Anger is often unconsciously encouraged because it clears away the doubting mind. "I know why I feel this way, and I am right," says anger. Spiritually we can only approach and understand anger from humility, the opposite direction of righteousness. Anger usually arises as a component of grief where something you cared about was blocked or diverted away from you. If we can see anger as grief, humility is more easily accessed.
The mind finds endless reasons to energetically split itself in two. "Shoulds," denials, rationalizations, resentments, and countless other states are energetic divisions, where the mind is trying to have what it wants while hiding from its assumed reality. Doubt is perhaps the most common expression of this pattern. Doubt reaches for what it wants with half a heart because it fears the repercussions of being a failure.
Fear divides the mind by convincing us that the present is in the crosshairs of an approaching disaster. We therefore need to harness the power of our thinking and take flight physically and mentally away from now. If presence is maintained, fear has no way to access the moment except by projecting into the future.
Aversion and desire work together to entrap the mind within its own projections and divide the whole into parts. The opposite of what I desire is feared and visa versa. Because the mind is a single whole, when we pit what we like against what we do not, repetitive aversive and desiring images noisily dance through the mind in opposition to the contentment of the abiding wholeness.
Desire forms the sense of self by fracturing the mind into what it wants compared to what it has. In moving with what it wants, it has to dismiss or resist reality (what it has) and form its own imaginative response. The sense of self is part of that fantasy buildup and has a central role in keeping it going.
As we study the Third Foundation of the Satipatthana Sutta we ask what is the mind and how does it seem to create a sense of self having the experience of an external world?
Mindfulness of the body gave us stability of focus and mindfulness of feelings gave us the mechanism for how we project ourselves onto the world. Now we are sufficiently prepared to look at the mind itself.
Equanimity does not empower feelings to drive thoughts. It holds a feeling as a feeling and does not extend the feeling into a narrative on why this feeling is important. It does not add anything to the moment, allowing the moment to bloom on its own.
Feelings move quickly into a narrative that captures our attention and promotes further images, all with their own feelings and further story. The sense of "I" arises, and we are surrounded by feelings and reactions to feelings, giving us a sense of ourselves in time and space. We call this life.
Neutral feelings pervade our life when we try to maintain a high level of intensity for our life's purpose and meaning. Busyness is an indication of this dependency, but as soon as the energy decreases below an established threshold, our mind wonders, and we become dull, listless, and uninterested. Awareness has not waned in the slightest, but we have been conditioned to stop paying attention.
