or more characters speak the words of the thought, using body language and tone that, along with the visuals, evoke the emotion the thought intends to evoke.
When considered this way, the way a thought feels is encoded in the drama of the mental movie itself, isn’t it?
If this is a lot to process all at once – let’s take a step back for just a bit.
When you watch a film in the cinema, you feel a range of emotions that the film is demanding of you, isn’t it? If a scene is scary, you feel scared. If a scene is shocking, you feel shocked. If a scene is romantic, you feel romantic. If a scene makes you sick in the stomach, then that’s exactly what the scene intends.
The feeling you experience is encoded in the film itself. What’s a film, but a combination of visuals and sound (both music and talk)?
Is it difficult to therefore extend the same understanding to mental movies (aka thoughts)?
The way a mental movie is supposed to feel is encoded in the hazy visuals and the speaking of the characters in the mental movie, together with their body language and tone, and perhaps even background music that goes along with it. You feel the feeling that’s encoded in the whole show that goes on in your mind, isn’t it?
Like physical sensations of vision, sound, touch, taste and smell, the feeling of mental sensations is encoded in those mental sensations themselves; and like all sensations they are also transient (or temporary) and do not belong to us, nor are they created by us.
Those of us who are high on the idea of total personal responsibility find it off-putting when we read “thoughts are not created by us”. For sure, we can be a willing participant in the rumination of thoughts, but for the most part, they seem to show up all on their own, bouncing off of other sensations going on at the moment – isn’t it?
Ever notice how thoughts that evoke fear and anxiety automatically show up when you are hungry or in pain? Isn’t it interesting that thoughts that evoke love and fondness automagically show up when you are around babies and they smile? Thoughts have a way of automatically showing up depending on other things going on at that moment, we are not fomenting them, we only just feel them arising and passing away.
The ramifications of this are quite sweeping. We are mostly feeling the emotion demanded by the movie that’s currently showing in the mind (aka thoughts). This means, for example:
- “I” am not depressed. The movie that’s currently running in the mind and/or the current situation intends to be felt as depressing.
- “I” am not excited. The movie that’s currently running in the mind and/or the current situation intends to be felt as exciting.
- “He” or “she” is not making me angry. His or her speaking and the movie that’s currently running in the mind intend to be felt as anger.
None of these feelings belong to us. They belong to the situation and or mental-movies (aka thoughts). It’s like situations and thoughts want to feel themselves using our capacity to feel.
The degree to which we feel the heat of a hot plate depends on how closely we stick to it. If we touch and immediately let go, we do feel the heat but it doesn’t “get to” us (or burn us).
Much the same way the degree to which we feel the emotions of a thought depends on how closely we stick to it.
If we watch the mental movie (aka thought) from a distance, we can surely comprehend the feeling potential encoded in them without identifying with them. Many of us manage to do that with films. We maintain a distance from the content of the film and end up not feeling it as intensely as the friends we went out to the film with. We can, and have occasionally, managed to do that with our mental movies (aka thoughts) too. But if we can do that consistently, or even on-demand as and when the situation warrants, I think it’s a superpower.
For instance, when someone embarrasses us in front of many people – we feel bad. If we can zoom out and watch – we can notice that along with the actual scene going on in the world, there is a mental movie as well – with hazy visuals and character-speak that amplify the experience of embarrassment. The experience of embarrassment is not our chosen reaction to the situation, it is what the situation feels like – much like a hot plate feels hot, and a grey cup visually appears as such. Why certain physical and mental sensations occur together is a different discussion – but the fact is that the feeling of embarrassment is embedded in the situation that’s occurring in the world around us and also in the mental movie that’s going on in the mind at that moment. We are not choosing to feel embarrassed, the situation and the mental-movie demand to be felt that way. This also means that the feeling of embarrassment does not belong to us, it belongs to the situation and the mental movie that’s currently running.
Now, if we are able to watch the sensations come and go, and not closely stick to it – THEY WILL NOT GET US OR HURT US.
That’s precisely what The Buddha meant when he said that the source of all suffering is “craving”. Craving is the habitual tendency of human firmware to stick to sensations. By the way, craving is not our doing either. It’s a natural phenomenon that exists in the firmware of human beings. So we don’t have to sulk over having craving, much like we don’t sulk over having hands, legs, eyes, and everything else that makes the human body.
Just watch the craving as craving, and relax. In the relaxation, the craving arises and passes away much like literally everything else in the universe.
By practicing relaxation whenever craving arises, we begin to rewire the human firmware and over time we naturally end up watching everything from a safe distance. We will eventually be able to notice firsthand how the body-mind system is continually updating the emotional weights assigned to different phenomena and therefore rehashes the stimulus-response vectors from which thoughts, intentions, decisions, and actions are picked when confronted with a phenomenon in real-time. In a way, the body-mind system is a machine and as such there is no one in control. Everything happens all on its own and there is no Self to whom it’s all happening, and there is no Self that’s pulling the strings.
We won’t stop feeling stuff – but we will stop identifying with them. We will stop taking things personally because we will know firsthand that it’s not personal, that things don’t happen to us, as much as things just happen. From that point on, we won’t bother psycho-analyzing why certain thoughts show up – we simply let them arise and pass away, knowing that all phenomena are constructed from causes and conditions, and as such we don’t have to do something about each one of them. This doesn’t mean that we become indifferent to this whole body-mind system. This means we stay equanimous. Equanimity is not indifference, if anything it’s far more empathetic. In fact, by adopting a radical stance of equanimity, we allow the body-mind system to update its stimulus-response vectors even more efficiently. Over time we will notice that things start to feel different.
I particularly find the TWIM practice super efficient when it comes to developing the capacity to relax. At the core of TWIM practice is the training on recognizing distractions, and releasing and relaxing the clasp we have around them, before gently returning to the object of meditation – which can be any of the Brahmaviharas. If we can practice doing this for 30-60 minutes every day, for a few months at a stretch – phenomenal updates to the human firmware get downloaded and installed.
During this time, when the old and new firmware are running, it can be confusing and you may feel off-centre.
- You may find yourself reacting the way you have always reacted, but almost immediately a distinct kind of consciousness kicks in that makes you reflect on and discard the old way instantly.
- You will find yourself shuttling back and forth. For a while, you will feel like you are losing your-Self, and you are not wrong.
- For instance, things sometimes feel personal, and then almost immediately they stop feeling personal.
- What feels-like-you, stops feeling like you and shortly later feels like you again.
- Sometimes, the thing that you took for granted as you suddenly shows up as one more thing out there in a world of things.
The primary feature of the new human firmware is “no-Self”. Nothing occurs “personal” when that new firmware has fully taken over, but until then the old-seemingly-stable-Self and the new no-Self come on and off, making the experience of life confusing. This confusion masquerades as intense shades of fear, anxiety, and self-doubt. But don’t worry. That’s just the way the process is supposed to feel. You didn’t invent this new firmware, it’s not your creation, it’s not your making, it already exists out there. It works the way it works and it feels the way it feels. Also, when it gets installed, it’s not your firmware, you don’t own it, you cannot own it – but more importantly, you will naturally not indulge in a pointless effort to own it. You will just let it be because by then you’ll know that there was never a “You” to begin with.
Simply keep up with the practice. Just 30-60 minutes every day, for a few months a stretch – will fetch phenomenal updates to the human firmware. Continued practice will allow for this new firmware to slowly, and surely, become the only firmware – leading to a permanent and irreversible shift.
Before getting into TWIM, I would strongly suggest learning Vipassana or Pranayama (ideally both) – because they teach you to observe sensations as sensations, and feelings as feelings. That kind of objective and dispassionate observation is super-critical to cash in on all the value that TWIM has to offer.