This collection of talks given at Insight Meditation South Bay discusses the nature of emotions. Topics include how to work with shame, dread, fear and anger.

Meditation can reveal the dynamic process of emotional life. In this talk, Shaila Catherine explores relationships between mind and body, between thoughts and emotions, and between present moment experience and concepts. Emotions are not avoided in meditation, instead we engage in a balanced and wise investigation of emotions and see their changing, impermanent, and empty nature. Transformative insight into impermanence may come through understanding the functioning of mental states, without worry about difficult emotions such as anger, grief, or fear. We will learn to respond, act, and speak with wisdom as we learn to open to the full range of emotional life.

As human beings, our developed higher functioning mind can think, reflect, and observe how we add mental preferences of liking, not liking or feeling indifferent to what is occurring. This talk explores how our emotional responses to experience can—and surely must—be part of a path to liberation. Emotions do not have to derail us from an intention to free the mind from struggle. By skillfully engaging a mindfulness practice we can break down our experience into smaller, more manageable pieces to free ourselves from the tangle of desire and craving for things to be as we want them, rather than how they are. We find liberation within the emotional landscape.

Mindfulness of Right Intention is a noble gift which strengthens ethical and mental development. According to the Samma Sankappa sutta, Right Intention carries three main expressions: the intentions of renunciation, good will, and harmlessness. These intentions counter desire, ill will, and harmfulness. By directing our meditation practice toward Right Intention we increase our ability to see with greater wisdom and act more skillfully in daily life. The mind and body are more at ease in the world.