Insight Hour with Joseph Goldstein Ep. 214 – The Nature of Feelings, Satipatthana Sutta Series Pt. 11
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Sep 12, 2024 
Joseph Goldstein, a renowned meditation teacher and author specializing in Buddhist teachings, delves into the significance of feelings and their impact on our lives. He discusses how mindfulness of feelings can unveil our mental conditioning and create awareness of our reactions. Goldstein emphasizes the role of pleasant feelings in fostering desire and attachment, while cautioning against the ignorance that can come from neutrality. He advocates for a non-reactive approach to emotions and highlights the impermanence of all feelings, offering insights for deeper self-understanding.
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Vedana: The Nature of Feelings
- The Buddhist term Vedana refers specifically to the quality of feelings as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral at moments of contact with experience.
- This feeling tone is key as it conditions our mental reactions and the consequential actions and karma.
Mindfulness Shifts Feeling Responses
- Pleasant feelings can condition desire and attachment, unpleasant feelings condition aversion, and neutral feelings condition ignorance when unmindful.
- Mindfulness transforms these feelings into vehicles for awakening, breaking habitual desire, aversion, and delusion.
Goldstein's Intense Mindfulness Retreat
- Joseph Goldstein recounts a two-month self-retreat filled with physical and mental suffering and the struggle to maintain mindfulness.
- He noticed how mindfulness opened a spacious awareness that reduced suffering despite unpleasant feelings.