Yesterday, I drove for eight hours which felt like a meditation. By the end, my mind was clear and I was feeling happy and grateful. I spent the fist evening this year just looking at the sunset. This drive also gave rise to some thoughts and wonderings…
I was talking to a Vipassana friend lately, and pondered on what one of the teachers said that “one cannot fake bodily sensations”. I questioned that because after my first course last year to this day, I can feel certain vibration-like sensations on the body at will if I just breath deeply or think of something related to the Dhamma center. Those sensations give me a feeling of calmness and clarity. Those sensations also come unbiden, sometimes in situations of distress, allowing me to respond better or simply stay calm when otherwise I would have had struggled. The unbiden sensations started to come less ofyen after six months since the first course, I had to summon them which I do rarely when in distress as I do not have the habit to think about Dhamma. I am not sure the last Vipassana experience helped with the willingness to think about Dhamma, but just thinking vibrations seems to work most times now. I do not have the habit to think about vibrations either, though.
The answer I quoted was given to me last year when I told the teacher I don’t think the vibration-like sensations are real. I can imagine that’s how vibrating atoms would feel if one could feel so subtly. She followed that answer by “Imagine your hand is burning. Do you feel it burn?” I was pleased to discover that I didn’t and carried on. Now, I would argue that nor did I believe what I imagined about the burning hand. I do believe the vibrating atoms vibrate haha and that the whole particle wave transition I do not fully understand is like a vibration …arising and passing away…
Apart for my curiosity for physics, chemistry and genetics, I was agreeing to Lisa Feldman Barett‘s theory that feelings are constructed socially, culturally and even individually. In “How emotions are made”, I came accross the idea that what we call feelings could just be physical sensations that we attribute to this or that feeling depending on the context we are in. She also says, as far as I remember* (it’s been six years or more 😱 since I’ve read it) that ultimetly all we feel are pleasant and unpleasant sensations which we lable differently based on education and context. It was the only thing about feelings which has ever made sense to me. Barett also thinks smiling is “unnatural” and a medieval social construct popularised by nazies to target neurodivergent people, which I also agree with, but that is another story.
I later realized we need to lable feelings, otherwise it would be more difficult to describe the state of our nervous system. However, Barett’s theory helped me to not expect people to have the same feelings in similar contexts or even understand exactly the same thing from just a lable.
Last year, during the Vipassana course, I heard the idea that feelings arise from pleasant or unpleasant sensations in the body as an interpetation of the mind of these sensations which are a response to our thoughts or things happening around and/ or within us. It made instant sense since I’ve heard it before and it was also confirmed by my experience. Goenka says in his course discourses that when one thinks something or something happens to them, a sensation arises in the body and the mind’s interpretation of that sensation is the feeling. He goes one to explain how doing a practice which teaches your mind to observe the sensations without any judgment or need to react allows the nervous system to calm down and not be triggered when something happens aka not creating new sankaras.
So, if I think something I can create a sensation in the body I just have to believe that thought. Vipassana also helped me with not believing everything I think, though if the thoughts are persistant, sensations do arise and pass away. Sometimes feelings show up too. Instead of stoping the thoughts which I find unhealthy and my mind won’t allow it either as stories are her way of regulating, I just look at them as a tv series. This is why I quit looking at movies. I have my own production center. Sometimes I get bored with the dooms day things and propose and equaly unlikely joyful scenario for diversity.
Movies and music produce emotions, especially music with lyrics, but not necesarily, because they produce toughts.
However, a sensation can be in the body without a preciding thought. Like the example that Barett gave of the woman is on a date and who has sensations in the stomach which she interprets as “butterflies” and that she is in love when in fact the food didn’t agree with her. Technically it is still something that happened which led to the sensation then the feeling which can be a misinterpretation due to lack of information at a conscious level. For me, all the signs of love: blushing, “butterflies jn the stomach” or nausea, are actually signs of distress which we were condition to interpret contratry to what they are because if we interpret them correctly most men won’t get a date.
Finally, I got to wonder about empathy. How does feeling what someone else is feeling fit with this theory? Clearly, seeing a facial expression or behavior can trigger something based on recognition from personal experience. So lack of emphaty could just be lack of familiarity. This is what happens when neurotypicals say neurodivergents lack empathy. In the same manner neurotypicals lack empathy towards neurodivergents. As empathy can be build through gained experience, I acctually think that neurodivergents are more empathetic as they make an effort to understand neurotypicals too even if just for masking/ survival.
Empathy can also be something at an energy/ somatic level where you feel the same sensations as the other person. Those must be the empaths, where experience and familiarity is not necessary. It is also something that does not happen consciously, so it is harder to understand those are not even your sensations you’re dealing with.
For instance, last year, my dad had an accident and during recovery he had some issues with eating and I started experiencing the same issues though I was 400 km away and was otherwise just fine.
Somatic practices may not be enough in those cases. You also need words to make sense of it. Or do you? Do you even need to know if the sensations are yours? They will pass away anyway… no need to do anything, unless they do stick or worsen…
I like how the passing away reads to my mind as getting better, but change is not always for the better …obviously 😅
*I am pretty sure I wrote about it at the time, as the book was one of the inspirations behing “Heavy heart” project, but I couldn’t find the article. Probably because like this one, the title doesn’t relate to anything. It was nice to read old ideas though as I realized that the seeds of what I’m growing now were already planted before I had a systematic sadhana. Paradoxically, this project expands on the complexity of feelings instead of just the black and white pleasant and unpleasant as my experience is that I can feel several things at the same time. This experience is supported by the Vipassana practice which has proven to me that we have a multitude of sensations thoughout the body at a given time which only the subconscious registers unless we are in meditation.
The joy of creating 