A River of Feelings

There is a river of feeling in every one of us - pleasant feelings, unpleasant feelings and neutral feelings. They come one after another like drops of water in the river. As we sit, the river of feelings runs through us and it’s tempting to let a strong feeling pull us downstream.

Instead, we sit on the riverbank and observe the feelings as they run through us. We can name them:

“This is a pleasant feeling.”

“This is a painful feeling.”

We can do the same with our mental formations, such as anger and fear. Naming can be the first step in giving us some distance from our feelings, so we can see that a feeling is just a feeling and that it is impermanent.

A feeling comes and eventually goes…

Thich Nhat Hanh, How to Sit

photograph by Chelsea Hoyt