Transforming Anger into the Path

While the enemy of your own anger is unsubdued,

Though you conquer external foes, they will only increase.

Therefore with the militia of love and compassion

Subdue your own mind—

This is the practice of bodhisattvas.

Subdue Anger in Your Mind

As long as the seed of anger exists within us, we will have enemies. Why? We will find someone to project our discontent onto. It doesn’t matter if this person makes a mistake or not, we will still find a reason to hate them simply because there is anger energy inside us. For instance, sometimes I wake up in a bad mood, and I’m just waiting for somebody to say, “Good morning”, so I can get mad at him. That person doesn’t need to do anything, but I’ll make up a story about how they are harming me, “I can tell by his tone of voice when he said, ‘Good morning’ that he’s trying to manipulate me.”

We project our anger on the most convenient person around, over the tiniest little thing. For example, your spouse forgot to buy peanut butter and suddenly you’re questioning the entire relationship, “We’re out of peanut butter. You knew we were out and that I like it, yet you didn’t buy any more. Now you have the gall to tell me you forgot. Actually you’re being passive-aggressive again. Our marriage has always been like this. You never do what I want, you never consider me. And when I confront you on this, you’re full of excuses. I’m fed up. I want a divorce!”

Our anger has nothing to do with the other person’s actions or motives. Why? One person will become enraged at a situation while another person is calm. If there were an objective fault— let’s say an external situation or another person—then everyone would react the same way. But that is not the case at all. We create a description or story about the situation and the other person’s intentions and actions, and then make ourselves mad. This occurs because the enemy of our anger is unsubdued. As long as this is the case, we find somebody to resent, hold a grudge against, be spiteful towards, and be enraged at.

Although we may conquer external foes and put them in their place, they will increase. When we intentionally inflict harm on others, why would we expect them to be kind to us in return? On the contrary, they become more upset and rally others to side with them against us.

Anger not only affects us on a personal level, it also operates on an international level. A nation may conquer one external foe or destroy one enemy, but two more appear in response to that action. When a country thinks only of its own welfare and does not see that it is interdependent with all others, then it acts in a way that lacks consideration for others’ welfare. Others respond with hostility; this keeps happening in human history. For that reason the Buddha said that hatred is not conquered by hatred but only by love.

Such dynamics occur in our personal life as well. No matter how many people we harm in return to what we consider their harm to us, they will respond with further harm. When we think about it, our way of thinking is silly, “I’m going to harm you until you decide to love me.” Is that true? Not at all. In fact, just the opposite occurs. In our deep confusion and ignorance, our mind believes that anger and aggression will bring the peace and happiness we want. This doesn’t work on a personal level or on the international scene.

On a personal level, we harp on people we love, we nag them and criticise them, thinking that will make them change and then we’ll be happy. Does it work? No. But we keep doing it, and, it keeps not working. In fact, it creates quite the opposite effect, distancing us from the very people we care most about and want to be close to.

Furthermore, when we act with anger, other people lose respect for us and do not trust us. When I hear someone speak badly about another person, an alarm goes off in my mind. I know that one day that person will speak of me in the same way. If that person has the habit of speaking negatively of others, denigrating and lambasting them, someday he will find a reason to do that to me too, whether or not I do anything wrong. To prevent that from happening, I keep a polite distance from that person and do not confide in him.

When people talk badly about others behind their back, they’re saying more about themselves than they are about the people they’re disparaging. They are sending the message to other people that they’re not to be trusted, because others see how they treat people. It’s clear that their anger and the backbiting that it motivates bring an opposite effect from what they want. All of us seek friendship, but conquering foes and backbiting do not bring that.

Sometimes it happens that somebody misunderstood what we said, and many people are upset about what they believe we said. At those times, in order to dispel the commotion and misunderstanding, we should explain what we meant and tell our side of the story. We can do this without being angry and without saying nasty things about the person who spoke badly about us.

This happened to me a couple of years back. Somebody whom I considered a friend complained to one of my teachers that I had incited discord amongst his students. In fact, I had tried to pacify the gossip and bad feelings between the different factions. But, for this person, if you weren’t on his side, then you were against him. Thich Nhat Hanh faced something similar, but far worse, during the Vietnam War. He tried to pacify the discord between the two warring factions without taking sides, but both sides distrusted him because he wasn’t on anyone’s side and wanted to help both sides get along. In my case, another one of my teachers heard about this and said to me, “You should go to your other teacher and explain what the situation was, because he was given misinformation.” I’m very grateful to my teacher for giving me that advice. I went to my other teacher and without blaming the person who spoke ill of me, explained to him my view of the discord and what I had said and done.

This taught me an important lesson: I learned that when there is a misunderstanding and somebody is talking badly about you and other people are getting worked up about it, it is necessary to explain your side of the story without being defensive or blaming. It is important to clear things up as much as you can, especially if you do not want a bad relationship with your teachers. Normally, I would have just kept quiet and let it go. However, my teacher taught me that it is important to clear up misunderstandings and not just ignore them.

When people gossip behind our back or try to harm us, we should clarify the situation with others when it is appropriate to do so, without making the person who harmed us into an enemy. Ruining his reputation or taking revenge is of no benefit. One of the auxiliary bodhisattva precepts says that when people are upset with us, we should try to explain and ease their upset feelings. Still discriminating wisdom is necessary. Sometimes it’s better to let it go completely because it is not a big deal. If we try to explain, it may stir the conflict up unnecessarily. A great deal of sensitivity is needed to know how to act in various situations. But no matter what the circumstances, subduing our anger is necessary.

We subdue our anger and belligerence with the militia of love and compassion. If you want to stop having external enemies, then attack the hatred and resentment in your own mind with the militia of love and compassion. By pacifying our anger, external enemies and foes are subdued because we cease to conceptualise others in that framework. Instead, we view them as suffering sentient beings who want to be happy and free from suffering but are confused about how to bring that about. That’s how bodhisattvas look at the people who harm them. As Verse 17 said, put these people on the crown of your head, regard them as your spiritual master and bow to them with respect. See those people as kind for giving us the opportunity to cultivate patience. After all, we can’t practise patience with people who are nice to us; we need people who harm us to do that.

~Commentary by Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron