10 Ways To Deal With Anger - Awaken from KPSPKS

According to Avatamsaka Sutra, “Whenever a thought of anger arises, one million doors of obstacles open. A single flame of anger will burn down the forest-like merits.” Anger is thus recognised as the biggest enemy to meditation, spiritual happiness, interpersonal relationships and world peace.

On a minute and subtle level, anger radiates unwholesome thought-waves to harm the surroundings. An experiment conducted by a biologist demonstrated that a flower showered with love would flourish exuberantly while a flower that was subjected to angry words and curses would wither.

Since the habitual tendency of getting angry has been firmly embedded in our root consciousness, we need to train ourselves over long periods to cease our anger. The following are some practical techniques, arranged according to their levels of complexity, which you can try when dealing with anger:

1. Take long inhalation, go jogging, swimming, or yoga and other workouts to release tension and calm down the outburst of angry fire.

2. Embrace Mother Nature by going hiking. Nature has its rhythm and way of keeping everything in balance. In natural surroundings, one will feel peaceful and let go of one’s defence mechanism.

3. Read or listen to teachings on health, EQ and the Buddha-dharma. Reading and listening are the two most efficient ways to strengthen one’s mental power.

4. Contemplate and reflect on what one has learned to internalise

the understanding of the shortcomings of anger and the benefits of no anger.

5. Take the precept of no anger and observe it strictly. The perfection of tolerance is one of the six perfections of a bodhisattva to attain Buddhahood.

6. Believe and have faith in Karma. When we receive unpleasant treatment, take it as a way to purify our past bad Karma. If we hope to be treated nicely in the future, we should not get angry now.

7. Accept the principle of rebirth. Because of our unwholesome Karma, we are entrapped in the cycle of birth and death. Our so-called “enemy” in this present life might be our relative or a friend in our past life. We treat our relatives and friends in our in this life nicely, so how we can get angry with a relative or friend from our past life? To get emancipation from samsara, we should develop love and compassion.

8. Practise the seven-point cause-and-effect instruction:

i. Recognising all sentient beings as one’s mother

ii. Recognising the kindness of mother sentient beings

iii. Wishing to repay their kindness

iv. Generating affectionate love towards all sentient beings

v. Generating great compassion

vi. Generating the extraordinary intention of freeing all beings

from suffering and bringing them happiness

vii. Developing the enlightened mind or Bodhicitta.

9. The world is nothing but the projection of our consciousness or prejudice based on past experiences. For that reason, we should not be affected by the surroundings. We should develop a peaceful mind to see through all phenomena.

10. Abide in Buddha-nature which is beyond duality, imagination and speech. Observe the admonition in the Diamond Sutra, “One should generate one’s thoughts without any abiding.”

Excerpt from Awaken Issue 11