From Anger to Joy

Jeffrey

"A student asked me how you can retrain anger into joy. The answer is: you just do it. There's no "how" particularly; there is no easy trick. If you go deeper into your anger, the sense of joy is there. The sense of joy is already there. If you go slightly deeper still, slightly further, you begin to realize you're taking the whole thing too seriously. The answer is just a question of basic exertion and realizing that you have to do it yourself; nobody can make you do this. There are no tricks for how to do it -- except to generally build up your mindfulness and awareness, which builds up your basic healthy state of mind. That actually allows you to become a warrior, automatically."

Trungpa Rinpoche

compassionate_warrior

I guess Trungpa died of joy. :crazy:
Sorry, Jeffrey, I can't relate to this person.
Maybe a better way to approach your topic would be if you could tell us how this teaching rings true for you, how it has helped you. It doesn't seem to have done CT much good.

aMatt

He seems to be helping a person become more mindful of citta during emotions. I see it as brilliant, in context.

Trungpa was a great teacher, with a turbulent path. Perhaps warrior_judge would be more appropriate.

Jeffrey

If you look deep in these emotions you will see more. That is what is meant by insight. Trungpa is saying that by building your mindfulness and calm you can inspect a negative emotion and find the joy within it.

compassionate warrior, forget about drinking and read the teaching.

zombiegirl

perhaps an interesting exercise would be to post some of his quotes sans attribution and THEN see what others have to say about it. i remember in one of ajahn brahm's speeches on youtube, he discusses reading a very eloquent and beautiful poem about a man describing his adoration for his mother. the main point of the poem was to love and respect one's mother... nothing wrong with that, right? but then he found out the poet was adolph hitler. his point in bringing this up was that nobody is evil to the core and we shouldn't think like that.

Yishai

I feel bad that Trungpa isn't taken seriously because he had troubles. We're all troubled in some way or another.

I think the quote is great because it's something I need to learn myself. The older I have gotten, the more easily I become angered by small things. The dog at home is a big source of it. However, I feel like I only feel that way because it's not MY dog. It's like when somebody else's baby cries nonstop. It's hard to find the patience. Yet, when it is your baby, you somehow find it because you NEED to find it.

I guess deep down all my anger has joy though. I just need to find it.

KarmaDondrupTashi

Mozart was also deeply troubled but was the greatest composer who ever lived.

Jeffrey

I think that when you find the joy and comfort within anger the mind calms and you are more able to act correctly amidst the anger. And feel calmer too. Its like "its not so bad" you sit with it and before you know it your mind is on something else.