hi srid,
srid :
* are you talking about all kinds of "tensions" here, including
emotions?
yes what i call "tensions" includes emotions.
srid :
* the "seeing through the cause of [a tension]" is a new practice
advice from you. how do you see the cause of it? how does it go with
the usual advice of "stay aware and equanimous to sensations; treat
all sensations as same [having same nature]"? specifically, how do
you see the cause of a particular emotion or belief-pattern?
perhaps it sounds new because here i'm describing what happens in practice a little more than in other posts where i usually describe mostly practice techniques?
"how do you see the cause of a particular emotion/belief pattern?"-- my practice did not result in directly seeing the causes of emotions/belief patterns, but resulted in seeing the causes of different tensions that make up or fuel those emotions/belief patterns, a clarity which can arise after "staying aware and equanimous to sensations; treating all sensations as having the same nature". and when that is done right, what happens is that cause-effect gets seen more clearly (which sensation arising-passing seems to be causing which arising-passing). seeing through causes is more of a fruit, not a practice intention, nothing like "ok i'm going to try to see through the cause of this now." the task is just to observe everything.
more regarding emotions/belief patterns: in my practice things were often taken as more abstract, as i tried to ignore content as much as possible, but then would often realize that by observing certain abstract tensions, energetic knots, or unpleasant/pleasant reactions, i find that certain corresponding emotional tensions have just been dealt with. it's often not clear which tensions link to which content and which emotions, as our psychological crap is a huge jumble, different emotions overlap with and bleed into each other in the forms of craving/aversion they carry, but observing tensions skillfully at the body sensation level does lead to seeing through the way they arise, and this awareness is enough for patterns of tension to either start their process of weakening (with continued repeated clear observation) or at times fall away instantly at the first discovery. when you become aware of sensations that happen to be some sort of weird exertion/habit/blind reaction that you've been doing unconsciously but has now become totally conscious and obvious to you after some practice, it can get let go of as soon as it is seen.
imagine you've been clenching your fists since forever but never knew it--all you were conscious of was just that you have some sort of stress and excessive tiredness inside. then one day you get to the point where your concentration, awareness, and equanimity are fine-tuned enough that you start to see how you've been habitually clenching your fists from time to time due to some unnecessary blind reaction, causing your hands to be sore, causing other tense reactions in the body, and leaking energy. the awareness of this clenching alone is enough to make you stop doing it (either immediately for good, or gradually over some time), because it no longer makes sense to keep creating tension and stress when you come to see how and where the harm can easily be dropped.
put another way, "seeing the cause of tension" is a form of seeing how and in what way the mind is not practicing purely objective, equanimous, and tranquil observation, and "dropping the tension" also means "getting back to paying (more) skillful attention". in other words--when paying attention, notice in what ways you're not paying skillful attention, as opposed to just switching to a more pleasant way of practicing whenever things get unpleasant.
srid :
* further, how do you see the cause of a tension/emotion so that it
"never arises" again? certain emotions/beliefs continue to arise -
if only in a much lesser intensity (and so it doesn't bother me
much) - and i remain aware and equanimous of the body sensations.
the way i see it, that "much lesser intensity" often happens as a result of certain patterns of reactions and degrees of blindness being extinguished for good. your observation above seems to assume a kind of compartmentalizing or putting various emotions/beliefs into separate boxes. the answer to the question "have things just weakened or has something just been extinguished there?" could depend on how you categorize things. for instance, do you prefer to think of "jealousy" as one thing, or a composition of different patterns of tension? you could practice and manage to extinguish certain aspects of jealousy and weaken it, and then eventually get to the point where there are only a few aspects of it left to extinguish, such that dealing with those last bits finally gets rid of everything related to jealousy.
srid :
if i can abondon it then and there, so that it "never arises" again, i
would be much excited to try it out if it is different from
AF-style social identity analysis.
your call!
srid :
maybe you were only responding to a specific context (the tension of
breath) and i erroneously applied it to all emotions?
in my practice this "clearly seeing through causes" happened to all sorts of different tensions, not just the breath in isolation. but this is only one of the ways things can unfold in practice. at other times, the causal links are not seen in as much detail, but progress is still made simply through increased concentration, tranquility, and overall attentiveness.
jill