Buddhist Nun Explains: What Anger Is and What It Isn't

I (Stephanie Dowrick) have written extensively about the epidemic of anger in our society and its devastating consequences, as well as what we might do about it, particularly in Everyday Kindness, The Universal Heart and Choose Happiness. Creating a life free from anger is an individual responsibility that carries profound and immediate consequences in all our relationships, and in the communities we are building together. So-called “passive aggression” — manipulating, trivializing, avoiding, ignoring — is just as harmful and far easier to deny. The deeply valuable words below come from Buddhist nun and social activist Robina Courtin and appear in a longer article. I don't agree with everything Robina has to say, particularly her suggestion that calm self-examination can replace thoughtful, compassionate, and self-responsible psychotherapy. Quite the opposite: one can radically enhance the other. And exploring and changing an unhelpful view of ourselves within the dynamic context of relationship (psychotherapy) can be absolutely essential for many of us. But I recommend Robina's words on anger, and I hope you will take time to reflect on them too. We can only create a calmer, safer world if we do this together. Your efforts matter.

ROBINA COURTIN: What Anger Is and What Anger Is Not
The perfect answer to the question, “What is anger?” that I heard from a lama is this: “Anger is the response when attachment doesn't get what it wants.” But if that's what anger is, then what is it that anger is not?

• Anger is not physical. Anger is part of our mind, and our mind is not physical. It exists in dependence on the brain, on genes, on chemical reactions, but it is not these things. When anger is strong, it triggers enormous physical symptoms: the blood boils, the heart races, saliva comes out of the mouth, the eyes widen in panic, the voice rises. Or if we feel aversion as depression, the body feels like a weight of lead; there is no energy, a terrible inertia. And then when we increase our serotonin, the body feels good again. But these are only crude expressions of what is ultimately purely thought: a story invented by our conceptual mind that exaggerates the ugly aspects of a person or event or of ourselves. Recent discoveries confirm what is explained in Tibetan Medicine: that what happens in the mind affects the body.

• Anger is not someone else's fault. This doesn't mean the person didn't punch me; of course they did. And it doesn't mean punching me isn't wrong; of course it is. But the person didn't make me angry. The punch is merely the catalyst for my anger, a tendency in my mind. If there were no anger, all I would have is a broken nose.

• Anger does not come from our parents. We love to blame our parents. In fact, if Buddha is wrong in his assertion that our mind comes from past lives and is propelled by the force of our own past actions in our mother's womb, and if the materialists are right in saying that our parents created us, then we should blame them. How dare they create me, like Frankenstein and his monster, giving me anger and jealousy and the rest. But it's not them, says Buddha. (Nor a higher being, though we wouldn't dare blame them!) They gave us a body; the rest is ours (including our good qualities).

• Anger is not just yelling. Just because a person doesn't shout and doesn't scream doesn't mean they aren't angry. When we understand that anger is based on the thought called aversion, then we can see that we are all angry. Of course, if we never look within, we won't perceive the aversion; that's why people who don't express anger feel it as depression or guilt.

• Anger is not necessary for compassionate action. His Holiness the Dalai Lama responded to an interviewer who suggested that anger seems to act as a motivator for action: “I know what you mean. But with anger, your desire to help doesn't last. With compassion, you never give up.” We need to discriminate between right and wrong, but Buddha says we should criticize the action, not the person. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, there's nothing wrong with finding a fault, but then we must think: “What can I do about it?” It's exactly the same when we see our own faults, but instead of feeling guilty we should think: what can I do about it? Then we can change. Anger and guilt are paralyzing, powerless, and useless.

• Anger is not natural. We often think we need anger to be a reasonable human being; that it's not natural not to have it; that anger gives perspective to life. It's like thinking that to appreciate pleasure, we need to know pain. But that's obviously ridiculous; for me to appreciate your kindness, do you first need to punch me in the nose?

• Anger is not at the center of our being. Being a state of deluded mind, a lie, a misconception, it follows logically that anger can be eliminated. If I think there are two cups on my table when there is only one, that's a misconception. What do I do with the thought “there are two cups on my table”? Remove it from my mind. Recognize that there is one cup and stop believing the lie. It's simple. Of course, the lies we believe — that I am self-existent, that delicious objects make me happy, that bad ones make me suffer, that my mind is my brain, that someone made me — these lies have been in my mind since time immemorial. But the method for getting rid of them is the same. What remains when we remove the lies, the illusions, is the truth of our own innate goodness, fully perfected. That is natural.

These words are from Robina Courtin, posted in an article that can be read here.

Originally published at Stephanie Dowrick