I'm starting to think that despite all the feeling work in meditation circles, guilt and shame are really underutilized as focus objects.
I'm probably missing some big work on this, but I've only seen them come up much in some Buddhist disparagements of the feelings themselves.
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fundamental wisdom is present everywhere. that's what makes it fundamental. one of the main faults of feelgood western buddhism is it's reluctance to approach the more raw and uncomfortable realms of thought and feeling.
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What I find bizarre is when it gets to the point of "teachers" - unfortunately they actually do teach, quotation marks or not - dismissing anything negative or difficult.
I can understand why they react that way to visions etc., but to scold students for saying "this sucks"?
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well, there are two sides to this: one is that negative emotions are fed by personality-level engagement with them so teachers will often advise to starve negative emotions by not giving them your energy...
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BUT, there's a difference between not feeding a negative pattern and avoiding, denying, or repressing the possibility. the latter is often a sign of shadow projection. i.e. avoid engagement with violent or sexual feelings in public, then privately seduce and abuse students
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