Buddhism doesn’t seem to have a clear-cut term that corresponds exactly with what we call “emotions.” There are a number of terms like cetasikas or sankharas that include emotions, but they tend to include “thinking” processes too — as if thinking/emoting are seen as inseparable.

The 12 nidanas include four steps that are very relevant, though: (sensory) contact leads to feeling (vedana), which leads to craving (just one example of emotion), which leads to grasping (the action that typically follows from craving). Even if Buddhism and Western psychology have different ways of slicing up our experience, I think they’re increasingly looking at the dynamic of that experience in similar ways.

According to Antonio Damasio (The Feeling of What Happens), perhaps the leading neuroscientist in this realm, a feeling is something that happens in the body, but an emotion is how the brain interprets that feeling based on memory, associations with previous feelings, cognitive interpretations, and the environmental context.

In the context of the article above, this approach helps us make sense of the findings. Emotional pain, say from a broken relationship, is more than likely connected to feelings in the body (stomach upset, muscle pain, lethargy – all of which are similar to withdrawal symptoms from drug use, which is actually a useful comparison since “love” generates changes in brain chemistry not unlike drug use). If the pain killer can resolve some of the physical complaints (which he seldom identify with the emotions we experience), them it makes sense that the emotional pain would also subside a bit.

The bottom-line issue here (and the foundation of body-based therapies) is that most people are totally divorced from their bodies.