Working with anger, developing fortitude

• General definition of anger
• The disadvantages of anger
• The virtue, meaning, and benefits of developing fortitude
• We should not expect others to put up with our anger and vice versa
• Karmic results of anger
• Thinking about the disadvantages of anger helps us to contain our temper
• Questions and answers
• The relationship between anger and fortitude; happiness and unhappiness
• How to stop rumination
• How to notice anger before it arises

This evening we’re going to be talking about anger, so I wanted to give you a general definition of anger so that you understand what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about a mental attitude, a mental factor, that is based on exaggerating the negative qualities of someone or something and then wanting to strike at it, to destroy it, or throw something at it. [laughter] You can see how I’m defining anger; it’s based on exaggeration—a whole range of other emotions ranging from being annoyed and being irritated, or having hatred, being outraged or belligerent, or rebellious. We have a lot of words in our language for various degrees of anger. 

Defining anger

When you’re angry, do you feel like you are exaggerating the bad qualities of someone or something? Do you? No. When we’re angry, we don’t say, “I’m exaggerating.” We say, “I’m right, and you’re wrong. And the resolution is that you have to change.” Correct? So, even though it’s based on exaggeration, when anger is in our mind, we don’t feel like we’re exaggerating just because not everybody sees the situation the same way we do. Anger is based on exaggeration, and you may have come here this evening thinking to work on your anger, and you may have brought your friend or your husband or your wife or a family member with you, but maybe, more than wanting to help remedy your own anger, you want to make sure your family member remedies theirs. “Honey, she’s saying that anger is based on exaggeration. You heard that, didn’t you?”

So, try to listen not by thinking about your friend or your relative but about your own anger. Now, the question first comes, “Why should we work on our anger?” And I think the reason is because there are many disadvantages to being angry. Now, of course, we usually think there are many disadvantages to other people’s anger, but my anger has many advantages. But if we examine more closely, our own anger actually has many drawbacks. First of all, are any of you happy when you’re angry? No. If we were happy, we wouldn’t be angry. 

So, right away, that’s telling us that anger isn’t really conducive for human happiness, and that’s a big disadvantage, isn’t it? And then, how do we act when we’re under the influence of anger? I usually talk about two general types of behavior: there is exploding and there is imploding. Explosive means you shout and you scream and you throw something. You say it many times in case the person has short term memory loss. You say it loudly in case they are hard of hearing. That’s the explosive method. Then, the implosive method is we become so angry that we freeze. “I’m. Not. Angry.” Slam the door, go in another room, not talk to anybody, and if somebody comes near me and says, “You seem upset. You seem angry. What’s wrong?” I say, “Nothing is wrong! I’m not angry!” Right? 

Or we slam the door, and we go have a pity party. “Look what they said to me. They hurt my feelings. I’m so angry. Nobody loves me. Everybody picks on me.” We have a nice pity party with our lead balloons, and we feel sorry for ourselves. So, how many of you are exploders? Okay. How many of you are the imploders who are very cold? How many of you have pity parties? [laughter] Wait a minute. I only saw about five people raise their hands for the pity parties. I think there are more. How many people have pity parties? Okay. [laughter]

All this happens because of anger. And then, how do we speak to other people when we’re angry? Do you ever say things when you’re angry that the next day you think, “Oh my, did I say that?” Has that ever happened to you? Okay. And who do you say the rudest, meanest, cruelest things to? Who? The people you care about the most, right? Would you ever speak to a stranger the way you speak to your husband or wife? No, we never would, we’re far too polite. But to the people in our family, we dump all of our vile speech out. And these are the people we care about the most. Yet, somehow, we feel that we’re so much a part of each other that I don’t have to monitor my speech or observe human manners anymore. Right or wrong? 

So, when we’re angry, and we say all these dreadful things, we destroy the trust that exists between us and the people we’re closest to. It takes a long time to build up trust between people, but we can smash that trust with just one situation of anger. Because we say dreadful things when we’re angry. We can see that, through this kind of thing, anger has a lot of disadvantages.

Disadvantages of anger

I’m going to read you some verses from Shantideva’s text about this. 

Whatever wholesome deeds, such as generosity and making offerings to the Buddha have been amassed over thousands of eons will all be destroyed by anger. 

We may be trying to create a lot of goodness in our lives, a lot of merit, and we may do a lot of generous actions and behave with kindness towards many people, but all that merit or good energy gets destroyed by anger. In this way, when we get angry, we’re the ones who suffer the most from our anger. 

Then Shantideva says, 

There is no negativity like hatred and no strength like fortitude; thus, I should cultivate fortitude persistently through various ways.

He’s saying here that in terms of negativity that destroys human happiness, nothing rivals anger and hatred. And we can see this not only in our personal relationships with other people, but also in relationships between different groups in society and relationships between countries. The whole mess in Syria that’s happening right now is due to anger. All wars are based on anger. They have a lot of other conditioning factors, but definitely anger is in there. 

People often say, “We want world peace,” but there’s no way to have it unless we each individually subdue our anger. We can pass tons of laws and we can have police all over the world, but we’re not going to have peace as long as inside of our own mind there is the seed of anger. And so because of the disadvantages of anger, there is also no virtue like fortitude. Now, what I’m translating as “fortitude,” many people translate as “patience.” It means having a strong mind that is able to bear things. 

I’m not sure how the word translates in Spanish, but in English, the word “patience” has the connotation of waiting for something, waiting for someone. Like a child, they say, “I want to do this; I want to do that.” We say, “Be patient, be patient.” That’s not the meaning here. What it means is having a mind that is very clear and very firm, that is not going to get disturbed by people criticizing us or by having pain. Some people call it tolerance or forbearance, endurance. 

I like the word fortitude much better than patience because fortitude gives the feeling, “Okay, I can be firm and clear and bear difficulties. I’m not going to crumble every time there’s a problem. People may criticize me, but I can remain calm. I may get sick and have pain, but I can remain calm and balanced. There may be hardships in doing something, but I can bear these.” It has that sense, and that gives you a feeling of self-confidence. Do you understand what I’m saying?

Okay, so let’s go back to the text. He says, 

My mind will not experience peace if it holds painful thoughts of hatred. I shall find no joy or happiness; unable to sleep I shall feel unsettled. 

It’s true isn’t it? When we hold painful thoughts of hatred, there’s no peace inside of ourselves. True, huh? We’re restless. We’re unhappy. We’re agitated. We don’t know what to do because we’re angry and upset. We’re afraid somebody’s going to take advantage of us. So, there’s no joy and happiness in our life when we’re angry. And often the anger even interferes with our sleep.

I remember some years ago watching a journalist from the Los Angeles Times interview His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and you may know that in Tibet there’s been genocide and environmental destruction. His Holiness has been a refugee since 1959 and hasn’t been able to go back to his own country. It’s a very bad situation. This journalist said to His Holiness, “How come you’re not angry? Most other people would be furious at”—in this case it was the Chinese Government who was oppressing the Tibetan people. The journalist said, “Most other people would be furious, and yet you tell all the Tibetans don’t be angry at the communist Chinese.” His Holiness looked at the journalist, and he said, “What good would it do to be angry? If I were angry, I couldn’t enjoy my food. I couldn’t sleep well at night. And it wouldn’t change anything about the situation in Tibet.” 

And this journalist is looking at His Holiness in shock. She was totally shocked that somebody could say that after experiencing what His Holiness has gone through. But it’s a good example because, if we look, the Palestinian situation and the Tibetan situation both began around the same time, the late forties or fifties. And the Palestinians got very angry, and they did many aggressive things. There has been a lot of violence in their struggle for independence and autonomy. And many people have gotten killed, including many Palestianians. In the situation with Tibet, His Holiness has consistently advocated nonviolence, and there have hardly been any people who have died due to violence on the part of the Tibetans.

And here we are 65 years later and the Palestinians and the Tibetans, neither of them have accomplished their purpose, but we can see one group used anger and violence, the other group tried to contain their anger and used nonviolent means. Again, we see the benefits of fortitude, the disadvantages of anger. 

Then Shantideva goes on, he says, 

A master who has hatred is in danger of being killed even by those who for their wealth and honor depend on his kindness. 

When it says “a master,” it’s like an employer. If you take the example of an employer who really mistreats their employees, they are putting themselves in danger because of their own hatred. And the employees get angry even though they depend on the employer to stay alive. The anger on the part of the employees doesn’t accomplish what they want, and the anger and ill-treatment on the part of the employer doesn’t accomplish what they want either.

All you have to do is look at the U.S. congress for a good example. [laughter] Congress quarrels all the time. They don’t want to cooperate; they just want to be angry. And as a result, the whole country is being harmed due to it. 

Then Shantidvea says, 

By anger, friends and relatives are disheartened. Though drawn by someone’s generosity, they won’t rely or trust that person. In brief, there’s no one who dwells comfortably with anger. 

There might be somebody who is very generous, who can be really funny, who you enjoy being with, but if that person has a bad temper, are you going to be close friends with them?

It’s hard to be good friends with somebody who has a bad temper, even if they have many other good qualities. Sometimes I hear people say, “Oh, I’m just an angry person. That’s the way I am. I have a hot temper. That’s all there is to it.” It’s kind of like, “Well, I have a temper, I get angry. You have to bear it because I can’t change.” What do you think about that? Do you want to be around that person? Do you think that somebody has an angry personality and that they can never change? Do you think it’s right to say, “Well, I’m just hot tempered. That’s all there is to it. I can’t change.” That’s not a good excuse for having anger. All of us can change. We should never say, “That’s just the way I am, and you have to put up with me.” 

And we should never lose our own confidence in our own ability to change. Because whatever weaknesses we have can be counteracted. They’re conditioned things, so if you change the conditions, those qualities can change. Don’t just say, “I’m angry. You’ve got to put up with me. You’re married to me. I have a right to be angry.” [laughter] And your spouse does not have to put up with that nonsense either. People say to me, “Oh, you Buddhists talk about compassion, so does that mean in a situation of domestic violence that the person who is getting beaten says, ‘It’s okay, dear. You bet me yesterday. You beat me today. I’m practicing fortitude, and I have compassion for you. If you want to beat me tomorrow, it’s okay because I have compassion.’” Is that compassion? No, that’s stupidity. You have every right to be safe and to say that is not appropriate behavior, and I will not put up with it. And if you want to beat me, here’s a punching bag, bye-bye. Don’t misunderstand fortitude and compassion and think that it means you’re a doormat and people can do whatever they want.

Shantideva continues, he says, 

The enemy anger creates suffering such as those. 

So, it’s like what we just talked about. Another disadvantage of anger is if we believe in karma and that our actions have an ethical dimension, that will influence what happens to us in the future. When we get angry and we take it out on other people and harm them, we are harming ourselves by filling our own mind with anger and putting the seeds of negative deeds on our mindstream. Some of the result in the future of being angry right now is however we’re treating other people now under the influence of anger, someone will treat us in that same way in the future. 

In addition, anger makes us ugly. They say if you’re very angry in this life then in a future life you will be very ugly. But it makes sense when you think about it because when someone’s angry in this life, they’re ugly during the time they’re angry, aren’t they? When somebody’s really furious and angry, do they look beautiful? No, they look disgusting. Even in this life, our anger makes us very unattractive. You can use lots of makeup and use lots of aftershave lotion, but nobody’s going to come near you when you’re angry. 

Then, he continues with saying, 

But whoever assiduously overcomes anger creates happiness in this and other lives.

You can see it quite directly, can’t you? A person who is super sensitive to whatever other people say frequently gets hurt and angry and is unhappy. A person who doesn’t get angry so easily, even when they’re criticized, they’re okay. It’s not a question of suppressing your anger and pushing it down because just doing that doesn’t get rid of the anger. You just stuff it, and stuff it, put a plastic smile on your face: “I’m okay.” That’s not fortitude. And the anger is going to come out in another way. What we’re talking about here is learning how to look at the situation in a different way so that the anger disappears.

We’ve just spent a good amount of time thinking about the disadvantages of anger because that will motivate us to try and contain our anger. And I know for myself that thinking about the disadvantages of anger helps me to contain my temper. You think a lot about the disadvantages, like we just explained, and then let’s say somebody does something I don’t like, and I can start feeling myself getting angry and thinking, “This person is such a bozo.” [laughter] Then I think, “But why should I experience destroying my merit, making myself ugly, making other people dislike me because I have such a bad temper? Why should I have all those problems on account of this bozo? It doesn’t make any sense. If I’m going to destroy my merit and bring myself problems, I should at least do it for a good person and a good reason and not just for some jerk.

Anger and unhappiness

It helps me a lot to remember this. And I should say over the weekend we’ll be going into more and more reasons on how to manage our anger. How to overcome it. Now, the next verse is very interesting. He says, 

Having found its fuel of mental unhappiness, in the doing of what I do not wish for, and in the hindering of what I wish for, hatred develops and then destroys me. 

So, what he’s saying here is that an unhappy mind is the fuel in dependence upon which anger arises. And what makes our mind unhappy? When people do what I don’t want them to do. When what I want to come about has problems and interferences. Right? My happiness is frustrated, so I become unhappy, and that mental unhappiness is the fuel that produces the fire of anger. What this means is to avoid anger, we have to keep a happy mind. Now, I remember when I was studying with one of my teachers, he would always say, “You need to have a happy mind” and “Make your mind happy,” and I would say, “Gen-la, I can’t make my mind happy.”

Ruminating makes us unhappy

It’s like, I don’t want to be unhappy, but I don’t know how to make myself happy. You know that problem? It took me many years to figure out what he meant. And when he says, “Have a happy mind” and “Make your mind happy,” he means stop ruminating about all the things that you don’t like. We like to ruminate: “So and so did this. They did this. I really don’t like that, and the other person also did it, too. When I look at the whole world, there are so many people acting like this, and what am I going to do about this? It’s a terrible situation. I’m so angry. I’m upset. The world should be nicer to me. I should get everything I want. People should do things my way. They should realize I’m right, and I should be able to win all the arguments, and it’s not fair the way people treat me.” Do you get what I’m talking about when I say ruminating? We just go around and around in circles.

Who’s the center of the stage when we ruminate? Yo. Yo soy el centero. I am the center. Based on this self-preoccupation then we interpret everything in the world in reference to me. Why? Because soy el centro del universo. And the problem with the world is that other people don’t realize I’m the center of the universe. [laughter] Because if they realized that I was the center of the universe then they would be so kind. And they would listen to all my good advice because I have good advice for everybody. If you ever need advice, come to me, I’ll give you some! The problem with the world is that people don’t listen to my advice. I give my parents advice, they don’t listen. I give my husband or wife advice, and they don’t listen. I give my kids advice, and they don’t listen. I give the government advice, forget it. And that’s the problem with the world. If everybody listened to my advice, we would all live very happily.

And this is the way we think, isn’t it? We’re among friends, we can admit that we all think we’re the center of the universe and people should do things our way. Right? Okay? This worldview that I’m the center of the universe and everything should go my way is the source of our unhappiness because when is the world going to realize that I’m the center of it? I’ve been trying to tell them my whole life. [laughter] This is just an exercise in frustration for me, whereas if I can change my mind and realize that there’s one of me and we have, what, over seven billion human beings on the planet now? Okay, so there’s uno here and 7 billion here, and we believe in democracy, so whose happiness is more important? Yeah, it should be others’ happiness, right?

But we have a little corruption in our democracy, [laughter] and we think that we’re the most important. But really, the key to our own inner happiness is seeing that as long as we keep insisting that we’re right and we win, things have to be done my way, then we’re setting ourselves up to be unhappy. And unhappiness is the fuel for anger. So, then people say, “Well, does that mean I always have to do things other peoples’ way? What about if somebody’s doing something harmful? Does that mean that I cherish them and don’t stand up for what’s correct?”

No, it doesn’t mean that. Because when we care for the happiness of others, sometimes we have to do what other people don’t like because that’s what’s best for them at the time. How many of you are parents? If you give your child everything they want, is that kindness to them? It’s not, is it? If you give your kid everything they want and always do things your child’s way, your child is going to have difficulty functioning in the world. Part of your job as a parent is helping your child learn to endure the frustration of not getting what they want. Of course your child doesn’t like that when you say that. 

Questions & Answers

Audience: So, the other face of anger, would that be happiness or would that be the fortitude that you talked about?

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): The opposite of anger is fortitude and the opposite of unhappiness, which brings forth our anger, is to keep a happy mind. And one way to keep a happy mind is to stop ruminating. And if you stop ruminating, you’ll be surprised by how much time you have. Because everybody’s always saying, “I have no time. I have no time,” and that’s because you’re ruminating all the time. If you notice yourself ruminating and mentally complaining, press the stop button. Don’t keep making yourself miserable by continuing that way of thinking.

Audience: So, if anger comes from unhappiness, how do I find out how unhappy I am?

VTC: You don’t know you’re unhappy?

Audience: So, if you’re angry and you carry on being angry, you don’t—you’re not—

VTC: Oh, okay. The thing is, I think we know we’re unhappy, but due to our own confusion and ignorance, we think that getting angry will solve our unhappiness. But actually, anger has the opposite effect, and it makes the situation worse. It increases our unhappiness. I think we know that we’re unhappy, but we don’t know how to think clearly about how to counteract that unhappiness. 

Because sometimes we human beings are really rather stupid. For example, say I have a really good friend who I care about a lot, and they did something I don’t like, so I get angry at them, and now I don’t talk to them anymore. Or if I do talk to them, I insult them. Am I going to have a good relationship with that person? No. When I’m angry at them, what is it in the depth of my heart that I really want? What kind of relationship do I really want to have with them? I really want to connect with them, don’t I? I really want to have a relationship of understanding, but when I’m angry, my mind produces anything but understanding. Are you getting what I’m saying? That’s why I said sometimes we human beings, what we do to solve a problem actually harms ourselves more.

Let me give you an example of that. Some years ago, a friend of mine was using the car of another friend who had gone off to India for the year. And the hood of the car sometimes would fly up, so it was a little bit dangerous: you’re driving and the hood comes off, and you can’t see where you’re going. One day, my friend was supposed to come over at a certain time, and he didn’t come, and a half hour went by and he didn’t come, and an hour went by and he didn’t come, and when he finally came it was very late. So,  I said, “Why are you so late?” And he said, “I was driving on the highway and the hood flew up.” And I got so mad. I said, “I told you to fix the car before, that it was dangerous, and you should have known that yourself.” I was really mad. But what was really going on inside at that time? Inside I was saying, “I’m so glad you’re safe. You’re somebody I care about, and I’m so glad you’re okay.” But instead of saying what I was really feeling, in my confusion I got mad, and of course what I said pushed him away and brought the opposite of what I wanted. So, that’s an example of how we human beings are sometimes stupid.

Audience: How do you deal with anger from your friends?

VTC: Ah, good question. So, your friend calls you up, they’re angry, they complain, they scream, they dump all their anger out on you. No, we never do that to other people, do we? No, we’re nice people. But our friends call, complain, blame, scream, they put us in a bad mood. They say, “What should I do?” We give them advice and they say, “Yes, but.”  Then we offer them more advice, and they say, “Yes, but.” And whatever we say, they don’t listen. They repeat the same thing again and again. Right? When that happens, I give people at the very most two “Yes, but.” Only two. When they say the third one, I say, “What ideas do you have to solve your problem? You’re an intelligent person; you are creative. What ideas do you have for solving this problem?” I give the problem right back to them, and I don’t listen to any more complaints. And even though they try after that to again hook me and get me involved, I say, “Yes, but you are an intelligent human being, what idea do you have?” [laughter] And it’s true, people need to learn to think about how to solve their own problems.

Now, that situation is different from another situation. The other situation is somebody comes to me and says, “I’m really angry, can you help me with my anger?” The first situation somebody comes to me and all they do is blame a third person. And it doesn’t help them to let them keep on complaining. But if somebody comes and they’re owning their own anger, and they say, “I’m angry and I need help to counteract my anger,” then I think as a Dharma friend, I should help them. And the way of helping them is not to side with them against the other person but to help them look at the situation in a different way so that they see that it’s not necessary to get angry. I might point out that the other person is unhappy, or I might say, “What can you learn from this situation?” Or I might say, “What is your button in this situation?” I would say something that would help the other person learn how to deal with their own anger. 

Audience: How do you stop the ruminating?

VTC: First of all, you have to catch it. Because sometimes, if we don’t see that we’re doing it, it just goes on and on and on. So, there’s one mental factor that’s called introspective awareness, and that one looks and says, “What am I thinking? What am I feeling?” And when we notice the ruminating, then we remember that we’ve gone through this whole thought pattern many times before. It’s like an old video that you keep playing again and again and again. They used to call it a broken record, but we don’t have records anymore. So, it’s like looping on your iPad or iPod: you loop the thing, so it’s going again and again and again. And you say to yourself, “You know, I’ve watched this mental video so many times, I know the ending, and it just makes me unhappy, so I am pressing the off button.” And I just say, “Cut it!” 

Audience: So, when he’s doing happy things, he is consciously doing happy things. But anger appears unconsciously, so what can he do that would be a conscious thing when anger kicks in, to become conscious of the anger.

VTC: Can you describe that? What do you mean that you’re doing pleasant things?

Audience: He says there is usually a reason he gets angry, but it is out of control. It just seems to come from his unconscious. It’s like he’s not choosing it. It’s just happening.

VTC: It just comes suddenly. 

Audience: He’s not conscious of when he becomes angry. It’s just suddenly, “Now I’m angry.”

VTC: So, the question is how to notice that?

Audience: How to notice before it starts coming up.

VTC: So, it’s this same mental factor of introspective awareness that becomes observant of the state of our body and mind. And sometimes we can see anger when it’s really small by becoming aware of physical sensations in our body. Because when we’re just starting to get angry, sometimes our stomach tightens up, or our face heats up, or our breathing gets a little bit faster, or maybe we feel the veins in our neck. You pay attention to physical sensations in your body, and that often helps you recognize anger when it’s still small. Sometimes our breathing gets a little bit faster as we start to get angry. Or our body’s a little bit restless. So, those can be cues to us.