A more constructive approach to negative emotions, similar to working with negative thoughts, is simply to rest your attention on the emotion itself rather than on its object. Just look at the emotion without analyzing it intellectually. Don’t try to hold on to it and don’t try to block it. Just observe it. When you do this, the emotion won’t seem as big or powerful as it initially did.
Mingyur Rinpoche
from the book The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness
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Further quotes from the book The Joy of Living:
- Trying to do your best
- Neither rejecting nor accepting
- Nothing more than the natural function of the mind
- Thinking of yourself as limited
- The practice of simply observing
- Meditation on compassion
- What Buddhists mean by happiness
- Just observe it
- Setting the tone for your entire day
- Your mind just as it is
- Importance of the motivation
- Being diligent
- The best part of all
- Recognizing the inherent potential of your mind
- Oh, this is how my mind works
- Essentially good
- An experience of absolute well-being
- The need to look at the mind
- Never disturbed
- Becoming aware