Is it okay to bring specific issues up during meditation as opposed to just allowing an experience to rise naturally?
Like if I get angry at work, I'd like to examine the source of it during my meditation time, but it may not come up naturally.
I've answered this one before.
I'm not sure if I've answered it on the internet, but it's a common question.
And rather than answer it directly, I'll point out the problem with it.
The answer is no.
But why?
Because there's good in it.
You can see the potential good in doing this.
The things that you really have to deal with come up and you can deal with them.
The problem with that is this bringing up.
That is a karma.
There's something behind that.
There's the delusion of self.
There's greed.
There's maybe anger.
There's defilements involved with that.
Most likely defilements involved with that subtle delusion and probably greed and anger.
There's unwholesomeness involved.
And you're cultivating that.
Every time you bring something up, you're cultivating the idea of self, the idea that you have the power to bring this up.
And that eventually becomes a view and it corrupts.
So it's one of those practices that
you would say is black and white karma, because it's doing something good, but it has a bad result as well.
And so no, we don't do that, ideally.
And sometimes you can make exceptions.
There are exceptions.
You could say if you don't have enough time, if you're, you know, there could be a reason for accepting the bad, the need, or it not being bad karma, because there's something, some extenuating circumstances that require it.
Often a teacher will bring things up for students, will prod the student into experiencing something that they're avoiding, for example.
But for the most part, we try to be patient and because we're trying to cultivate objectivity, we have to be objective about the states that arise.
That's important.
And so as a result, pushing something to come up is problematic.