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Discourse on the Five Ways of Putting an End to Anger
Brought to you by the website of Zen Master TNH....
Intro:
When we read a sutra, we can ask ourselves, “What does this sutra have to do with my daily life?” or “How can apply this sutra to a difficulty I am facing right now?”
References to the texts’ conventional “location” in the Buddhist canon is provided at the end of each sutra.
Read:
Discourse on the Five Ways of Putting an End to Anger:
http://plumvillage.org/sutra/discourse-on-the-five-ways-of-putting-an-end-to-anger/
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Comments
Theravada taste?....... I got ya covered ..
...
The Elimination of Anger
With two stories retold from the Buddhist texts
by
Ven. K. Piyatissa Thera
Read:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/piyatissa/bl068.html
I was taught in my prep to be a counselor that anger is a secondary emotion, that initially is a choice that with repetition becomes a reflexive response. Anger is always preceded by pain, fear or frustration. By learning to identify the first arising of these in the bodily sensation (soma), one can practice staying with the initial sense and learn to avoid moving to anger next. The craving towards anger is it's ability to mask the initial sense with its intensity while also creating a feeling of power. I have practiced this for years and it has freed me from most experiences of anger.
I think we have to work with what we first notice. But IMO these are basically all aspects of aversion or frustrated craving.
@Skeeterkb ...I agree. It's a process, right?
If your free from experiencing anger...has it freed you from experiencing fear and craving on the front end? Do fear and craving still get expressed/arise in your life? How do they manifest?
Another look ..... from Dealing With Anger by Lama Surya Das
-- http://www.pbs.org/thebuddha/blog/2010/jun/3/dealing-anger-lama-surya-das/
Anger is easily misunderstood. It is often misunderstood in our Buddhist practice, causing us to suppress it and make ourselves more ill, uneasy and off balance. I think it's worth thinking about this. Psychotherapy can be helpful as well. Learning to understand the causal chain of anger’s arising as well as the undesirable, destructive outflows of anger and its malicious cousin hatred can help strengthen our will to intelligently control it. Moreover, recognizing the positive sides of anger – such as its pointed ability to perceive what is wrong in situations, including injustice and unfairness – helps moderate our blind reactivity to it and generate constructive responses. As the Dalai Lama says, “Violence is old-fashioned. Anger doesn’t get you anywhere. If you can calm your mind and be patient, you will be a wonderful example to those around you.” ......
One very simple practice to apply in the moment that anger arises is:
-- Lama Surya Das is a Buddhist teacher and authorized Dzogchen lineage holder in the Tibetan tradition.
I have to say I have a distinctly soft spot for that man; even though I gravitate far more towards Theravada, his humour and effective means of teaching and communicating, makes his lessons so very endearing.
Yes I still experience 'first' feelings, which are reduced by practicing mindfulness. The somatic sensations arise in my center/Hara (tanden) area. Sort of a fluttering and hollow sensation that is what some call butterflies.
I accept some negative feelings as a necessary and useful part of my sensing systems, letting me know something is not right.
In working with people in abusive relationships, my respect for anger always gets a cramp when anger and Buddhist wisdom 'meet'.
Abuse survivors aren't the only people to misconstrue the caution against anger because anger itself is not well understood at all. Understanding how anger arises makes the OP some seriously wise counsel, but if you are like most people who don't know their insides from their outsides (literally) the OP just sounds like an admonition to suppress anger when suppression just blows up in your face.
I encourage anger when I'm working with someone trying to get out of an abusive relationship because their instinct to natural aversion is not 'working' as it ought to. They often are not angry with the person who humiliates or beats them up! They blame themselves or 'excuse' the poor man's behavior.
There is some serious low function in most basic ways
Me still harboring anger for my exH is a different story, it's been seven years FGS, and the 'role' of anger is wayyyy over. From what I've learned on that journey, I don't have to start at the beginning with aversion and anger, I work more with the OP as it stands.
I think it's a much more advanced sort of teaching than it appears to be. Maybe I'm missing something -- I hope so, missing some teachings that have to do with more beginner-intermediate levels of experience. Or perhaps we just have to intelligently infer them ourselves.
....the OP just sounds like an admonition to suppress anger when suppression just blows up in your face.
I think there are therapeutic devices for managing and coping with anger, but IMO they're a stop gap rather than a way of clearly seeing what anger is and how it arises.