Is It Possible to Avoid Getting Angry

Robert Hodge

Dharma Talk 11/30/16 and 12/14/2016

A typical question

Dear Emily,

How do you stop your emotions from shifting into “fight” mode and verbal violence? I understand the principles of Making It Safe, but often, I only become aware that I am in “violence” well into the conversation—when my own emotions are already heated and boiling over. The wisest choice at that point seems to be to get out of the space and conversation where I can get my emotions under control, but, by then, the damage is usually done. While I have greatly improved over the years and am far more aware of my own bullying nature (intellectual or otherwise), I still struggle to change.

Signed,

Upset & Unaware

(From Crucial Skills – Emily Hoffman)

What is anger?

  1. Dictionary definition: “a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.”
  2. The Buddhist pali word normally translated as anger is dosa, which according to Fronsdal might be more accurately translated as hostility ranging from low to high intensity. Acting on dosa is never justified.
  3. There is a common misperception that sometimes anger is good or skillful. Fronsdal explains that in the West, the definition of anger includes non-hostile behavior such as a forceful protest against injustice. We are only address anger as a form of hostility and not including non-hostile actions.
  4. It can stem from frustration.
    1. Frustration arises when we want life to be other than it is.
    2. The Buddha explained that in the Four Noble Truths.
  5. A mental object that arises with similar characteristics of all phenomena:
    1. Impermanent – It will go away.
    2. Unable to provide lasting satisfaction or dissatisfaction because it will go away.
    3. Of selfless nature: “We” are not angry; anger is just arising.
  6. Closely aligned with fear or hurt.
  7. Does harm to us more than it does to others. Dosa can be compared to a hot piece of coal which burns the one who is angry.
  8. Anger is always a signal (more on this below)

How does anger arise?

The process of anger arising is through the five aggregates of clinging, our gateway to all experiences.   Our internal sense bases make contact with an external sense object (form) and once our consciousness is aware of this, an unpleasant feeling arises.  We identify the situation (perception) and then emotions (mental objects) such as frustration, hostility, and anger arise.  This cycle repeats itself with mental proliferation (more thoughts) occurring.   This leads to the intensification of emotions and reaction.  Reactions can include aggressive confrontation, passive aggressive behavior or withdrawal.

Is it possible to avoid getting angry?

No.  Anger will arise.  Avoiding the reaction is the possibility.  Anger is an unskillful thought and once we are mindful of it arising, we can take steps to overcome it and prevent the reaction.  The Buddha noted in the sixth step of the Eightfold Path, Right Effort, that we can deal with unskillful thoughts such as anger (mental objects) in two ways – prevent them from arising or overcome them if they have arisen.

The Pause

To overcome these thoughts, we need to recognize them and then to pause.

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space.

In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”  (Unknown attribution)

Viktor Frankl, a noted psychologist, wrote, “This is the idea I am fascinated by—that we need not wait until our response has begun and then somehow catch ourselves because we are responding in a way that is overly forceful, or angry, or violent. If we learn to see that space, to expand it, to live in it, then we can respond in ways of our choosing, rather than simply reacting. The question is then, what can we do to enlarge and inhabit that space more often?”

Four Strategies to Overcome Angry Thoughts

  • Cultivate Tolerance
  • Meditate
  • Find the Pause
  • Add the antidotes: Loving Kindness and Compassion

Cultivate Tolerance

From Robert Thurman:  Cultivation of tolerance, which leads to compassionate behavior.  This follows a precise pattern of development:

  1. Contemplating the faults of hate
  2. Contemplating the benefits of tolerance
  3. Preventing the cause of hate
  4. Meditating on tolerating voluntary suffering
  5. Meditating on tolerance grounded in the awareness of reality
  6. Meditating on the tolerance of nonretaliation.

Hate and Anger – Not always the same

  1. Hate – mental and spiritual poison that wants to see another destroyed
  2. Anger
    1. Sometimes combined with love and sometimes with hate
    2. When combined with compassion, it is cool and can be useful
    3. We can be much more forceful without anger because can view the cause as impersonal forces that have gone out of control
    4. Exploding in anger is “the final capitulation to oppression, the surrender of free consciousness and controlled forcefulness to blind impulse.”

Meditation

“Meditation can be very helpful, in that we can experience our anger without inhibitions, judgments, or interpretations. To discover a capacity for witnessing anger without either pushing it away or engaging with it can be a great relief.  In fact, meditation may well be the safest place to be angry, to learn to let it flow through us freely, without either condemnation or approval.

With non-reactive mindfulness as the foundation, we can investigate anger deeply through the body, emotions and thoughts.  Anger can open us to a world of self-discovery.”  Fronsdal p. 73

Finding the pause

  1. You must come to the conclusion that anger and hate serve no useful purposes.
  2. Then you must deeply resolve to eliminate anger’s ability to take control of you.
  3. Shantideva (The Way of the Bodhisattva) recommended that you focus your attention on the moment of discomfort that follows frustration.
  4. Learn to recognize the uneasiness (bodily sensations) that leads to intolerance and hate or anger
  5. These can be sensations of heat, tightness, pulsation or contraction. Breathing may become rapid.
  6. Decide whether you can change the situation or not.
  7. If yes, act coolly
  8. If no, let go

Add the antidotes:  Loving Kindness and Compassion

Hate cannot be cured by hate.   The antidotes are loving kindness and compassion.  These build the connectivity rather that inviting isolation

“And when we act in ways or treat people in ways that are counter to our moral compass, we use a variety of strategies to disengage from that morality and thereby reduce our inner conflict. Said another way, our poor actions are not a result of moral defect but of moral slumber. If we want to behave better, we need to wake ourselves up.

Here is one example of how you might do that: Write a note to yourself that awakens you to your values and then review it regularly. Write down what it means to you to be a good person or why you care about other people. Put it on a card that your carry in your wallet or a Post-It note on your computer monitor. Put it in your phone. Set an alarm to read it regularly. Wake yourself up again and again to who you are and who you want to be.

The note in my office that is directly beneath my monitor screen and that I read several times a day is, “Never let a problem to be solved be more important than a person to be loved.” This is meaningful to me because I am a problem-solver. A fast problem-solver. Far too often, when I am in problem-solving mode, people become barriers between me and the solution. But while it is true that in moments of moral disengagement, I can become so focused on a problem and solution that I forget people, it is also true that I have a deep, abiding respect for humans and humanity. I love people and I want to be the person who connects with other people. It is not about changing who I am, but simply reminding myself of who I am.” Emily Hoffman, How to Avoid Getting Angry:

“Anger is always a signal.  Mindfulness helps reveal what it signals.  Sometimes to signal tells us that something in the external world needs to be addressed, sometimes that something is off internally.  If nothing else, anger is a signal that someone is suffering.  Probably it is you.  Sit still in the midst of your anger and find your freedom from that suffering.”  Fronsdal p. 75. 

Ghatva Sutta: Having Killed SN 1.71

translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

As she was standing to one side, a devata recited this verse to the Blessed One:

Having killed what

do you sleep in ease?

Having killed what

do you not grieve?

Of the slaying

of what one thing

does Gotama approve?

[The Buddha:]

Having killed anger

you sleep in ease.

Having killed anger

you do not grieve.

The noble ones praise

the slaying of anger

— with its honeyed crest

& poison root —

for having killed it

you do not grieve.

Akkosa Sutta: Insult SN 7.2

translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Whence is there anger

for one free from anger,

tamed,

living in tune —

one released through right knowing,

calmed

& Such.

You make things worse

when you flare up

at someone who’s angry.

Whoever doesn’t flare up

at someone who’s angry

wins a battle

hard to win.

You live for the good of both

— your own, the other’s —

when, knowing the other’s provoked,

you mindfully grow calm.

When you work the cure of both

— your own, the other’s —

those who think you a fool

know nothing of Dhamma.

Lekha Sutta: Inscriptions

AN 3.130 PTS: A i 283 Thai 3.133

translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

“Monks, there are these three types of individuals to be found existing in the world. Which three? An individual like an inscription in rock, an individual like an inscription in soil, and an individual like an inscription in water.

“And how is an individual like an inscription in rock? There is the case where a certain individual is often angered, and his anger stays with him a long time. Just as an inscription in rock is not quickly effaced by wind or water and lasts a long time, in the same way a certain individual is often angered, and his anger stays with him a long time. This is called an individual like an inscription in rock.

“And how is an individual like an inscription in soil? There is the case where a certain individual is often angered, but his anger doesn’t stay with him a long time. Just as an inscription in soil is quickly effaced by wind or water and doesn’t last a long time, in the same way a certain individual is often angered, but his anger doesn’t stay with him a long time. This is called an individual like an inscription in soil.

“And how is an individual like an inscription in water? There is the case where a certain individual — when spoken to roughly, spoken to harshly, spoken to in an unpleasing way — is nevertheless congenial, companionable, & courteous. Just as an inscription in water immediately disappears and doesn’t last a long time, in the same way a certain individual — when spoken to roughly, spoken to harshly, spoken to in an unpleasing way — is nevertheless congenial, companionable, & courteous. This is called an individual like an inscription in water.

“These are the three types of individuals to be found existing in the world.”

Sources

Gil Fronsdal, Working with Anger p. 72: The Issue at Hand:  Essays on Buddhist Mindfulness Practice http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/the-issue-at-hand/en/20/

Emily Hoffman, How to Avoid Getting Angry

Robert Thurman, The Inner Revolution