Second step

The second step after acceptance is; observation.

Emotional transmutation

The Transmutation Technique
Begin the Transmutation Technique by selecting some recent event that you feel guilty about or perhaps some event that left you feeling rejected. You may choose any memory, whether in
your recent or remote past, as long as it is not an experience you associate with overwhelming painful emotions of any kind (not for the first attempts). Begin with this problematic but bearable emotion, so you can do the emotional work and still be able to follow along with these three simple steps. Remember that you only need to understand and practice these steps in order to master them.

First step (inner contact): Refresh your memory of the emotion and the situation linked to it. Take a deep breath and feel this emotion without limitation. It is in your belly, within you, and you can feel it more and more. Do not amplify it from your normal stance as the victim of this emotion. Instead, listen to it, feel whatever it brings up for you, taste its flavor, accept its shape and form and how it defines itself (even if that is different than how you were defining it), contemplate it, and hold it within you. Be at peace and relive the emotion for a few breaths, up to one full minute. Be at peace. Later in your training you may perform this with some more powerful emotions. For now, just enjoy peacefully contemplating the positive change you just made.

Rarely, you may feel the need to express an emotion outwardly, in order to release some pressure that seems to be building up. On those rare occasions, (and this is not to be done frequently), simply release what you need to let go of, but never lose control over this experiment. When you are just learning these techniques, it is too easy to revert to victim stance, and to begin amplifying how terrible the situation is. Remember that you are practicing just becoming aware of the emotion. When you are unable to bear the intensity of an emotion, you may release some of the pressure; then just continue on with the process. It is obviously not the goal to keep this emotion trapped inside of you, or buried; rather it is the goal of this exercise to release the hold you have on it. Thus it is perfectly fine to perform the process while expressing some normal human emotion. Simply keep track of the experiment without losing your grip on the process. Breathe into your abdomen throughout the entire process. Do not breathe from your upper torso. Hold the situation that caused the emotion in your mind while you feel the
emotion.

Second step (integration): Get inside the emotion and follow wherever it leads you. Breathe deeply and comfortably. As the air flows into your abdomen, your task, as consciousness, is to penetrate the emotion and let it absorb you. Be aware of all the feelings that entering this emotion evokes for you, whether you feel pain or emptiness, coldness or heat, anger or sadness. Get inside of it and become it. The process of Integration requires a conscious fusion of you and the emotion. You are going to allow yourself to be enveloped within the emotion; to be integrated into it. For a few minutes, breathe and accept, breathe and become, breath and feel. Follow the path this emotion leads you on, and you will notice that most of the time, the emotion will be covering another emotion that is buried beneath it. Every emotion arises into our consciousness because it is linked with some human experience. Use your mind to follow these
experiences from the past so that you can remember what happened. You might run thru a few events (while following your
emotions), until you come to the first time in your life that you felt that emotion. Stay focused. Do not jump from one thread to another; trace one experience to its root cause, following one thread at a time. As you allow the emotions to exist, without avoiding them or rejecting them, the emotion is freed up, and the energy associated with it ceases to be trapped; the emotion is alive again, emancipated. When you stop blocking it and permit it to BE, your consciousness can understand the profound essence of that emotion.

During the exercise of becoming the emotion, this previously problematic feeling will be re-set to a peaceful, natural state and you will get an abstract but clear understanding of your human experience. You are what you experience, as consciousness, as spirit, as life. Do not rush through your experience of this step. Allow the penetrating fusion to continue for a while, until there is no pain associated with the emotion, only the experience of it. Conscious breathing will also naturally relax your hold on the emotion until it is released. Understand that the emotion will not leave you, it will simply be free to remain inside of you without any of the previous negative associations. Always consciously go beyond your fear of pain; never push away the emotion. With your mind, consolidate the entire experience, which is comprised of all of the life events that made it; breathe and be conscious within that entirety. The human ego has strong natural defense systems. Many times, the emotion is not blocked all by itself. Instead, the human ego keeps control over it, out of arrogance, vanity, jealousy, and envy, the ego refuses to allow the emotion the right to be resolved, all because of pride. You have to be in charge of this experiment and release the mental hold you keep on your emotion. You simply have to let go.

Third step (liberation): When you feel completely saturated with the emotion you are working on, when your consciousness has transmuted it into a living experience, that emotion (and all the energy that was trapped with it) is freed up. It is not released outside of you, it is available to you again, and all the power and potency of the emotion is alive for you once more. The heavy, dense or contracted energy that was troubling you is released in that it is converted into its essence, and dissolved in your higher consciousness. A good feeling will naturally bubble up from within you. You may feel deeply satisfied, or you may experience a profound state of peace, or you may feel the emancipating joy of freedom. Breathe and allow this new feeling of joy to fill you up, release this positive emotion if you wish to. After this transmutation, the most important thing for you to do is to contemplate the wholeness of the experience as joyful life and happiness. Even if your physical human experience did not seem to change at all, your inner experience of it became one with the inner Self. Do not let your human ego steal this moment
from you. It is crucial for you to rejoice within yourself, for you have tasted life at its fullest.

from the book
Quantum Buddhism
Mahajrya Bodhana Sutra / Teachings on Awakening to the Great Field
by MahaVajra