Hi Everybody,
Well we're into Chapter 10, Buddhism and Anger. Quite a tough chapter because it involves getting to grips with a aspect of ourselves that is unattractive at best, and at worst very destructive. Anyway,here goes.
' Buddhism has always had a very clear-eyed view of anger. Although it is only too well aware of the powerfully destructive potential of this emotion, that can wreak all kinds of havoc in human affairs, it doesn't simply lament its presence and condemn its damaging effects. Rather it accepts it precisely for what it is, an integral part of what it is to be human, a deeply embedded part of the human psychethat will always be with usWe simply have to learn how to live with it and how to limit the damage that it can cause in our lives. As one Buddhist mentor put it to me very early on in my practice, ' anger is very much like cow pats...best handled when cold!'
Homespun wisdom perhaps, but nevertheless, very wise, and what is perhaps more surprising, its truth is amply borne out by modern social research. So Buddhism tells us, we need to recognise that it will be there in our lives, and it's only being prudent to learn more about what kind of emotion it is, where it comes from, and how best to set about handling it. And modern psychology takes very much the same long view of anger, namely that it is very much part of our common humanity. As Martin Seligman writes,
Your anger has a long history, one that goes back before your childhood and before your parents' childhoods. It goes back to the life-and-death struggles of your early human ancestors, and further still to our primate ancestors, and their forebears...the human capacity for anger is one of the principal reasons why we...and not some other primate line...are the dominant species on earth.'
So there it is, buried deep in our primitive evolutionary roots, with a positive role to play, and now we have to learn how to handle its destructive potential in our ever more crowded, fast-moving, shoulder-to-shoulder modern societies. But Seligman's insight helps us to embrace our anger if I may put it that way, because we do need to embrace it as an integral part of our lives, if we are going to understand it more completely, and avoid, or overcome the damage it can cause. It also helps I think, to understand what psychologists tell us is one of the most frequent triggers for outbursts of anger; the feeling, rightly or wrongly, that ' I am being trespassed against!' Trespass that is in all sorts of ways, being treated unjustly or rudely or being insulted, or very often just a feeling that one's space, or self-esteem, is being threatened.
With anger as we know, things can get out of hand so quickly that we may not have any conscious realisation of that thought, but, we are told, the thought of trespass is surely lurking there somewhere, and the anger is a sort of counter-attack, to bring the trespass to an end. And simply understanding that point, that this might well be a perceived rather than a real to our self-esteem, can really help us to control our response.'
That's it for starters. It's an interesting subject, and Buddhism has a lot of interesting things to say about it that chime closely with modern psychology. See you next time.
William
PS, hope you have an enjoyable Christmas. If you are stuck for present ideas...you could just possibly change someone's life for the better with a gift of The Reluctant Buddhist, or Buddhism and the Science of Happiness, or indeed ths one, The Case for Buddhism! Have a great time.
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