Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
More about Anger:
http://www.dhagpo-kagyu.org/anglais/science-esprit/fondements/general/anger.htm
[b]Anger : Effects, Causes and Antidotes
by Ven. Gyaltrul Rinpoche, 13.06.1997
The five poisons, i.e. desire, anger, ignorance, pride and jealousy
affect our mind. Among these five poisons, anger is the most
damaging one. One of the main practices of the Mahayana / Vajrayana
practitioners is to get rid of anger.
Shantideva once said "One strong bitter anger can destroy merits of
a thousand aeons". There is in fact no merits equivalent to
patience and no bad karma equivalent to anger.
The Effects of Anger
1) Visible effects which are felt in this life
2) Invisible effects which will be felt in the next life
1) Visible Effects
Examples of visible effects of anger are feeling unhappy an uneasy,
and showing undesirable facial expressions. These will cause others
to feel uncomfortable and unwilling to talk to us. Our spirit and
physical energy will be deteriorated. We cannot sleep well when we
have anger and strong hatred. The next day we will not have a clear
mind to concentrate on things. Our diets will be affected, either
we do not have to appetite to eat or we will eat a lot. Worse
still, it draws all our senses and wisdom such that we become very
blunt and bold. Whatever we do, we will not be able to think
whether it is right or wrong. We will feel like wanting to scold
others and talk bad about others. Eventually, we lose our friends,
relatives, health and merits.
2) Invisible Effects
Anger will destroy our goal for practicing and will cause us to be
born in hell directly. In Amitabha;s long sutra, it was mentioned
that saying bad words with anger and hatred to a Bodhisattva will
create evil karma for aeons or destroy our merits accumulated for
aeons. This was also mentioned in many other texts. A person who
takes and preserves the bodhisattva vows is a bodhisattva.
Practitioners of Mahayana and Vajrayana who always think of
sentient beings and preserve their vows are bodhisattvas. Therefore
one of the most important things to remember is that a bodhisattva
can be anyone anywhere. We should not be angry at any person,
especially our dharma brothers and sisters.
The Causes of Anger
To know how a problem comes about and how to get rid of it, we have
to know its causes which can be divided into primary cause and
secondary cause. The primary cause is self-grasping ego which can
be eradicated by the practice of understanding and realizing
emptiness. The secondary cause is frustration which is a step
before anger. Frustrations arise when we get cannot get what we
want or we get something which we do not want. All these happened
because:
1) all sentient beings have too much self-interest or ego;
2) there is no respect towards others. Everybody thinks that they
are the most important and unless there is mutual respect, we as
well as others be harmed;
3) dissatisfaction which can cause unhappiness because we tend to
want to get more when we are not satisfied; and
4) impatience. We should know that things take time to get results
but we give up halfway. This also leads us to unhappiness and the
generation of anger.
The Antidote for Anger
It is very important to know the causes and the effects of a
problem in order to get rid of or reduce the anger associated with
the problem. There are three ways to solve our problem of
anger:-
1) Analytical meditation
2) Skillful practice
3) Generation of positive reception
1) Analytical meditation
Imagine someone says very bad words to make us very angry or defame
us in front of others. If we are unhappy because of anger, we
should examine ourselves. What is the cause that makes us unhappy?
Is it the sound / word we heard, the cause of our unhappiness?
Imagine again that somebody says very bad words but in a different
language that we do not understand or he says it with a smiling
face, what would you think? In our daily life, if we can analyze
this through meditation, then we are actually practicing the
Dharma. We should use this skillful mean. Chanting cannot replace
this analytical meditation.
From our analytical meditation we will be able to know that the
word is not the cause of our unhappiness and anger. The cause in
fact is the thought attachment of thinking that the word is
something bad to us. You may think that this is perhaps true, but
you may get angry when someone hits you because of feeling the
physical pain. You should meditate and ask yourself. If you get
angry when you are in pain, why don't you get angry when you have a
headache, toothache, etc? They are all pains. You may say the
headache is caused by no one but this pain and anger is caused by
someone with a bad intention. If you think like this, check if this
person is always hitting others or saying bad words to others. He
may not scold or hit everybody but just a few people. There must be
something behind him that makes him hit/scold others. Ask yourself
if someone hits you with a stick, will you be angry at the stick or
the person? Usually we get angry with the person but not the stick
because it is the person who causes the movement of the stick. But
we should know that the person hits us because of anger. He will
not want to hit people all the time. For example, he will not hit
people when he is happy. If anger is not the cause for him to hit
people, he will hit people anytime. Why don't you get angry at the
person's anger then? If you know this secret, you will not complain
much. Instead you should feel compassionate towards this person
because he will create karma under the control of anger.
Another meditation is to think of the corresponding cause. If you
are not here, he has no object to hit. Therefore at least 50% of
the problem comes from you. You are here at the wrong time and
wrong place. If you think back with anger and hatred towards the
person, will it help you to be happy? If it doesn't, why should you
be angry? In fact this will be harmful because it will create more
bad effects. If you are angry with him, and in return he gets angry
with you, etc. There will be no end to it.
2) Skillful Practice
One of the very successful skills is a Bodhisattva practice of
practicing like a tree. If someone hits a tree, the tree will not
feel anything and will not move. Similarly, if someone hurts us and
we do not react, it will stop further detriments (even though when
we are actually emotionally involved). If your unhappiness is
caused by jealousy, think of the goal that you want to achieve. Is
it possible to achieve? If it is not possible, why not just forget
about it and do something else? Why be unhappy as this will not be
helpful? The unhappiness will even make us angrier. You should void
unnecessary troubled places. If you know you'll have problems when
going to a certain place at a certain time, don't go. It is also
important to understand the timing factor, i.e. is it the right
time or not? An example is when you are doing a good deed but
couldn't achieve the goal for others. You will get frustrated, but
think, is it the right timing? If not, you should do it some other
time. Another main skill is never count to how many times you had
practiced patience.
3) Generation of Positive Perception towards All Sentient
Beings
When we are positive towards others, our anger will become weaker.
To practice this, we need to do one of the following when we get
angry:
1) contemplate about the benefits of patience and the faults of
anger;
2) understand that things we experience are the results of previous
karma and accept them; and
3) think or understand that the nature of all sentient beings is
pure because they all have the Buddha Nature. They are beings
controlled by anger and ignorance. We shouldn't be angry at these
innocent beings. We should be angry at the 3 poisons.
In conclusion, by understanding the faults and causes of anger and
knowing how to solve the problem, we will be able to practice the
Dharma to calm our mind and attain liberation. It will definitely
benefit us in this life as well as future lives.[/b]
According to TS, it is delusion.
ANTIDOTE 12 - Meditation... Last, but certainly not least,
meditation can be the ultimate cure to completely eliminating anger
from your mind. In the beginning, one can do analytical
meditations, but also meditation on compassion, love and forgiving,
to reduce anger as well. Ultimately, the realization of emptiness
eradicates all delusions like anger.
