This is not black and white. There can be times when it's appropriate and beneficial to express a feeling and there can be times when it's not appropriate and beneficial. You have to look deeper at what is the intention behind expressing that type of feeling.
Those of you who have done quite a few retreats with us, you might have noticed that whenever Rosemary or I are telling a story in the hall, like last night it was the "Unknown Seed Story" about a special seed that flowers and fruits, etc.," I can be very animated telling the story. For those of you who've done quite a few retreats you will have noticed that sometimes everyone in the hall starts laughing, but sometimes only a few people laugh, and on occasion, nobody laughs. I see a lot of smiles, but there are no laughs at all.
Interesting. Some people feel it's okay to express at that time, so they laugh. Someone almost fell on the floor last night! They enjoyed the story, they felt it was worthwhile, and, hopefully, they know the essence of the story, that's the main thing. To enjoy the story, it's quite okay I don't mind at all if everybody laughs and rolls on the floor, as long as I don't get caught up in it and I can't finish the story! There's no harm in expressing that happiness, in a good laugh at that time, because the people know what the story means. They know that it's just portrayed in a humorous way, and they join in on that.
The people in the retreats where there's no laughter at all, it's often not because they didn't want to. It's because they didn't feel it was appropriate to break silence with a laugh! Very interesting, they were too serious. In their own mind, they thought it wasn't appropriate to laugh at that time. People last night knew it was quite appropriate, they enjoyed it and they laughed. So, it's important to know when the expression of your feelings is appropriate or not.
In this particular case I'm using, the people who thought it wasn't appropriate, were they right or were they wrong? Those sort of retreats happen every once in a while, where almost nobody laughs the whole 10 days. They're just more serious. They actually believe it's appropriate not to laugh, not to disturb other people, and for them as a group, basically, that's right. It's appropriate that nobody should laugh, as they're all working in a slightly different way to the people up there doing this retreat. This is very interesting. We could say, "Yes, it's appropriate to laugh." We don't care. It can be appropriate if you don't want to laugh, that's fine, too. It's interesting to see in this exact same example, the group that was totally quiet, their intention was good, it was fine, it was appropriate for them. The group that laughed last night, their intention and reactions, it was appropriate for them. So this goes much deeper than black or white. You have to look at your intention behind what you're doing.
If you see that your intention is not so skillful, then it's not really appropriate to cry, laugh loudly, or whatever. For example, somebody dies, say my father dies, and maybe I'm feeling a bit down. I say to somebody, my father has died, and you know a lot of people will reply with an awkward laugh, "ha, ha." They don't know what to say, and they kind of laugh. I don't know if you've ever noticed it, or been with people like this, but it's true, there are such people who feel so awkward, they don't know how to connect to a person who's having a bit of grief. So when their friend's father dies, and they kind of laugh. This is totally inappropriate.
With crying, if you're just caught up in self-pity, and you're crying because of self-pity, it's not appropriate, your intention is wrong. You're just wallowing in your pain instead of thinking of a way to get out of it. Whenever you're expressing a feeling, whatever it is you're trying to express, look deeper and see whether your intention behind the expression is appropriate.