Emotions from the inside. Contemplative cartography of emotions.

One of the first things we meet when starting contemplative practices is our feelings and emotions. In most cases, human emotions become obstacles for advancing into the deeper mental strata or for being concentrated on one’s task since they cause disturbances and distractions. That’s why contemplative traditions developed various methods for neutralizing such disturbing influence as well as methods for utilizing the nuclear potential of emotions. These methods consider the individual capacities of a contemplative and rely on an understanding of how emotions influence both our bottom-up perception and top-down actions. While the notion of what emotions are in contemplative perspective is just partially overlapping with that of Western psychology, it is important to learn to discriminate the essential characteristics of our emotions and to understand their place in our internal cognitive landscape. Igor Berkhin At the Festival of the Mind at London, May 11, 2019. P.S. Swastika is a tra