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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.
Questions and Answers
Q. Is there
any difference between acquiring Dharma knowledge by
learning from books and by listening to teachings in temples?
A. The three
methods of learning the dharma are listening, contemplating
and practicing. Therefore, listening is very important. You can still
learn from a book but it depends on who wrote the book. When you are
reading the book and you don't understand, you cannot ask the book.
When someone speaks the dharma, you can ask questions to clear your
doubts and this is also not so boring.
Q. What is
the real meaning and purpose of receiving empowerment? Is it necessary
to practice after an empowerment?
A. Receiving
empowerment is opening the gate to a deity's palace to receive blessing
from the deity. Through empowerment, all defilements and obstacles will
be purified. You will be blessed by the
deity and eventually achieve the state of the deity. It is not necessary
to practice after receiving the empowerment, but if it is your commitment,
you can chant the mantra and do the practice.
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