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In addition to the mindfulness of the body, specifically mindfulness
of breathing and contemplation of the body, according to the Satipatthana
sutta, there is a second way of practicing mindfulness called "contemplation
of feelings" (vedananupassana) with regard to emotions, whether
happy, unhappy or neutral. When one has a pleasant feeling, one
knows he is experiencing a pleasant feeling, when one has a painful
feeling, one knows he is experiencing a painful feeling, when one
has a neutral feeling, one knows he is experiencing a neutral feeling.
The Satipatthana Sutta (Nyanaponika, 1962) explains: Thus he dwells
practicing feeling-contemplation on feelings internally, or externally,
or both internally and externally. He dwells contemplating origination-factors
in feelings, or he dwells contemplating dissolution-factors in feelings,
or he dwells contemplating both origination and dissolution factors
in feelings.
The question arises: how does one identify those feelings and how
should they act towards the feelings,according to the above citation.
For instance, when a student experiences an unhappy, sorrowful sensation,
his mind is cloudy and not clear; the student may be depressed.
In some cases, he does not even see clearly why he has these unhappy
feelings. In order to overcome this state of mind, he should try
to see clearly why there are these sensations or feelings of unhappiness
or worry or sorrow. He should examine how these feelings or sensations
arise, their cause, and how they disappear. But one may ask: how
is this to be done? According to Rahula (1996), he should try to
examine these sensations or feelings as if he is observing them
from the outside, without any subjective reaction, as a scientist
observes some objects. In this mode he should not look at them as
'my feelings' or 'my sensations' subjectively, but only look at
them each as 'a feeling' or 'a sensation' objectively. For example,
when he has feelings of anger towards someone, he should not think
that it is "my anger" towards that person, but notices
that it is an angry feeling. When he sees its nature and how the
particular sensation or feeling arises and disappears, his mind
grows dispassionate towards that sensation and thus the student
is able to cope with the troubling emotion.
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