Mahabodhi
Recent articles 2011
ideology mindfulness psychology: buddhism
Views and Emotions
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On a couple of occasions this year I have been discussing a topic that my interlocutor (the other person) knows I feel passionate about. I have expressed my view and the other person has responded by saying: ‘You’re just attached to that view,’ as if saying that was a valid argument against my view. I would argue that this is a form of ad hominem - and therefore not a valid form of argument - because it points to the person (i.e. their mental states) rather than the opinion they are expressing. It therefore avoids addressing the person’s view, to less dialogue and therefore less movement towards the truth. The person using the ad hominem argument then mentions that: ‘The Buddha had no view.’ This is the clincher, because, as Buddhists, we all want to be a Buddha, and therefore we think: ‘Maybe I should drop my view, because after all it is a view. It isn’t going to get me to Enlightenment as in that state there are no views.’ So I give up my view and concede the point to the other person, which is of course a mistake that comes about through our not understanding that there is a separation between ‘views’ and ‘emotions.’ It is fine to point out that someone is emotional or attached, as attachment is an unskillful mental state that will hold us back from Nirvana. But we should keep our analysis of the skillfulness of the mental state that a person is in separate from whether or not we think their view is valid. Rather than assuming that if they are attached to a view it must be wrong, we need to look at the two areas separately.
But what textual evidence do we have that we should keep views and emotions separate? A view is a perspective constructed from dhammas in the mind-sense manas, and an emotion is a state of mind, which therefore ‘belongs with’ citta. In the Satipatthana Sutta the Buddha divides dhammas and citta into separate domains of mindfulness. Therefore because dhammas and citta are distinct (if interconnected,) views and emotions are distinct (if interconnected.)
If we assume then that views and emotions are distinct then there are four possible scenarios in which they combine.
1)The view is true and person is emotional / is attached,
2)The view is untrue and person is emotional / is attached,
3)The view is true and person is not emotional / unattached, or
4)The view is untrue and person is not emotional / unattached.
It may be that a person sees something clearly (i.e. their view is true) but then when others don’t see it they get frustrated (i.e. emotional,) as can happen with people of high intelligence. But equally, it may be that a person is indifferent (unattached) and they assume that because they feel calm and therefore objective that their view is correct, when in fact it is false because they haven’t thought about it enough. This can happen with faith-types.
It is very often the case that our emotions are closely enmeshed with our views, this is true. But this is only to say that we always have an emotional state (citta) going on at the same time as we always have a view (dhammas,) an experience of feeling (vedana) and an experience of body (kaya.)