Working with Difficult Emotions in Meditation
A Meditation & Talk with Lama Thupten Phuntsok
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Emotions are part of our human experience – they serve as important signals, protection, and reveal our deepest longings. But cultural influences and societal conditioning have led us to believe that some emotions are “bad,” not safe, and not to be tolerated. In society, the restraint of emotions and their intensity is often associated with being civilized. As a result, we end up with generations that don’t know how to self-regulate and self-soothe in healthy and productive ways, and can’t manage difficult and conflicting emotions, very often cycling between dissociation and anxiety.
This mismanagement of emotions keeps us in a habitual loop of looking for something outside to blame. “Something out there made me ____,” rather than being able to own our reaction and truly contemplate the effect of the causes we've created. When we refuse to deal with our emotions, they inevitably create symptoms and manifest in other ways while infecting surrounding areas. We can see this in many dimensions – physical illness, rage on the national, political, and cultural level, epidemics of depression and anxiety. We add unnecessary brutality and pain on top of the suffering we’ve already been dealt in this life.
From an objective perspective, we see that emotions are simply energy in motion. Impermanence reassures us that these disturbing emotions won’t last forever. And for those of us exploring personal development, we realize that any challenge or affliction is a precious opportunity to evolve. These opportunities ask us to summon the courage to look closer at these difficult parts of ourselves, to be open and curious without judgment, and to withstand the ego’s loud protests against our transformation. Our practice serves as a safe container for us to explore and digest these emotions fully, where every part is seen and accepted. What gives emotions its destructive nature is not the emotion itself but our relationship with it. From this perspective, all emotions can be the vital force that sparks our evolution, but this takes self compassion, discipline, patience, and skillfulness.
Join this free event for a guided meditation and talk from Phuntsok on how we can realistically deal with difficult emotions in our practice.
ABOUT YOUR TEACHER
Lama Thupten Phuntsok is a Tibetan Buddhist dharma and meditation teacher of over 20 years. He was ordained in the Gelug lineage in 1993 and remained a monastic for 21 years until he disrobed in 2014. Originally from Haiti, Phuntsok grew up in New York City with deep roots in spirituality and first learned to meditate from his father as a child. He began his formal Buddhist education under the guidance of Kyongla Rato Rinpoche for eight years before meeting his root teacher, the late Sermey Khensur Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin in 1991. He registered at Sera Mey monastery in India, studying with several teachers throughout his monastic years.
Phuntsok has been teaching in the U.S. and leading retreats internationally in Singapore, Bali, Hong Kong, Thailand, Kenya, and more. He is a founding member of Do Ngak Kunphen Ling, the Connecticut Tibetan Buddhist center of Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Jampa, and taught there for over a decade. Phuntsok has been the main teacher at the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art for over 15 years, and leading dharma groups and private sessions from his home in Brooklyn for the past 10 years. He has also been teaching and giving talks on mindfulness, meditation, and embodied living for secular audiences at non-profit organizations, schools, communities, and brands such as Nike, Jet, MNDFL, the Assemblage, men’s groups, and more. Phuntsok is devoted to bringing clarity and deeper understanding of Buddhist principles, making the dharma actionable to have real impact.