Mental Formations · Spiritual Rebels

Mental Formations

I was listening to this dhamma talk by this lady and this is what I got from it in my personal reflection.

I experience mental formations from discomfort, pain, grief, sadness or stress, everyday difficulties… my response can be mental formations to distract, comfort me as fantasies or recursive thinking of situations, looking for something validating, comforting or that will make me feel smart, wise, powerful or witnessed or admired. It can also manifest in the desire to use people, places or things as tools to comfort me or please me or distract me. Also it can manifest as an aversion, an avoidance of things that I feel uncomfortable or fearful or sad or insecure about.

When I don’t want to be present with the discomfort or the inevitable pain of living as a being, I can recognize these manifestations, without judgment, acknowledge it is hard or painful and find myself in the gap between the temporary and fleeting escape hatches and rather be present with the discomfort.

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Mental Formations