The Dial of Emotions

I did not venture out of my house for the past five days, being tied to my work, glued in front of my computer screen all week. Only this morning did I get the chance to have breakfast at the kopitiam. Writing this blog post is part of my Saturday relaxation ritual--letting thoughts luxuriate on a blank page.

Today, I will talk about the relationship between karma, thoughts and emotions. Thoughts and emotions are to me karmic effects. Emotions are to the body as thoughts are to the mind. Emotions are felt almost as aftershock to a thought and both are just expressions of karma. 

Emotions are karmic reverberations expressed physiologically. This is identified by changes in body chemistry and physical reactions that sometimes culminating in action. But the source of every emotion is thought. It is like a tsunami--a movement or shift in the core earth causes shocks that reverberate across the ocean floor, causing  massive waves on the surface of the ocean. 

Emotions are amplifier of your thoughts's content. A mindful individual detects a thought and sees the signal in the content.This signal has a lot of potential energy, carried by the chain of karmic causality. Energy has to find expression and when this specific pattern of energy is expressed in the body, we call it emotions. Some emotions are strong enough to drive motion and that's when we act physically.

Of what use is emotion? It is merely a prompt for action. When psychic signals become chemical signals in the body, a mindful monitoring system will see that and allow them to dissipate their energy in the most optimal fashion.

Wise living is simply skillful management of karmic energy. It requires an early warning system, a mindful watcher that allows the nexus of energy to be played out within the mind-body system, without damaging it. 

Unskillful handling of emotions could also lead to bad outcomes in the physical world. You could harm someone because of your anger or jealousy; you could form an addiction towards some sense pleasures. Any unwise response to emotions create fresh karmic effects.

Mindfulness meditation helps in our response to emotions because the very act of mindfulness is like an early detection system. Once a thought signal is detected, its state is captured. 

This awareness of thought is an indication that some form of learning has occurred. To have learned means that the brain's neural network has changed to recognize the signal pattern which ensures that your subsequent response to the same signal to be different. Now you see the relationship between karma, thoughts, emotions and mindfulness.  

Emotions do not rule us. They are like the fluctuating indicator needle on a gauge dial. To be able to read this dial, is wise emotional management.