June 13th Dharma Discussion on feelings

Thầy Chúc Thanh started:

We can meditate in any posture
We inherit good and bad genes, good and bad habits from our parents.
If we change ourselves we help our parents and the next generation.
We can connect with our ancestors and see further into the future just from being mindful of the body.
If we practice well, good thoughts, words, and deeds we can share that with past and future generations.

Chuck McCoy is presenting tonight

Is there a difference between feelings and emotions?

Feelings broader than emotions, feel tired or hungry
Feelings may be more temporary emotions longer lasting
Can emotions be a combo of physical and mental and feelings are just mental
Are feelings first and emotions follow
If someone hits you, do you feel it first or get upset about it first?

Chuck: you can feel with your senses physically, but your mind interprets that feeling. Your mind creates a story for that feeling and emotions arise because of that story. An interconnection between mind and body, mental and physical.

When you experience feelings who is it that experiences it?
The usual answer is yourself, but is their any idea deeper?

This is my hand, shoe, hair. I am not the body because I feel the body, I am not the mind, I think with it. I am an immortal being. All cells have memory of their own. Just like when your body keeps a scar, although every 7 years your body refreshes.

Chuck: there are 3 kinds of feeling

What are the three kinds?

Animal vegetable and mineral?
Mental physical?
If I slapped someone what is that? Painful, bad
If I hugged someone? Pleasure

Chuck: what is the third one? Neither painful nor pleasurable. Neutral.

Any example of a neutral feeling?

When you come home and instead of being mad or happy you are just ok.

Chuck: it can also be called indifference. If something doesn't evoke an emotional response.

Really hungry is unpleasant, but reaching a point where hunger ends is neutral.
Think about the number of things we don't think about. Such as sitting down. Walking, you don't notice the feeling of your feet, etc.

Chuck: meditation on feelings requires mindfulness most of all. A lot of things we do automatic. So if you're going to meditate on feelings you have to be mindful and you cannot meditate on a feeling you are not having. You cannot practice having a feeling, either you have it or you don't. If we relate to something in the past that made us fearful, we can feel fear here and now.

There are good seeds and bad seeds. I try to only remember good feelings from my past, no fear or bad things.

Thầy Chúc Thanh: every moment is a new feeling