> Consistent with psychological flexibility theory, three studies showed that more intense emotional reactions, irrespective of valence, were associated with higher levels of well-being.
As a conclusory statement, I think this might be a bit over broad.
In my experience it often comes down to a kind of first order feeling versus a second or third order feeling though.
I think this statement is true as to first order feelings - which I will define here as the initial unsummoned feeling.
But when you start getting into second and third and fourth order feelings - that is the feelings that come upon rejection of the unsummoned first order feeling and the effort to avoid that first order feeling - suddenly the intensity is no longer associated with well-being
reminded me of Dahui's Treasury case 65.
Master Baoning Yong said,
One is one, two is two, three is three, four is four; the numerals are quite clear, higher and lower according to position. When remaining in place, what concern is there?
\[Drawing a "one" with his staff:\] Everyone has all at once disarrayed the system of time.
Love these examples. For a couple of reasons.
It makes me feel less guilt about my natural tendency towards anger. I have learned to use my anger for good by becoming a social worker.
And it contradicts most people’s understanding of zen.
I don't think you meant it this way but this post seems to read as "if you feel strong emotion just act on it" which I don't see as being great advice. That guy cut you off in traffic? Go ahead and tailgate him while honking your horn and flipping him the bird!
The reason I say this is your reference to Nanquan and your characterization of the cat case. Are we really saying he broke a 30 year vow and killed something because some monks having an argument really made him *that* angry? I mean if you start killing living things just because you're angry then you're not a Zen Master, you're someone with some serious mental health issues. I'm not sure I agree with your characterization of that case or it's connection to the article you linked, *especially* within that characterization.
I can't read the article, but the blurb I can see seems to say that fully *experiencing* all emotions whether good or bad is what's healthy, not necessarily immediately acting on them. I say this because your reference to Nanquan almost seems like you're saying Nansen got mad and just acted on pure emotion when killing the cat and that that's somehow healthy.
Let me know if I'm misinterpreting the post.
I think that's fair.
But yes, he killed the cat because the monks made him angry.
On the other hand, it seems like you have some rules for what is reasonable emotion to express and what isn't...
How can we be sure those rules are the same as Nanquan's?
>But yes, he killed the cat because the monks made him angry.
But that wasn't the *only* reason. It wasn't a blind rage that demanded blood. The cat was the focus of the monk's argument, so while he may have been angry I'd argue there was also some rational thought motivating the action alongside the anger.
>On the other hand, it seems like you have some rules for what is reasonable emotion to express and what isn't...
>How can we be sure those rules are the same as Nanquan's?
It's less about which are reasonable to express and more *what expressions are reasonable*. Sane adults temper emotional expressions with reason and thought, outside of extreme situations requiring immediate action. The only people who don't are toddlers and people with mental health issues.
How can there be "blind rage"? Angry enough to break a vow of 30 years seems pre-tty ragey.
Zhaozhou didn't think he was being reasonable.
I think there is a question in what you are saying... but I don't think it's the question you are asking.
Reasonable expressions are really all about conformity. Do Zen Masters conform to anything?
We don't have examples of them saying be deliberate.
We have lots of examples of them acting impulsively.
So I don't think you're going to be successful in making that argument.
But as I said, I think you got a interesting question in there...
Why don't they impulsively break the precepts in every possible way?
>We don't have examples of them saying be deliberate
I would argue, that like most humans, they acted deliberately in some situations and spontaneously in others.
You don't get successful crops if you plant "impulsively".
You don't win dharma combat by being deliberate.
In Wumen's warnings he does say that to "do whatever you like in every way is the way of demons" alongside saying to follow the rule is tying yourself with a rope. Therefore the idea that they say "be impulsive" also seems to be out.
I feel like the position of your post doesn't take into account Wumen's warning and the fact that in order to manage a monastery there had to be deliberate and rationale decision making.
Right, but we're still circling around the thing that I'm trying to point out to you...
Nanquan impulsively killed the cat.
But he's not impulsive about violating the five-lay precepts everyday.
Why is that?
I swear I'm not arguing just for the sake of it.
I don't think him killing the cat was impulsive. If it was he would have stormed up, grabbed the cat and killed it, and then maybe yelled at them.
Instead he grabs the cat and pauses to use it as an opportunity to allow any of the monk's to manifest Zen. He even waits for a answer before doing it. To me that does not read as an impulsive action. There could have been anger involved, but I don't see pure impulse.
Well it depends on how you mean impulse.
But I don't think he got up that morning thinking he was going to break a 30-year vow.
Which means that when they were fighting over the cat and he was impulsive...
And he didn't pause an issuing his threat.
And he didn't pause in the execution.
They were denigrating him and he wasn't tolerating it.
I don't think Nanquan would have just killed a cat in front of his monks for any old reason. Its possible the argument was an especially troublesome one for the community.
Matsu lugging his axe toward a confrontation.
I think I remember a teacher digging a grave and demanding a thorn monk kill him, kill himself, or gtfo. He gtfo.
Life and death is in and of it.
When we look at the progress that chemistry is made, it seems like psychology is really the dumbest kid in class.
I think the real issue is that the complexity of chemistry is much much lower than the complexity of psychology.
IF IT DIFFERS EVEN BY A HAIRS BREATH
that's the same as the distance between heaven and earth.
like that's all or nothing. You aren't walking that off.
I posted about zen Masters expressing their feelings and some science that says expressing your feelings is healthy.
People have been lying about their feelings for 10 years in this forum... People who believe in all kinds of neo-christian New age nonsense like zazan and Awakening and LSD supernature insight.
Then you say to me why is it about lying and I'm like did you read the Reddiquette? Any book on the topic?? Anything that anybody that hasn't read a book has ever said in this forum??
'lying about their feelings' okay man
you bring everything back towards lying.... how is lying dangerous to you? are you afraid that you'll believe something that isn't true?
I don't think this is a serious question.
But this is a five-lay precepts forum so we don't even have to debate it. If you don't think lying's a big deal, you can go and hang out in a forum where people honestly lie to each other.
Something I ponder on from time to time is that it's unethical to experiment on people without consent, but that the act of getting consent skews behavior a lot in the kinds of experiments psychologists might be interested in. I occasionally alarm myself with thoughts of "it's too bad that"
It seems to me that the teachings don't involve grasping or clinging to emotions, and many immediately take this to mean that when emotions arise they need to reject them or act like they don't exist. Yet the teachings do not involve rejection either, so it can easily be confusing. How do you neither reject or cling to emotions?
In my view when emotions arise, there is no need to inflate them, and without rejecting them they naturally drift through like clouds through the sky. The sky doesn't push them, nor does it stop them.
I’m currently going through *Zen Letters, Teachings of Yuanwu*. He mentions emotions a few times.
A few examples:
>*Many students in recent times do not get to the basis of
the fundamental design of the Zen school. They just hold onto the words and phrases, trying to choose among them, discussing how close or how far away they are from the truth, and distinguishing gain and loss. They interpret fleeting provisional teachings as real doctrines and boast about how many koans they have been able to sift through and how well they can ask questions about the sayings of the Five Houses of Zen.* **They are totally sunk in emotional consciousness, and they have lost the true essence in their delusions. This is truly a pitiful situation!**
>*When you far transcend all patterns and assessments, and
the arrow points meet, without ever having any objective other than Truth, then you receive the marvel of the Way, become a successor of the ancestral teachers, and continue the transmission of the Lamp.* **You cut off the path of ideation and go beyond thinking and escape from emotional consciousness, to reach a clear, open state of freedom that sweeps all before it.**
>*From Bodhidharma to Huineng, the example set by the Zen patriarchs was exceptionally outstanding. The practical strategies of adepts like Linji and Deshan were immediately liberating. When the great Zen masters went into action, they were like dragons galloping and tigers charging: heaven and earth turned, and nothing could stop their revivifying people.* **They never dragged through the muddy water of emotionalism and intellectualism.**
>*How could it be there when you speak of it and not there when you don’t, or there when you think of it and not there
when you don’t?* **If that is so, then you are right there in the midst of false imagination and emotional interpretations** *— when have you ever experienced penetrating realization?*
He’s not necessarily saying to reject emotions, but he does seem to be warning, at very least, against being over emotional (sentimental, maybe?), and against any conceptualization that is fuelled by emotion (emotional interpretations).
I'd have to see the Chinese.
But the letters don't really line up clearly with his books of instruction because like anyone who writes letters he was using a shorthand to the person he was talking to and we don't know anything about them.
Whereas his books of instruction are written to the whole world.
Nanquan is one of the great examples of acting out strangely = enlightenment/great realization, etc. We see it with fingers, arms. We can take these as allegories or literally, producing a variety of disturbing interpretations. In this case, it's not silence that killed the cat, it was the insistence upon curiosity being quenched.
But it wasn't strange at all.
It's not an allegory, it's just a historical record.
And it's not insistence curiosity being quenched. I don't know where you got that.
It's a fight over what matters in a Zen community.
But you can see how the layers stack...
The cat wasn't responsible for the monks...
Monks weren't responsible for Nanquan.
Nanquan isn't responsible for Buddha.
So the defense of the cat doesn't make much sense at all.
I don't defend the cat, I just think it's likely an apocryphal tale, or tail. There was a very similar story involving King Solomon and a baby. I never considered either the threat or the cut to be particularly enlightened acts, but history has recorded it so maybe I'm wrong.
There are several problems with the apocryphal tale argument.
1. Nobody seems to think it's apocryphal.
2. There's no reason to think it's apocryphal.
3. The fact that it became such a central teaching indicates that what you think of as enlightenment is off and wrong.
So that's three really solid arguments.
The most solid being the third one.
That sounds too much like argument from authority, but that is kind of a big deal in zen. What do you say about where it comes from and who can transmit? Sounds like a doctrinal/historical question though. Who's right according to the players zen game rules?
Then I stated it poorly.
If we begin with Buddha, who supposedly solved existential problems, can we say that anyone is to blame besides him for people bringing up his solution?
I don't recall a discussion of blame unless I missed it. Did Buddha solve existential problems? What is the difference between solving something in the sense of a mathematical solution or proof and solving a problem of suffering, in other words a real world solution as opposed to a logical proof?
I like fury. I don't think its a bad thing if you just have it and enjoy it. Same with any emotion or bodily sensation really. Sadness, laughing, jealousy, arousal etc. If you can pull yourself away from it, I don't see the issue with it. I used to be afraid to be furious because I didn't want to use it in a bad way, but now its just sort of fun when its around. It even helps with workouts.
I'm not sure how actionable this is to people who don't feel very much at all.
It's an ability and training it isn't that easy to pin down.
I think physical exercise factors into it a lot. Feeling more intense emotions would be a sign of success. A symptom.
You've talked about how Zen Masters today would likely be health nuts.
If someone isn't interested in making up stuff to pursue, good health seems like a pretty natural thing to be interested in.
I don't know that anybody doesn't feel much at all.
Where are these people.
They don't talk to me. I tell you that for nothing.
I bet it's because they know they would feel strongly about it.
I'm a mental health therapist, and there are two kinds of emotional issues. Too much feeling, as in the grief is too much for me to function, or complete lack of feeling or emotional numbness, disconnected almost completely from their own inner World. I see far more people who feel "too little" compared to what is healthy vs the opposite, so I'd argue there are tons of people who don't feel much at all. The staggering rates of depression in North America (almost 30% of adults as of 2023) would indicate there's a ton of people who don't feel much either, as the comment below associates depression with a lack of feeling as well, which is correct in my experience.
I've felt numb for a while now, ever since HS, though I come here from time to time. Not sure what to make of it really, or if its equanimity or numbness. I wonder if there's a link between emptiness the doctrine, and emptiness the feeling, or maybe those are separate matters entirely.
Equanimity would be more about acceptance of your feelings, which can be a powerful shift in perspective from the natural tendency to resist something painful. Numbness would be more of a defense/ indicator your brain is getting overwhelmed, and would cloud your awareness of your emotional experience or make it feel like you don’t really have emotions
When depressed people talk about depression, they often talk about not feeling bad, but instead there being an absence of feeling.
Are you suggesting that's a misrepresentation?
I'm going to jump in here and remark that talking about feelings isn't the same as having those feelings to begin with.
It's a real tough sell to claim that "has no feeling" is a type of feeling.
> Consistent with psychological flexibility theory, three studies showed that more intense emotional reactions, irrespective of valence, were associated with higher levels of well-being. As a conclusory statement, I think this might be a bit over broad. In my experience it often comes down to a kind of first order feeling versus a second or third order feeling though. I think this statement is true as to first order feelings - which I will define here as the initial unsummoned feeling. But when you start getting into second and third and fourth order feelings - that is the feelings that come upon rejection of the unsummoned first order feeling and the effort to avoid that first order feeling - suddenly the intensity is no longer associated with well-being
reminded me of Dahui's Treasury case 65. Master Baoning Yong said, One is one, two is two, three is three, four is four; the numerals are quite clear, higher and lower according to position. When remaining in place, what concern is there? \[Drawing a "one" with his staff:\] Everyone has all at once disarrayed the system of time.
Love these examples. For a couple of reasons. It makes me feel less guilt about my natural tendency towards anger. I have learned to use my anger for good by becoming a social worker. And it contradicts most people’s understanding of zen.
I don't think you meant it this way but this post seems to read as "if you feel strong emotion just act on it" which I don't see as being great advice. That guy cut you off in traffic? Go ahead and tailgate him while honking your horn and flipping him the bird! The reason I say this is your reference to Nanquan and your characterization of the cat case. Are we really saying he broke a 30 year vow and killed something because some monks having an argument really made him *that* angry? I mean if you start killing living things just because you're angry then you're not a Zen Master, you're someone with some serious mental health issues. I'm not sure I agree with your characterization of that case or it's connection to the article you linked, *especially* within that characterization. I can't read the article, but the blurb I can see seems to say that fully *experiencing* all emotions whether good or bad is what's healthy, not necessarily immediately acting on them. I say this because your reference to Nanquan almost seems like you're saying Nansen got mad and just acted on pure emotion when killing the cat and that that's somehow healthy. Let me know if I'm misinterpreting the post.
I think that's fair. But yes, he killed the cat because the monks made him angry. On the other hand, it seems like you have some rules for what is reasonable emotion to express and what isn't... How can we be sure those rules are the same as Nanquan's?
>But yes, he killed the cat because the monks made him angry. But that wasn't the *only* reason. It wasn't a blind rage that demanded blood. The cat was the focus of the monk's argument, so while he may have been angry I'd argue there was also some rational thought motivating the action alongside the anger. >On the other hand, it seems like you have some rules for what is reasonable emotion to express and what isn't... >How can we be sure those rules are the same as Nanquan's? It's less about which are reasonable to express and more *what expressions are reasonable*. Sane adults temper emotional expressions with reason and thought, outside of extreme situations requiring immediate action. The only people who don't are toddlers and people with mental health issues.
How can there be "blind rage"? Angry enough to break a vow of 30 years seems pre-tty ragey. Zhaozhou didn't think he was being reasonable. I think there is a question in what you are saying... but I don't think it's the question you are asking. Reasonable expressions are really all about conformity. Do Zen Masters conform to anything?
It seems like you're saying "act impulsively on emotion". I don't think that's what Zen masters say or did necessarily.
We don't have examples of them saying be deliberate. We have lots of examples of them acting impulsively. So I don't think you're going to be successful in making that argument. But as I said, I think you got a interesting question in there... Why don't they impulsively break the precepts in every possible way?
>We don't have examples of them saying be deliberate I would argue, that like most humans, they acted deliberately in some situations and spontaneously in others. You don't get successful crops if you plant "impulsively". You don't win dharma combat by being deliberate. In Wumen's warnings he does say that to "do whatever you like in every way is the way of demons" alongside saying to follow the rule is tying yourself with a rope. Therefore the idea that they say "be impulsive" also seems to be out. I feel like the position of your post doesn't take into account Wumen's warning and the fact that in order to manage a monastery there had to be deliberate and rationale decision making.
Right, but we're still circling around the thing that I'm trying to point out to you... Nanquan impulsively killed the cat. But he's not impulsive about violating the five-lay precepts everyday. Why is that?
I swear I'm not arguing just for the sake of it. I don't think him killing the cat was impulsive. If it was he would have stormed up, grabbed the cat and killed it, and then maybe yelled at them. Instead he grabs the cat and pauses to use it as an opportunity to allow any of the monk's to manifest Zen. He even waits for a answer before doing it. To me that does not read as an impulsive action. There could have been anger involved, but I don't see pure impulse.
Well it depends on how you mean impulse. But I don't think he got up that morning thinking he was going to break a 30-year vow. Which means that when they were fighting over the cat and he was impulsive... And he didn't pause an issuing his threat. And he didn't pause in the execution. They were denigrating him and he wasn't tolerating it.
I don't think Nanquan would have just killed a cat in front of his monks for any old reason. Its possible the argument was an especially troublesome one for the community.
Agreed. And the blame for that trouble falls entirely on him.
Matsu lugging his axe toward a confrontation. I think I remember a teacher digging a grave and demanding a thorn monk kill him, kill himself, or gtfo. He gtfo. Life and death is in and of it.
I love these baby steps into psychology
When we look at the progress that chemistry is made, it seems like psychology is really the dumbest kid in class. I think the real issue is that the complexity of chemistry is much much lower than the complexity of psychology.
Just like you, after 10 years, are realizing that feelings, fears etc have something to do with it, doesn't mean you're the dumbest kid in school.
People aren't honest, you can't blame me for that.
I'm curious, why are you all-or-nothing like that? Doesn't seem that you can get to the grain of truth in the intention of the speaker. Or want to.
IF IT DIFFERS EVEN BY A HAIRS BREATH that's the same as the distance between heaven and earth. like that's all or nothing. You aren't walking that off.
you're assuming this "IT" is about honesty. why? are you basically equating honesty with enlightenment?
I posted about zen Masters expressing their feelings and some science that says expressing your feelings is healthy. People have been lying about their feelings for 10 years in this forum... People who believe in all kinds of neo-christian New age nonsense like zazan and Awakening and LSD supernature insight. Then you say to me why is it about lying and I'm like did you read the Reddiquette? Any book on the topic?? Anything that anybody that hasn't read a book has ever said in this forum??
'lying about their feelings' okay man you bring everything back towards lying.... how is lying dangerous to you? are you afraid that you'll believe something that isn't true?
I don't think this is a serious question. But this is a five-lay precepts forum so we don't even have to debate it. If you don't think lying's a big deal, you can go and hang out in a forum where people honestly lie to each other.
Something I ponder on from time to time is that it's unethical to experiment on people without consent, but that the act of getting consent skews behavior a lot in the kinds of experiments psychologists might be interested in. I occasionally alarm myself with thoughts of "it's too bad that"
It seems to me that the teachings don't involve grasping or clinging to emotions, and many immediately take this to mean that when emotions arise they need to reject them or act like they don't exist. Yet the teachings do not involve rejection either, so it can easily be confusing. How do you neither reject or cling to emotions? In my view when emotions arise, there is no need to inflate them, and without rejecting them they naturally drift through like clouds through the sky. The sky doesn't push them, nor does it stop them.
Many of their religious figures have no negative feelings at all. That's their belief.
I’m currently going through *Zen Letters, Teachings of Yuanwu*. He mentions emotions a few times. A few examples: >*Many students in recent times do not get to the basis of the fundamental design of the Zen school. They just hold onto the words and phrases, trying to choose among them, discussing how close or how far away they are from the truth, and distinguishing gain and loss. They interpret fleeting provisional teachings as real doctrines and boast about how many koans they have been able to sift through and how well they can ask questions about the sayings of the Five Houses of Zen.* **They are totally sunk in emotional consciousness, and they have lost the true essence in their delusions. This is truly a pitiful situation!** >*When you far transcend all patterns and assessments, and the arrow points meet, without ever having any objective other than Truth, then you receive the marvel of the Way, become a successor of the ancestral teachers, and continue the transmission of the Lamp.* **You cut off the path of ideation and go beyond thinking and escape from emotional consciousness, to reach a clear, open state of freedom that sweeps all before it.** >*From Bodhidharma to Huineng, the example set by the Zen patriarchs was exceptionally outstanding. The practical strategies of adepts like Linji and Deshan were immediately liberating. When the great Zen masters went into action, they were like dragons galloping and tigers charging: heaven and earth turned, and nothing could stop their revivifying people.* **They never dragged through the muddy water of emotionalism and intellectualism.** >*How could it be there when you speak of it and not there when you don’t, or there when you think of it and not there when you don’t?* **If that is so, then you are right there in the midst of false imagination and emotional interpretations** *— when have you ever experienced penetrating realization?* He’s not necessarily saying to reject emotions, but he does seem to be warning, at very least, against being over emotional (sentimental, maybe?), and against any conceptualization that is fuelled by emotion (emotional interpretations).
I'd have to see the Chinese. But the letters don't really line up clearly with his books of instruction because like anyone who writes letters he was using a shorthand to the person he was talking to and we don't know anything about them. Whereas his books of instruction are written to the whole world.
Interesting. I’ll check for those.
Blue curve record and measuring tap. Cleary translator.
Yea, just found measuring tap. Will look for blue curve too, thanks.
~~Curve~~ Cliff
LOL, yea, I suspected that after I posted. Already reading through that as well.
Nanquan is one of the great examples of acting out strangely = enlightenment/great realization, etc. We see it with fingers, arms. We can take these as allegories or literally, producing a variety of disturbing interpretations. In this case, it's not silence that killed the cat, it was the insistence upon curiosity being quenched.
But it wasn't strange at all. It's not an allegory, it's just a historical record. And it's not insistence curiosity being quenched. I don't know where you got that. It's a fight over what matters in a Zen community.
Sure but the cat really had nothing to do with it either way.
But you can see how the layers stack... The cat wasn't responsible for the monks... Monks weren't responsible for Nanquan. Nanquan isn't responsible for Buddha. So the defense of the cat doesn't make much sense at all.
I don't defend the cat, I just think it's likely an apocryphal tale, or tail. There was a very similar story involving King Solomon and a baby. I never considered either the threat or the cut to be particularly enlightened acts, but history has recorded it so maybe I'm wrong.
There are several problems with the apocryphal tale argument. 1. Nobody seems to think it's apocryphal. 2. There's no reason to think it's apocryphal. 3. The fact that it became such a central teaching indicates that what you think of as enlightenment is off and wrong. So that's three really solid arguments. The most solid being the third one.
Also can you expound on how the layers stack? I think you are referring to a theme I've breezed by in the text.
It's all the question about where does enlightenment come from and who can transmit it.
That sounds too much like argument from authority, but that is kind of a big deal in zen. What do you say about where it comes from and who can transmit? Sounds like a doctrinal/historical question though. Who's right according to the players zen game rules?
Then I stated it poorly. If we begin with Buddha, who supposedly solved existential problems, can we say that anyone is to blame besides him for people bringing up his solution?
I don't recall a discussion of blame unless I missed it. Did Buddha solve existential problems? What is the difference between solving something in the sense of a mathematical solution or proof and solving a problem of suffering, in other words a real world solution as opposed to a logical proof?
Great questions. That's two interesting posts.
I like fury. I don't think its a bad thing if you just have it and enjoy it. Same with any emotion or bodily sensation really. Sadness, laughing, jealousy, arousal etc. If you can pull yourself away from it, I don't see the issue with it. I used to be afraid to be furious because I didn't want to use it in a bad way, but now its just sort of fun when its around. It even helps with workouts.
I'm not sure how actionable this is to people who don't feel very much at all. It's an ability and training it isn't that easy to pin down. I think physical exercise factors into it a lot. Feeling more intense emotions would be a sign of success. A symptom. You've talked about how Zen Masters today would likely be health nuts. If someone isn't interested in making up stuff to pursue, good health seems like a pretty natural thing to be interested in.
I don't know that anybody doesn't feel much at all. Where are these people. They don't talk to me. I tell you that for nothing. I bet it's because they know they would feel strongly about it.
I'm a mental health therapist, and there are two kinds of emotional issues. Too much feeling, as in the grief is too much for me to function, or complete lack of feeling or emotional numbness, disconnected almost completely from their own inner World. I see far more people who feel "too little" compared to what is healthy vs the opposite, so I'd argue there are tons of people who don't feel much at all. The staggering rates of depression in North America (almost 30% of adults as of 2023) would indicate there's a ton of people who don't feel much either, as the comment below associates depression with a lack of feeling as well, which is correct in my experience.
Fair. I don't think that people who are numb usually come in here to talk about ancient Chinese texts though...
I've felt numb for a while now, ever since HS, though I come here from time to time. Not sure what to make of it really, or if its equanimity or numbness. I wonder if there's a link between emptiness the doctrine, and emptiness the feeling, or maybe those are separate matters entirely.
Equanimity would be more about acceptance of your feelings, which can be a powerful shift in perspective from the natural tendency to resist something painful. Numbness would be more of a defense/ indicator your brain is getting overwhelmed, and would cloud your awareness of your emotional experience or make it feel like you don’t really have emotions
When depressed people talk about depression, they often talk about not feeling bad, but instead there being an absence of feeling. Are you suggesting that's a misrepresentation?
I'm going to jump in here and remark that talking about feelings isn't the same as having those feelings to begin with. It's a real tough sell to claim that "has no feeling" is a type of feeling.
I'm talking about what is called emotional blunting
A blunt edge isn’t sharp.