Dealing with the Emotions – a Daoist Perspective
Interview with Jeffrey Yuen 9th May 2011 regarding his public lecture on the above topic in Dublin May 2011 (Arminta Wallace)
AM: Jeffrey, the theme for your public talk in Dublin this year is Daoism and the Emotions. This may come as a surprise: people in Ireland and Europe might think of Chinese philosophy as rather abstract and intellectual, even impenetrable, rather than emotional . . .
JY: Yes, that may be the case. But in truth, all cultures work with the emotions. In Chinese philosophy the key is to transform those emotions into what they would call ‘the virtues’. That would be the theme of Confucianism, for example. Cultivation of the emotions in the sense of how to be a better person, or how to gain more meaning in one’s life through one’s emotions. Chinese medicine sees the emotions as just as vital as looking at the physical symptoms. There’s no separation between the mind and the body.
Is it, then, a question of balance? Of achieving, and maintaining, a sense of emotional balance?
There is a difficulty with the term ‘balance’. What exactly does it mean to the individual? When people say, ‘I’m trying to balance myself’, you have to figure out what they mean. It might mean that I feel better: that the symptoms I’ve been experiencing in my life don’t affect me as much any more. I think that’s the general – misconstrued – notion of what balance is. Balance should be associated with healing, and healing comes in many different forms. Sometimes people just think balance is to be able to cope. For others, balance is the eradication of all the difficulties of their lives. Some people think of balance as a form of peace. There are many different definitions
But sometimes balance can simply mean acceptance. I recognise the circumstances of my life, and I’m able to take those circumstances and work with them rather than work away from them. So for example, someone could be dying but still trying to balance themselves; trying to feel balance in that process.
But balance cannot, by definition, be static because both inside and body and outside, things are changing all the time. And emotions, too, are changing all the time – aren’t they?
Right. And Chinese medicine, or even Daoism as a whole, would think that there are three criteria for looking at the emotions.
The first thing is that the emotions are always moving, always changing. They have what we might think of as a vector – a direction – because they help to navigate us through life. So I may feel angry. But it helps me, because it makes me less sensitive to the world itself. Sadness can also give me a sense of where I need to go. What the clinician attempts to do is see whether the direction the emotions are taking can help the person to go in the direction that they’re seeking. Obviously if someone is very depressed and it takes them away from life, then that’s not going to be very healthy – at least, not for the people that surround that person. The person may feel – I’d rather be alone. It may be their way of coping with what they’re going through in their life right now. But all the people around that person are going to feel there’s something wrong. Something is outside of the norm.
The second criterion has to do with the Daoist way of looking at feelings. The Daoist sages wanted people to understand that what we feel is not necessarily always natural, but rather something that is expected by society. Basically, we talk to ourselves. We have a narrative about what’s going on in our lives – and then we mirror what we should be feeling, based on what society might expect us to feel. There is a very famous story about the Daoist sage Chuang Tzu. His wife dies, and his friends come to visit him, and he’s in the garden hitting a pot and playing music and singing. And all his friends are shocked. He should be mourning. That’s the social construct: when you experience loss, you feel sadness. Everyone expects that. But this is how Chuang Tzu answers: ‘When I experienced the death of my wife, I was quite sad. But to recognise her just for being my wife is to negate the fact that she came from a form, which at one time was formless. And so there was this alteration in qi, as we call it, and that qi created a form, and that form created my wife’. So Daoism allows us to look at the bigger picture. In fact Buddhism took some of those ideas and developed the idea of impermanence or non-attachment. The Taoists think that all emotions have some type of social construct and if you go beyond the social construct, then you have a deeper appreciation of the real situation: that energy is not something fixed, but something that is constantly moving. And it changes according to the time and place that you live in.
The third component of a Daoist approach to the emotions would be that emotions are always something that’s not passive. I can say, ‘Well, I feel angry because of what you did to me – so I’m shifting in order to make you the cause of my emotion. But the truth is that I am responsible for what I feel. It’s not what you’ve done to me that’s making me feel what I feel: it’s how I’m reacting to your actions. Ultimately, everyone needs to be responsible for their emotions – and if you take responsibility for something, it means you can change it. Whereas if I blame it on you, then unless you change I can’t really change how I feel.
This is all very sound advice from the Daoist sages – but it’s not necessarily easy to implement in daily life, is it?
It’s difficult, because not everyone is willing to take the time to do something for themselves. It’s always easier to get an anti-depressant, or someone to give you something – or even just find someone to talk to, so that you feel someone is acknowledging what you’re feeling. That’s why the difficulty is there, because it really forces one to work on oneself. Taoism is a very individualistic approach. With other traditions you have churches, or places you can go; there’s a sense of community support. But then, depending on who is the teacher or the master or the group leader, and depending on how they organise the dynamics of the group it can be either a healing or a destructive dynamic.
I mean, I can focus on all the miseries of my life and have everyone talk about difficulties all the time. And while that may be a cathartic release, if we engage with that on a weekly basis then we’re no longer focussing on our healing – we’re still focussing on the pathology of our lives. The story has to change from ‘This is what I was’, and ‘This is still something I can’t become’ to ‘What am I doing differently in my life?’ I think a lot of people find this difficult because they feel they have to change who they once were. But it’s not about changing. It’s really about affirming that you don’t have to be limited to those same choices any more.
So it’s about standing back from your life a little bit?
Right. Because Daoism is always in the background. They never like to be at the foreground. They always feel that the basis of existence is to stand back and realise; it’s not what I’m feeling, it’s that all the things that have happened in my life have led to what I’m feeling right now. If I didn’t have all those things, I wouldn’t have those feelings. I always think this is about me and what I’m going through – but it’s much bigger than that. If one little thing had shifted, then my whole world would be different right now.
How does Daoism explain the relationship between the emotions and the physical body?
Well, they never separated the mind from the body in the first place, so they don’t feel they need to explain it. To them, anger makes energy rise. So anger could be the basis of hypertension; when you have high blood pressure, it could be anger that is being expressed or repressed. Sometimes people have a misunderstanding of Chinese medicine when they read modern texts, because it always seems to imply that it’s a very physically oriented tradition. But it’s not.
When you read the classics they might have a formula or an herb that they say ‘treats non-compassion’. In a medical textbook it will say you have weakness of your arms and legs, because compassion is something that you do. You have to demonstrate it – and the instrument of that demonstration is your arms and legs.
So a lack of compassion means weakness of the four limbs. When you read about treating non-compassion you think it’s a philosophical discussion in a medical textbook – but they’re actually giving you physical symptoms too. Another entry might say, ‘this herb treats someone who forgets being happy any more’. That also has a physical connotation. The person may be experiencing anxiety but they may also be having palpitations. In Chinese medicine there has never been a separation between the two.
You’ve spoken about herbs, about qi, about acupuncture – would it be fair to say that Daoism has a palette of ways in which emotional energies may be transformed?
Well all of the tools of Chinese medicine are really modalities. So what you’re tuning in to as a practitioner is someone’s preference. If I’m a person who enjoys movement, then qi gong would be a realm I could easily have compliance with – and the practitioner or instructor might be able to work with that. Many of the qi gong exercises are allegories based on animals. So, for example, the monkey is very playful. If the teacher wants you to play the monkey, maybe you take things too seriously. Jumping around like a monkey might be a little bit provoking for some people – but then, as they surrender to it, they’re surrendering their own stiffness, their own stubbornness so maybe they don’t have to be so serious any more. Another person might not like to assert themselves – so the teacher might have them do tiger exercises where they’re, like, growling or screaming.
Another modality is aromatherapy. You have things, which smell very fruity. You have things like eucalyptus, which is a very camphorous smell – and all of those smells affect different aspects of one’s psyche. A flowery scent might be useful for someone who doesn’t see themselves as being beautiful, because it allows them to access the sensation of walking into a beautiful garden and smelling the flowers. A woody, forest scent has a different effect again. The forest can be a place of tranquillity – but it can also evoke a sense of returning to the wilderness, and so going deep into one’s fears. Being in the forest and not knowing your way out. Scents have all these connotations. That’s the basis of incense. It makes use of different aromas, so it can take your consciousness to a different level of awareness or even provoke transformation.
And to provoke a transformation is a vital step in the healing process, is it not?
Right. That’s why you want, sometimes, something that smells horrible. I mean, some people can’t stand the perfume another person is wearing – but obviously the person who’s wearing it loves it. So this odour is provoking something to the person who likes it and something completely different to the person who dislikes it.
And it works for taste as well as smell. So if someone is given herbs to take for a particular condition and they say, ‘Yuck – these herbs are bitter’, that’s OK?
Yeah. You want them to have a reaction. Healing is always about change. Change can be good or bad – but at least you’re changing.
Now some of us appear to have more trouble with some emotions than others. Does Daoism have anything to say about why that might be?
Well, everyone has trouble with fear. There’s something very instinctual and biological about fear. The primal emotions that the Daoist classics talk about are usually fear, grief and anger – they are seen as the emotions that cause the greatest harm to the soul. Anger in Chinese thought relates to the idea that you’re stuck in time. Grief relates to the idea of never really being able to be in the moment. You’re not necessarily living in the past or the future, but you’re not truly engaged in the moment either. You feel lost right now where you are. And fear constricts the flow of water, so they talk about fear hurting the kidneys.
In Chapter Eight of the Dao De Jing, they say ‘the highest good is like water’. Water is the highest thing – in other words, the thing that is closest to the Dao. It does not compete. It takes the shape of whatever is willing to hold it. Basically, it just goes where it needs to go – so it doesn’t deal with anxiety or irritability or worry. By the fact that it keeps flowing, water doesn’t get stuck in feelings of frustration or resentment or anger. So the emotions should be like water; they should just keep flowing.
One of the things about Daoism is that you reflect on it and then you try to do something about it. But it’s not like a step-by-step guide. That’s the unique thing about it – and the medicine, too, is like that. You’re treating the individual. You can’t say that anyone who is angry should benefit from this particular herbal formula or aromatherapy oil or even acupuncture point: Chinese medicine works with the individual and his or her own suffering.
But the first step in that journey, as you pointed out at the beginning, is acceptance of things as they really are…
Right. And the sense that even though they are what they are, there’s still a sense of impermanence. That’s the paradox.
Is this acceptance in any way related to the concept of mindfulness, which we hear a great deal about these days?
It’s close in some ways. But I would say that mindfulness is not necessarily spontaneity. In Daoism there’s the sense that one shouldn’t even, maybe, mind at all what’s going on. Acceptance doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m consciously aware of what’s going on – but I just flow with what’s going on. The water can’t be mindful of itself. It just flows. But, of course, we need the mind to get to know mind. So mindfulness meditation is a tool, in the same way as oils and herbs are tools that are outside yourself but can help you to come to that place of spontaneity.
Jeffrey, thank you so much for giving this thoughtful introduction to your talk on Daoism and the Emotions. We look forward to seeing you in Dublin later this month.
You’re welcome. I’m really happy to come and share with the Irish community, and to be in their presence.
