The following has been taken from discussions between Dr. Ekman and the Dalai Lama. Read more in their book Emotional Awareness. Ekman: What I have been able to distill from our discussion is that there are three different things that we need to achieve to make for a better emotional balance, and there are three different possible benefits to be achieved from them.
The hardest one is increasing the gap between the impulse and the action of emotion or increasing your awareness that an impulse has arisen and you are about to become emotional.
Matthieu Ricard told me that sometimes when an emotion arises, he recognizes it simply as a cloud that passes by and does not engage it.
Read more on paulekman.com