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How to deal with anger?
Being a buddhist is amazing but the one issue I always run into is arguments, how do you deal with these kind of things.
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As the anger comes up, what is the content of your thoughts? The other person is wrong, dangerously stupid, offensive? What set of inner beliefs brings you to that conclusion? You have a belief inside you that got challenged by the other person. Along side that, you also believe you must correct the other person's 'wrongness'. Why is that? Why must you correct or challenge? Will the fabric of Reality be rent unless you take charge?
Who appointed you to be the arbiter of correcting another person's wrongness or offensiveness? Or is your challenged belief so RIGHT that you are entitled to correct them? Must stupidity and ignorance be crushed so it doesn't get out and infect the world, or perhaps the fear is that it will infect you?
A rather protracted way of saying 'are you a member of the Stop Dumbasses police force?"
That's not the only instigation to argument. The other person could be deliberately or ignorantly harming a third person, and you want to prevent the harm.
Anger is built in to defend against a threat. Angry people feel threatened, like, all the time, by nearly everything said or meant.
Is someone being 'wrong' a threat? If you get angry when you hear a stupid idea, obviously you're threatened, else you wouldn't feel anger. So what's the threat? Could it be that you are wrong after all? What happens then? If you tend to catastrophize, being 'wrong' could mean you are waaayyy stupid, and there goes your 'status' and now you're just a creep and everyone will see. No one will ever respect you again. The tribe will shun you and you'll be exposed to carnivorous wildlife, freeze to death or starve. Anyway you slice it, you'll be dead. So, being RIGHT is very, very important! The OTHER person can take your place, and their chances, out there in Wrong Land.
What if it's not a question of wrongness at all, but the other person just put you down? Well, you're positive they meant to, whatever they said. Then what? Threat! Marshal the defenses, and feeeeeeelllll the anger rising. What are the thoughts, arising from beliefs inside, telling you? Might the other person (*gasp*) be right, you really might be lower than a dung beetle? What if other people agreed . . . grab your pitchfork, he must be vanquished!
All this is going on in the context of a few posts on a message board. Or a ten minute argument with your wife over who forgot to put milk on the grocery list.
Investigating the causes of anger within you takes all the fun out of it, that's for sure. Especially if you accept full personal responsibility for your own anger, it's origin and elaborations, rather than blame it on the other guy.
Gassho
Gotamo Buddho had a nice solution for that.It´s Right Speech. Just shut up and answer
in parables. Avaid gossiping.
anando
When we practice meditation, we get to know how distant we are from our body and mind. This helps us not to attach to our anger. We become more peaceful, and we build on our metta. And having metta is like having a shield against anger. I have lots of anger at times, this is where practicing what I preach comes in.
Metta!
Imagine you are in a little boat. You are alone on a large, still lake. It is peaceful and calm with no one around to bother you. You lie back and relax. After a while, someone bumps your boat with their own. You find yourself becoming angry. This is a huge lake, why couldn't they watch where they were going? How about some common decency? You decide that you are going to tell this person off. Really give them a piece of your mind. So you sit up and turn around and see that the other boat is empty. There is no one to be angry at, and your anger simply doesn't exist anymore.
The truth is, everything that makes you angry is an empty boat.
I hope that helps a little bit!
"You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger." -Eknath Easwaran
With two stories retold from the Buddhist texts
by
Ven. K. Piyatissa Thera
Describes 4 different ways to deal with anger. One of them usually works if you are persistent.
Now un-cross them.
Now, cross them, but 'the other way'.
Feels odd, a bit, doesn't it?
But you get used to it.
The more you do it, the less odd it feels.
It's the same with holding an opinion.
'cross' it the other way.
Odd as it may initially seem, changing your opinion to mirror someone else's takes a bit of getting used to, but in the end, you find a comfort zone.....
However if *I'm* the driver I'll screech the car to a stop and tell them to gtfo and walk home. Unless the weather is life threatening or we're miles and miles from civilization or something.
It's exercising control of a situation by taking an action that leaves others at a disadvantage, either morally or physically.
That's it really.
When I was more argumentative I did qi ong, every day. Except for two days. On those two days, arguments.
If you are dukkhad (a technical term) near boiling, stressed out, does not take much to push you over the edge, does it?
Now imagine yourself calm and serene, what minor irritant is gonna disturb your equanimity? So that is why regular sessions with Mr Cushion are so calming . . .
. . . and now back to the serenity . . . :wave:
In metta,
Raven