Though one may conquer a thousand times a thousand men in battle, yet he indeed is the noblest victor who conquers himself. - The Buddha
When there is no anger, there is no enemy. If you wish to rid the mind of anger it is simply up to you stop egotistically demanding that reality be different than it is.
No one in the history of the universe has ever been angry or will ever be angry except in this exact way:
In order for anger to be present there has to be an irrational and egocentric demand that reality be different than it is.
When you get upset, just notice - are you in fact making a demand that reality should or must be different than it is?
Watch others do it as well - in your relationships, at work, in media - every single time a person gets upset just look for it - watch them get upset over their own demands that reality be different than it is until you’ve gained complete proficiency and awareness of just what exactly is transpiring.
Reality is not interested in your demands, and it is not necessary that you make demands on reality. For example, the reality is that traffic lights are often red - you getting angry, makes no difference. You didn’t get angry because of the red light, you got mad because you demand that red lights should be green, and they’re not.
It’s a little funny if you think about it...
Infinite causes and conditions go into every moment, and here you are jumping up and down yelling on a little rock in the boondocks of the Milky Way galaxy, demanding that reality be different than it is.
Consider how odd your angry behavior is when the known universe has been here for 13.7 billion years, the Earth 3.7 billion years, and you - your lifespan is about 1/12000th of a second in universal time, and you have the audacity to demand that reality be different than it is.
Humans are very peculiar indeed.
Furthermore, getting upset is irrational on a purely physiological level - when you get upset you are raising the four primary stress hormones - adrenaline, cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine which are the corollary conditions for high blood pressure, heart disease, many major types of cancer and bone density loss. By getting upset you are quite literally making yourself sick - you can’t get much more irrational than that.
If you’re a true yoga practitioner it’s even worse as anger is literally tying your channels into knots and strangling the subtle pranic body.
Each time you get angry you are also increasing the size of the neural pathway for anger, which will make you ever more prone and increasingly likely to get upset in the future.
Rate your current status 0-10 in terms of what you believe your FT is which means Frustration Tolerance. Make it your job to increase this number - the principal way to do this by not blaming anyone else or situations for the way you feel, ie take complete responsibility, and you will have HFT which is the goal - High Frustration Tolerance. There are few things that would be a better gift for everyone in your immediate environment and everyone you encounter then HFT.
I’ll offer you a gift now, go further - resist not just blaming others or events for the way you feel - also don’t blame yourself. Instead place the blame for anger precisely where it belongs - which is on the irrational ego-centric demand that reality should be different than it is.
For peacefulness, it’s vital to go blameless which is often opposed to the American cultural notion of, “personal accountability,” which is also irrational as you will soon read below.
The notion of personal accountability is irrational because the claim that all previous infinite causes conditions that have led to a specific moment can be directed to a source of blame - namely one person, is essentially the immature adult version of pin-the-tail on the donkey.
You are still free to state your preferences, as you are not a potted plant or a doormat, but what can be said, can be said peacefully. Any fool or a child can get angry (and they generally do). Being upset is hardly a show of your power - it is a thorough display of weakness and lack of understanding.
The unconscious habit of getting angry can be defeated in large measure by simply becoming aware - and of course intending to be peaceful. Here is exactly what to do to get started:
Every day track your Anger score 0-10 with 10 being the highest score. Then break the score down into three components: frequency, duration, and intensity - Meaning how many times did you get angry in the last 24 hours, how long did each episode last on average, and was it low intensity irritation, frustration, anger, or rage? Just by keeping track of these scores each day they will plummet by almost forty-five percent within three weeks. If you include mindfulness meditation for twenty minutes each day along with a little forgiveness prayer and loving-kindness you’ll see more than a 70% reduction in a few weeks.
If you include skill training in active listening and work on reducing your demands you can achieve and maintain a consistently low anger score for the reminder of your years. If you go a little further and exercise and eat nutritiously you can almost do no wrong. Our methodology has been studied and peer reviewed if you’d like to see the results we would be happy to share.
The true warrior does battle within, you are to be a mind warrior, and to stop fighting with imaginary opponents. Patience is your ability to not get irritated and upset, regardless of conditions.
Just watch to see how many people will make comments trying to rationalize their behavior, as though there is something to defend.
So calm down, collect and compose this mind with elegance and dignity. You are designated to be a human being who is supposedly rational, hence the name Homo Sapien, which translates as ‘man the wise.’ In other words you are supposed to have moved on from being a Neanderthal, as part of evolutionary development you have a much larger pre-frontal cortex which is the part of the brain which dictates your ability to reason. When you become angry the two amygdala areas of your brain are active (this represents fight, flight and freeze behaviors) and consequently movement in the anterior pre-frontal cortex goes temporarily off-line which explains why you become so irrational when fighting; oddly you think you’re making sense or displaying, “how you really feel,” when actually nothing could be further than the truth which is that your ability to reason has been compromised.
You ought not take any pride in losing your filter and displaying your emotions on your sleeve like an infant.
No one is suggesting that you either suppress or repress your emotions either as though those are the only two possibilities. What is being suggested is that preventing destructive states from arising in the first place and if they do arise that they can be examined in thought and felt mode before being expressed in speech and action.
A person is simply imputed to be this and nothing more - a body, a mind or is conceived to be a possessor of those two things. That is to say a person, including yourself becomes whatever they are perceived to be.
A person has no inherent reality, which begs the question, “Just exactly who are you getting upset with?” Never mind the other obvious point, “Just exactly who is getting angry in the first place?” Good luck in finding either.
You quite literally have absolutely no basis for getting angry whatsoever unless you include unconscious ignorance and force of habit as your claim.
There are no intrinsic others, there is no intrinsic you. We come and go as simple movements of the mind, that is to say by thinking.
On a deeper note, there are no problems, and consequently no solutions. What appears to be a problem depends on where Awareness seems to be localized in any given moment. It is thoroughly unnecessary to localize awareness in your body or mind so that you can simply play the foolish role of someone who is aggrieved or offended. You can simply localize awareness anywhere in infinite space and all of ‘your’ problems would collapse immediately.
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all that you see.
- John Lennon
May Awareness recognize you as the light in itself, and may mind experience immeasurable and limitless happiness, well-being, safety, peacefulness and ease.
Metta,
Michael
