Still, saying that it works isn’t the same as saying that it’s intellectually valid. Just because being less reactive to some of your feelings makes you happier doesn’t mean it brings a truer apprehension of the world. Maybe this less reactive stance is like a narcotic: it dulls the pain by insulating you from the real-world feedback that your

“Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them.”

The animal’s brain should focus more on (1), the fact that pleasure will accompany the reaching of a goal, than on (2), the fact that the pleasure will dissipate shortly thereafter.

feelings just are. If we accepted their arising and subsiding as part of life, rather than reacting to them as if they were deeply meaningful, we’d often be better off.

ultimately, natural selection cares about only one thing (or, I should say, “cares”—in quotes—about only one thing, since natural selection is just a blind process, not a conscious designer). And that one thing is getting genes into the next generation. Genetically based traits that in the past contributed to genetic proliferation have flourished,

Meanwhile, let’s review several senses in which feelings

In mindfulness meditation as it’s typically taught, the point of focusing on your breath isn’t just to focus on your breath. It’s to stabilize your mind, to free it of its normal preoccupations so you can observe things that are happening in a clear, unhurried, less reactive way.

Feelings just are. If we feel them, then they’re feelings—real feelings, not imagined feelings.

There’s something to be said for this point of view. In fact, one of the take-home lessons of Buddhist philosophy is that feelings just are. If we accepted their arising and subsiding as part of life, rather than reacting to them as if they were deeply meaningful, we’d often be better off.