creating contrast

meditation seems, at a basic level, to be just about creating contrast in the experience of our mind so that we can see it more clearly. thoughts and emotions that are obviously overblown are never really a problem for us, because we see them and know instantly, “oh i’m overreacting”. it’s like they’re too bloated and they pop on their own.

but the thoughts and emotions that are less bloated, or slightly fuzzy and distant, are the ones that linger and start to rule our world.

so with meditation and other techniques, one can increase the clarity until the stuck emotions in our minds and hearts bloat and pop. the more precisely we see them, the more the blow up. creating contrast is one way of doing that, either by sitting still and quiet (in meditation) or other techniques like exaggerating what we’re feeling on purpose. the more contrast, the more bloated the emotion appears and the more likely it will pop and the energy will start to move again.

for this reason, in the tantric traditions one is encouraged to lean into the painful experiences - the sharp points in life - to feel them more keenly instead of trying to renounce or push away those experiences in some way. pushing them away is what we’ve done our whole life and it has resulted in them being slightly distant, and thereby they have a more lasting hold on us.

so one way to overcome anger, fear, and addiction might be to create more contrast in the experience of those emotions, by meditation but mostly by leaning into the experience of them more directly and getting really curious about how we experience them - in our body, in our mind, in our environment. then “pop”.

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