Wrong View: Low-Energy Buddha, and some ideas about generative versus reactive emotions.

I had an insight over the last couple of days about a wrong view I possessed.

I held a view of the Buddha as extremely detached from existence, exasperated with existence, who just wishes to abide in perfect, effortless detachment.

This for a long time was my unquestioned view of the Buddha, entrenched by virtue of being nearly unconscious: when I thought of the Buddha, this view arose automatically as if it indisputably correct, as if it was indeed the very definition of enlightenment. Visually, I would imagine the Buddha as somewhat ethereal, like an emaciated, self-mortifying, nearly-expired extreme ascetic.

This matched my own view of seeing life as tiring and exasperating. It also led me to appreciated sloth-torpor as a quality of enlightenment. I also often rejected any feeling of happiness as unskillful and undermining of perfect equanimity. So I spent days in self-induced state of depression, in which I carefully extinguished most traces of happiness. I was detached enough not to care about the depression, but that led me to depend on heavy detachment.

This is the imbalance, a bias towards detachment that was created by suppressing joy and energy.

Every so often I contemplate something, and then fortuitously remember a fragment of text I read long ago. Thus when thinking over the questions above, suddenly I recalled the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, and realized my view rejects two of them - Energy (viriya) and Joy (pīti) - while embracing the adversarial Hindrance of sloth-torpor.

This made me think of generative versus reactive emotions.

I don't recall ever encountering these terms in the teachings, but they seem quite important. The emotions that are part of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, notably Energy and Joy, are generative: they are generated by the being and emanate outwards, to exercise a (generally) positive effect on the being and, concentrically, its surrounding world.

Such emotions are of great help and should certainly not be oppressed.

Other emotions are reactive: they form in reaction to sense contact. These emotions thus reflect a relation to the object, or more accurately - the contact. They are generally either attachment or aversion to that contact. For example, if the contact is deemed "pleasant" / "good", we attach and seek more of it. If it deemed "unpleasant" / "bad", we seek to detach and avoid it.

The emotions that are categorically Wrong are the reactive emotions.

Another interesting way to put it is that those emotions are caused by conditioned phenomena, whereas the generative emotions are unconditioned.

Thus, if fail a performance, my body will decrease its secretion of happiness-inducing neurotransmitters such as serotonin. This is a direct chain of causation, from a conditioned phenomena (failing a performance) to conditioned phenomena wrongly perceived as self ("I am sad because I failed the performance").

However, if I generate joy unconditionally, regardless of circumstances, I am extracting myself out of the chain of causation. Thus constantly generating joy and energetic attitude is a factor of enlightenment.

Yet another interesting connection is Maslow's concept of Deficiency needs versus Being needs. Deficiency needs such as hunger, sex, and love are reactive emotions, whereas Being needs are fundamentally generative. Some understanding of attachment and aversion can sharpen and focus Maslow's insights, for example - the futility of attempting to satisfy D-needs, and how easily they can lead to addiction.

In fact I think the generative vs reactive dichotomy is more comprehensive and accurate.

submitted by /u/SilaSamadhi
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