Page 159 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

Applying awareness of feelings to one's emotional life, one will

find that unskillful emotional states, those connected with
craving, hatred, or fear, will tend to be resolved, whereas the

skilful emotional states, those connected with love, peace,
compassion, joy and so on, will tend to be refined. For instance, if
we are by nature a bit hot-tempered, a bit prone to anger, then if

we develop awareness of feeling we shall first of all be aware that
we have been angry. With a bit of practice, we shall be aware

that we are being angry, and with a bit more practice we shall be
aware that anger is on the point of arising. If we continue to
apply awareness to our emotional life in this way, unskillful

emotional states like anger will eventually subside, or at least be
brought under control.

(c) Awareness of Thought
If they were suddenly asked 'What are you thinking of just now?'

most people would have to confess that they did not know. This
is because often we do not really think. We just allow thoughts to

drift through the mind. We are not really aware of them, but just
vaguely conscious in a dull, twilight sort of way. There is no
directed thinking. We do not decide to think about something

and then actually think about it. The ideas drift through vaguely,
loosely, and woollily. They drift in and they drift out, sometimes

just eddying, curling and winding round and round inside the
mind. We therefore have to learn to watch from moment to
moment, and see where the thoughts come from and where they

go. If we do this we shall find that the flow of thoughts will be
reduced, and that the 'mental chatter' which goes on all the time

will be stopped. Eventually, if we persist in this awareness of
thought for long enough, the mind will become, at certain

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