Do feelings appear outside or inside of you?

The standard, commonsensical view is that someone does or says something that causes me to feel this way. It’s as if the feeling were to appear at “the border” between outer act and inner, private suffering.

If this view is correct, then we’d do well to change the outer circumstances so that negative feelings wouldn’t be so prevalent.

But is it the correct view?

It’s not. Feelings always appear entirely entirely inside of you. The truth of this statement, of course, turns on what you are.

You are open awareness.

The following can be confirmed in your own experience:

1. What is a feeling? It’s either an arising thought or a cluster of sensations?
2. Where is this arising thought or this cluster of sensations appearing? Entirely within me.
3. Yet entirely within what exactly? Entirely within open awareness.

For a while, it may seem as if this experiential understanding according to which all feelings appear within open awareness is belied by counterexamples. “Surely, some feelings I’m experiencing are your fault,” I think. “You made me feel this way.”

Investigate the apparent outliers. Little by little, it’ll be clear that there are zero exceptions. When this is clear, then blame falls away and there’s only contentment.