Catching Quick Emotional Outbursts

I’ve been catching my emotional outbursts quickly these days. Just now I shouted to myself, “What the fuck are you?” in response to mysterious voicemails. I felt my own anger flare up, and subside. But I’m catching them before they go away, before they are forgotten.

The goal, of course, is to catch them before they even happen. To be in a blissful, tranquil state, notice the trigger, observe the physical manifestation of the emotion, and get right back to tranquility.

The tranquility I get from meditation is basically the same feeling I get after sex. It’s that release, that feeling of “everything’s right in the world, nothing can bother me” that I practice, trying to maintain that throughout the day. So this is what Ajahn Brahm meant when he said that meditation was “better than sex”.