Working With Anger-A

Anger doesn’t get you anywhere. If you calm your mind and be patient, you will be a wonderful example to those around you. Looking at our minds and learning to work with our anger are helpful. There are practical methods for dealing with disturbing attitudes, negative emotions, and daily life problems.

Our mind is the source of our suffering and happiness. Anger covers a range of emotions including annoyance, irritation, frustration, spite, belligerence, resentment, hatred, and rage.

Subduing negative emotions and cultivating positive ones is possible because mentally, our perceptions, moods, thoughts, and emotions continuously change. Since this change is happening every moment, our challenge is to direct it in a productive way.

We can learn to let go of certain aspects of our personality—the habitual emotions and attitudes that keep us trapped in a prison of our own making. Abandoning these are possible because they are not an inherent part of our mind.

The basic nature of our mind is often compared to the clear, open sky. The sky is always there although some days it is obscured by clouds. However the clouds are not the nature of the sky so they can be eliminated. Similarly, the disturbing and negative emotions such as anger are not the nature of our mind and may be abandoned leaving the radiant and pure nature of our mind. In addition, the disturbing attitudes and negative emotions are based on our innate self-grasping ignorance. Since this ignorance misinterprets reality, it can be abandoned by seeing reality correctly. The mental factor that does this is called wisdom.

Anger may give us a tremendous sense of power, but at the same time it undermines the happiness of ourselves and others. Anger is inaccurate in its assessment of reality because, by definition it is based on exaggeration or superimposition of negative qualities. However when we are angry, we don’t feel that we’re exaggerating or superimposing anything. We feel that we’re right! In fact, the angry mind seems to be very clear: “I’m right. You’re wrong. You need to change.” When under the influence of anger, we select a few negative details and form a limited view that we are then reluctant to change.

There is a refractory period that accompanies an emotion. During this time, we are closed to any advice or reasonable interpretation that contradicts our view. We can neither think clearly about a situation nor accept other interpretations of it that well-meaning people offer. The refractory period may be short—just a few seconds—or it may last years or even decades. When the emotion subsides and we are able to look at the event more clearly, we readily see that anger’s interpretation was inaccurate.

Anger is also inaccurate in its assessment of reality in that it does not perceive a situation in a balanced way, but views it through the distorted filter of “me, I, my, and mine.” Although we think that the way a situation appears to us is how it really exists out there objectively, when we are angry, we are, in fact, viewing it through the filter of our self-centeredness. I feel that what happens to me is much more important than what happens to anyone else. Due to this ingrained, self-centered view, anything that happens in relation to me seems incredibly important. I spend my time thinking about my problems, not anyone else’s (that is, unless I’m attached to that person). If we observe what we spend our time thinking about, we’ll see that our problems, our life—everything related in one way or another to me—takes first place.

Am I happy when I’m angry? The answer is undoubtedly no. Emotionally we feel miserable. Thus, from our own experience, we can see that anger does not promote happiness. In addition, we don’t communicate well when we’re angry. We may speak loudly, or repeat what we say, but this is not communication. Good communication involves expressing ourselves in a way that the other person understands. It is not simply dumping our feelings on the other. If we yell, others tune us out in the same way that we block out the meaning of words when someone yells at us. Good communication also includes expressing our feelings and thoughts with words, gestures, and examples that make sense to the other person. Under the sway of anger, however, we neither express ourselves as calmly nor think as clearly as usual. Under the influence of anger, we also say and do things that we later regret. If we could tame our anger, such painful consequences could be avoided.

The fact that we became angry doesn’t mean we’re bad people. It just means that a harmful emotion temporarily overwhelmed us. Anger and cruel words are not our identity. They are clouds on the pure nature of our mind, and they can be removed or prevented. Although we are not yet well trained in patience, we can gradually develop this quality when we try.

Taken from Working With Anger, Thubten Chodron, 2001