How to stop reacting to excitement and moods is a favorite Zen-one-hand-clapping study of mine. In 1968, at a large course in Paradise Tahoe, Ca, Maharishi taught us a practical strategy: put attention on the physical sensations that arise from excitement, stress or pain, and balance will be restored. It’s mechanical.

OUR BODY SPEAKS
It's called body awareness. I’ve also studied what others have taught about it, including Stanford psychologist Dr. Peter Levine (his book: Trauma Healing), Eckhart Tolle, Jean Klein, Rupert Spira, and Yogi Ramacharaka (his book, Hatha Yoga).

MOODS
The excitement of moods, desires, or fears can enslave us. What are fear and desire? They might appear to come from the mind, from the mind's reaction to situations. But moods are—broken down to basic engineering—a seamless blend of both abstract mental and concrete physical reactions.

Moods are hardware and software working in concert. For example, fear is a negative sensation and a negative thought woven together. Desire is a pleasurable sensation and pleasurable thought woven together. It’s like mixing two chemicals to produce something more than the components.

In this way, the sensation in the body and the thought in the mind combine and amplify each other. It's like a song: the vibration of the melody and the meaning in the lyrics blend and amplify each other. Blended, feeling and meaning create moods that are far more potent than either alone. That’s why they can push us around.

Moods can be about anything: fear of losing face leading to denial, or desire for pleasure leading to loss of self-respect, or any positive or negative pressure that gets the better of us.

THE SECRET
This leads to a simple strategy: if a mood is an excited thought/image and an excited sensation/feeling bonded together, then break the bond. Separate the excited thought—which is in the mind—from the excited feeling—which is in the body. Like lyrics and melody, they are two separate energies or inputs, but you need only deal with one. This strategy gives us an inner graphic equalizer.

Why just one input? This is the secret: if the excitement in the mind is settled down, the body will settle down in concert; if the excitement in the body is settled down the mind will settle down in concert. Mind and body reflect separately the two sides of excitement, so in theory it can be approached from either side.

MIND vs MIND vs BODY
But have you ever tried to relax your mind when it’s agitated? Did you find it often backfires? That’s because thought is an abstraction, subtle and slippery. When thinking tries to calm itself down, perversely, it may go nowhere and just get more agitated. Thought trying to calm thought assumes that something outside of thought is acting on thought.

But we have one mind, not two; so just as the eyes can’t see themselves, or a dog chasing its tail can’t catch it—because the tail is part of the dog—so our mind can’t catch itself, and trying to divide what can’t be divided just leads to head pressure. Think insomnia, impotence, golfer’s yips, or stage-fright—trying not to try we get locked in a loop.

From the side of the body, however, it’s much easier. That’s because as subtle and tricky as a mood in the mind is, as concrete and simple is the accompanying sensation in the body. Sensations are tangible; a raw physical sensation is just what it is, where it is. Thoughts can morph into any image, but physical sensations are just what they are—a temporary, abnormal excitement you can feel somewhere in the body.

WHAT IS FEAR?
Fear is a certain combination of energy in the mind & body, often an immobilizing excitement. Oh my god, there’s a grizzly behind that tree—such a thought triggers fright, which rushes through my body and I run (or freeze).

Now, if I sort out the danger in my mind (let’s say I look closely and see it’s just a bush behind the tree), then my overexcited body will settle down in parallel.

But the story in our mind is rarely so simple; in fact, it’s usually mostly fiction, often irrational and may have little to do with what’s happening. Let’s say someone’s spouse dumped them and ran off with someone else. The facts: he or she left me, and it hurts. The fiction: I’m ugly, no one will ever love me, he or she is heartless, deluded, the world is meaningless, and on and on. Often good enough fiction to ruin a lifetime.

A CLUE
So, what’s our blind spot? Maharishi gave an important clue: the mind can’t have a mood on an abstract basis. Even if the mood is just from something you ate, the mind will find a meaning, a reason for the mood, a story. The mind blurs the line between truth and fiction, and it likes drama—the more exaggerated the better. Inside the mind, soaps sell.

This means the best way to sort out moods is to let our attention go to the physical sensations they create—maybe some contraction or rush in the head or stomach or wherever. We put our attention on the feeling in the body, but with no intention, not looking for it to go away—nothing—just effortlessly noticing; interested but not trying to change it.

The sensation may change, move around--anything. Whatever. All we need do is let our attention go to the sensation and that will start normalizing the abnormal functioning in that part of the body. The nervous system is already automatically trying to restore balance, but your attention will bring more life-energy to that spot, allowing it to normalize things more quickly and more thoroughly.

OUR MIND IS THE PARENT OF OUR BODY
If a child is traumatized, the parent just picks it up: “It's ok, sweetie, I’m here, I love you" — and all that healing energy diffuses through the child like warm vapor through a cold sponge—even if the child doesn't understand the words.

The principle is: the body is the projection of the mind. So, we put our attention on the feeling in the body. But with no intention, easy, not looking for it to go away—nothing. Just feel the sensation, mechanically, like a camera sees a flower. It’s neither emotional nor intellectual.

TAKE IT EASY
It only takes a few minutes. And don’t mind when the attention drifts back to thinking, because it will, over and over. Like a selfish child, the yak-yak mind will scream that its important story must dominate your attention: “No time for this, we have an issue, must churn, must churn…”
That’s ok; when you notice for the hundredth time that the mind has sucked your attention back to the fiction, gently flow the attention back to the sensations. Easy, no effort, no control, no looking for a result—just watching, like watching clouds.

~ John