Andrea Miller - All the Rage: Buddhist Wisdom on Anger and Acceptance

ABOUT THE BOOK

Anger. For all of us, its a familiar feelingjaw clenching, face flushing, hands shaking. We feel it for rational and irrational reasons, on a personal and on a global level. If we know how to handle our anger skillfully, it is an effective tool for helping us recognize that a situation needs to change and for providing the energy to create that change. Yet more often anger is destructiveand in its grip we hurt ourselves and those around us.

In recent years scientists have discovered that mindfulness practice can reduce stress, improve mood, and enhance our sense of well-being. It also offers us a way of dealing with strong emotions, like anger. This anthology offers a Buddhist perspective on how we can better work with anger and ultimately transform it into compassion, with insight and practices from a variety of contributors, including Thich Nhat Hanh, Sharon Salzberg, Sylvia Boorstein, Carolyn Gimian, Tara Bennett-Goleman, Pat Enkyo OHara, Jules Shuzen Harris, Christina Feldman, Mark Epstein, Ezra Bayda, Judith Toy, Noah Levine, Judy Lief, Norman Fischer, Jack Kornfield, Stan Goldberg, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Dzigar Kongtrl, and many others.

ANDREA MILLER is an editor and staff writer for Shambhala Sun magazine.

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All the Rage

Buddhist Wisdom on Angerand Acceptance

EDITED BY Andrea Miller

and the editors of the Shambhala Sun

Shambhala

Boston & London

2014

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2014 by Andrea Miller and the editors of the Shambhala Sun

Cover design by Jim Zaccaria

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

All the rage: Buddhist wisdom on anger and acceptance / Edited by Andrea Miller and the editors of the Shambhala Sun.First edition.

pages cm

eISBN 978-0-8348-2988-6

ISBN 978-1-61180-171-2 (alk. paper)

1. AngerReligious aspectsBuddhism. 2. CompassionReligious aspectsBuddhism. 3. Religious lifeBuddhism. I. Miller, Andrea (Shambhala Sun editor)

BQ4430.A53A55 2014

294.35698dc23

2014002343

Contents

PART ONE
Understanding Anger

Thich Nhat Hanh

Tara Bennett-Goleman

Toni Bernhard

Carolyn Gimian

Dzigar Kongtrl

Pat Enkyo OHara

PART TWO
Practicing with Anger

Jules Shuzen Harris

Karen Connelly

Norman Fischer

Sister Chan Khong

Shozan Jack Haubner

Joan Sutherland

PART THREE
Going Beyond Blame

Sylvia Boorstein

Mitchell Ratner

B. Alan Wallace

Christina Feldman

Mark Epstein

Rachel Neumann

PART FOUR
Finding Forgiveness

Karen Maezen Miller

Ezra Bayda

Judith Toy

Jack Kornfield

Stan Goldberg

Elaine Pierce

PART FIVE
Opening to Compassion

Sharon Salzberg

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Brian Haycock

Joanna Macy

Noah Levine

Judy Lief

You would never peg me as someone whod get in a fistfight, and youd be right. But all the same, there was this one time more than a decade ago.

Urgently needing a place to live, I hastily signed the lease to a drafty apartment with sloping floors and cracks in the walls. I asked the landlord if I could move in on the last day of the month, and he said, No problem. But twenty-four hours before the scheduled move, the apartments current tenants apparently had a change of plans and the landlord asked if I could postpone moving by a day. At this point, though, I couldnt; Id already enlisted movers.

The landlord phoned again. Okay, he said, the tenants who are in there now will empty a bedroom for you. You can pile your things into that room. Then the next day, theyll get their stuff out and you can begin living in the apartment. Though not ideal, this was workable.

At the appointed time, I arrived with a load of furniture. The promised bedroom, however, wasnt ready, and the tenants were unapologetic, particularly the woman. Within a hot minute, she and I were raising our voices. All of my irritation with this couple for changing the date, all of my frustration with packing and hefting and organizingit was all channeled into a heart-thumping electric rage, and I saw the same feeling reflected in the womans red face. To make matters worse, we were jammed into a tiny kitchen, a space too small for this anger. I sized the woman up. She was my age and small like me. I could take her.

Then suddenly, just before thought became action, my friend came in, breaking the moment. Now the room seemed to spin. Id gone to a rough high school where Id often heard the chant Fight, fight, fight.... Yet Id avoided those altercations. Id always seen myself as too mature to get in a fistfighttoo sophisticated, too peaceable. Later, when my friend and I were alone in the kitchen, I said, still dismayed, That almost got physical. Yeah, she answered. I could hear it.

Since that day, Im more sympathetic to people whose anger leads to blows; I know that I have a shard of that behavior in me, too. I also more clearly see the need for understanding where anger comes from, how it manifests, and how Ihow wecan work with it most skillfully. This anthology explores these questions from a Buddhist perspective.

The first section, Understanding Anger, looks at the origin of this emotion and how it impacts our relationships and sense of well-being. Thich Nhat Hanh begins by explaining that in our subconscious mind, we all have negative seeds such as anger, yet we also have positive seeds such as joy, understanding, and compassion. Whenever one of our seeds manifests in our conscious mind, that seed becomes stronger and more likely to manifest again. We cannot eradicate any particular seed, says Thich Nhat Hanh, but we can choose which seeds to water.

Part 2, Practicing with Anger, focuses on concrete methods. The teachings in this section include Sister Chan Khongs Beginning Anew, which emphasizes communication. We can learn to listen openly to the grievances others have against us, she says, and likewise we can learn to express our hurt or angry feelings without lashing out. In this way we find solutions to problems rather than add fuel to the fire. Practicing with Anger also features lively first-person pieces that provide examples of Buddhist practitioners grappling with anger in daily life. In her interaction with her young son, Karen Connelly sees that she gets back whatever emotion she herself expresses. Through his misadventures with irksome members of his sangha, Shozan Jack Haubner discovers that the people in our life dont get in the way of our spiritual practice; these people are our spiritual practice.

Sylvia Boorstein gets to the heart of the matter: The results of ignorancegreed, hatred, and delusionare the real causes of conflict, not particular people, political parties, or countries. So while there may be people who we could nameand blameas culprits, we would all be better served by recognizing ignorance as the true enemy. Grounded in this understanding, we would then be inspired to right any wrongdoing in a way that is at once firm and loving.