Wednesday, 6 February 2019
Certain kinds of positive feelings such as ease or satisfaction or equanimity can be imagined as increasing indefinitely, but certainly not all positive feelings. An unlimited intensification of pleasure or bliss would seem to be indistinguishable from pain or would simply tear the body apart. Similarly happiness amplified beyond a certain level becomes mania and hence filled with delusions and is certainly a horrible thing to witness in others. The feeling of triumph or success ramps up into grandiosity and a devouring madness. What is it that distinguishes these positive feelings from those others? is it that they are 'egoistic' or self-regarding? What about the case of affection or compassion? Even when freed from attachment to a sole object or a limited range of objects these 'adhesive' feelings would seem to turn into agony above a certain threshold. The examples mentioned at the outset could also be considered to be self-regarding, but they also contain the antidote to self-regard. As ease increases one becomes more and more detached from self in any narrow sense, a natural benevolence takes effect. No, what these special kinds of positive emotions have is a sort of direct link to the self. As ease or satisfaction intensifies you effortlessly become ease or satisfaction, or rather you realise that you always were supreme ease or satisfaction; there is a homecoming, what seemed to be essences simply become names or addresses.
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