Time Will Heal Our Wounds
July 10, 2008 by ScottyDoo
I’ve been struggling with anger lately.
I’m trying to discover the various sources so that I can be present with it and accept it for what it is, in hope that I can either learn to let it go or learn to harness it’s power in a positive manner. This has not been an easy process however, and I’m not very far along in my journey.
My wife asks me why I have so much anger inside (that unfortunately comes out on the outside) and I don’t really have any answers, but I know they’re there. I feel that by not meeting my anger and pain face to face I am just creating more dukkha and only furthering myself from where I need to be, which is right here, right now.
I hope you enjoy this passage I read the other day as much as I did. I will post more as I continue my journey.
(Written by: Ven. K Sri Dhammananda)
Trouble passes. What has caused you to burst into tears will soon be forgotten. You may remember that you cried but not why you did so! As we grow up and go through life, we are often surprised at how we lie awake at night, brooding over something that has upset us during the day, or how we nurse resentment against someone by letting the same thoughts run through our minds concerning how to have our own back. We may fly into a rage at the spur of the moment over something,and later wonder what it was that we were so angry about, and be surprised to realize what a waste of time and energy it had all been. We have deliberately continued being unhappy when we could have stopped being so and started thinking about something else which is more wholesome.
Whatever our troubles are, and however aggrieved we may feel, time will heal our wounds, but surely there must be something we can do to prevent ourselves from being hurt in the first place. Why should we allow others or our troubles to drain away our energy and make us unhappy? The answer is that they do not. It is we who make ourselves unhappy.
You may have some trouble in your working place but you should not infect your home with a bad atmosphere. You should realize that there is an end to those problems. The solutions could be found in achieving freedom from our selfish desires, by eradicating all forms of confusion and ignorance.
Whenever we fail to find a solution to a problem, we are inclined to find a scapegoat, on whom we vent our frustration. We are not prepared to admit our own shortcomings. It is easier to put the blame on others. In fact, some even take pleasure in doing so. This is a completely wrong attitude to adopt. We must not show resentment towards others. We should do our utmost, painstakingly and calmly, to resolve our own problems. We must be prepared to face up to any difficulties that we encounter.
greenfrog on Thu, 10th Jul 2008 8:30 am
Your path may be different than mine, but I’ve found that digging into the anger to see where it comes from is often too much of a challenge to my mindfulness. It’s as though the anger of a particular situation has a kind of magnetism to it. To explore it carefully, I have to get very close to it, but as I get close to it, its magnetic strength increases and I almost always find myself not examining the anger from the outside, but reciting all the stories of how I was right (or misunderstood, or self-sacrificing or whatever the) and how the object(s) of my anger were really the cause of it, etc., etc., etc.
I finally had to take the vipassana approach: when anger arises, I try to be mindful of what it feels like to be angry, where in my body I feel it, exactly how it feels, how it arises and sustains itself, how it ebbs and flows and ebbs and flows, and (finally) what it feels like as it subsides and my mind wanders to something else. Whenever my mind starts to turn to the “story-telling” associated with the experience that spawned the anger, I repeat to myself, “this is what a mind is like when it is angry — it seeks to return to the conflict.”
I suppose on the one hand, that kind of approach could be repressing things, but my experience seems to be otherwise. While I still haven’t figured out, for example, why particular people seem to trigger angry feelings, I have noticed that I get angry a lot less than I used to. My current working hypothesis is that anger is, in the end, an unconscious defense mechanism generated by the ego in response to a perceived threat to the ego or something the ego is attached to (which may, themselves, be the same thing).
Trying to see into the unconscious while I’m angry is like trying to see to the bottom of a lake during a thunder storm.
Randy on Thu, 10th Jul 2008 9:34 am
I’ve always been very uncomfortable with anger, except to the extent that it motivates me to take some kind of positive action. I had thought that meditation practice would allow me to just jump over my afflictive emotions altogether; I would be a Buddhist Evel Kneivel. Nope, not entirely. Generally, I simply walk away from people or situations that cause me anger, or, if I can’t do that, suppress that anger and hope it never surfaces. The latter, of course, is terribly unhealthy.
Sattva on Thu, 10th Jul 2008 10:04 am
Oh, anger! I was a very angry depressive and the only reason I sought help was because of how unpleasant I was – I was worried that my kids would have miserable childhoods.
One thing that helps me is to remember that it’s never about the situation or person that made me angry. It’s always pointing back at me. If you think of it as a pain-body, it’s helpful to remember that there is no reasoning with a pain body. It needs to ride itself out and the only thing that has helped me is to be aware “oh… I’m in pain body again”. I can’t necessarily believe my thoughts when I’m in pain body. It helps me be a better observer.
I’ve found that anger is like a wave riding through the body. Pema Chodron says that it physically take 90 seconds for anger to come and go. I’ve found that anger is like a wave riding through the body. If I feel it coming, or even after an unexpected outburst on my part, I go into that energetic sensation in the body and breath. Sure enough, 90 seconds later, it dissipates. Pretty cool.
Studying the repetitive patterning after the anger episode is helpful – learning our triggers helps us to see them coming. Again, I think it’s about awareness.
After my huge phase with anger, I’ve come to think that much of my anger is not only related to the cyclical – depressive thought patterns, but that for me – it was also part of a collective pain body. I often feel anger as the pain of generations of women who never had a voice or an opportunity. Awareness of that is helping me break through my own biases and I’m better able to see this amazing port-hole in time I have in my own blessed life.
ScottyDoo on Thu, 10th Jul 2008 10:28 am
Sattva said:
I’ll reply more later, but I’ve been listening to and reading a TON of stuff by Pema Chodron. I can’t seem to get enough. Truly wonderful woman.
Randy said:
Maybe this is bad, but I’m glad to know that even people who are much further into their practices and with more experience than I still struggle. I don’t say that because I’m happy for your suffering, but to know that I’m not alone.
greenfrog on Thu, 10th Jul 2008 12:40 pm
One further thought — anger can be a karma-rich event. If we try to suppress it, it is bound to reappear later, in one form or another. Better, I think, to feel it arise and blossom, and better to simply be with it than to try to manipulate or manage or control or suppress it. Mind you, I don’t propose acting out. In a way, that’s more of a reinforcement of the energy patterns it represents than almost anything else. Just that we respond, I guess, as sattva proposes,
Randy on Thu, 10th Jul 2008 2:32 pm
Oh, you’re not alone, Scotty. BTW, I’m a notorious slacker at the local zen temple–it’s almost a source of pride that I’m the only long-timer there who hasn’t bothered to memorize the entire Heart Sutra, much less learn how to lead a sitting. We don’t have many people, so I really should learn that stuff.