Anger or forgiveness?
07 Working with Anger
Venerable Thubten Chodron 
Working with Anger 
Oct 12, 2025 Part of a series of talks based on Working with Anger given at Sravasti Abbey’s monthly Sharing the Dharma Day starting in April, 2025. Written by Venerable Thubten Chodron the book presents a variety of Buddhist methods for subduing anger, not by changing what is happening, but by working with our minds to frame situations differently.
- Guided analytic meditation on how anger is not a positive motivator for social change
- Guided body relaxation
- Setting an altruistic motivation
- Breathing meditation
- Analytic meditation
- We can work for social change without anger
- Changing our perspective on our adversaries
- Compassion as a motivator for social change
- A better choice than forgiveness?
- Everyone has some internal goodness despite their harmful actions
- Forgiveness does not mean tolerating harmful behavior
- Forgiving benefits ourselves and others
- Generating compassion in Isreal
- Forgiving does not mean forgetting
- Questions and answers
An audio recording of the guided meditation is also available.
Venerable Thubten Chodron
Venerable Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings. She was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. Read her full bio.
