Meditation On Factors That Cause Anger To Arise

Ven. Thubten Chonyi offers a meditation on the breath, followed by an analytical meditation on an encounter that caused you to become angry.

Reflect on the following queries:
- What were you thinking and feeling at the time?
- How did you describe the situation to yourself as it was happening?
- How did your interpretation of the event affect your experience?
- How did your attitude affect what you said or did?
- How did your actions and words affect the situation?
- Was your view of the situation realistic or biased?
- How could you have viewed the situation from a broader perspective?
- Would that have changed your experience?
- Look at forgiving yourself and the other person, both driven by the wish to be happy and free of suffering, following habits.

The meditation closes with the conclusion to be aware of how your view of a situation affects your experience and actions.

Transcript

So, Take your mind now to your breath. And what does that mean? It means that we're paying attention to the breathing, To the sensation, To the movement. We can be very happy that we are breathing. And also be aware that we are all sharing the same air, Connected in this most subtle way. Breathing in, Breathing out. And in the same way, We breathe in and breathe out the same air of every living, Breathing being on this planet. It's just one of the ways that we're interconnected at quite a profound level. You can think about what it is that brought you here this morning, What your own personal motivation or wish or aspiration might be. And we can extend that by recalling that all around the planet, People are having joyful times and extremely painful times. There are conflicts in more places than I've been aware of in my lifetime. So, While there is definitely a peace here in this room and also in many places, There is also much ongoing pain. So, As we spend this time together exploring our own minds, Resting in a place of peace and a community of like-minded people, We can also think of those living beings that we can't see, Those we know, Those we don't know, Those we care about, Those we don't like at all, Actually, Imagining that through our practice today, They also will benefit. And wishing for them, As a result of our practice, To cultivate their own beautiful qualities, To have the opportunity, The circumstances, And that we can be a part of that in developing and growing our own good qualities to be of benefit to all beings. So, Hold that thought for a moment. And then we'll just take a few minutes to be with the breath. When you find your mind wandering, Going somewhere else, Just when you notice, Bring it right back. You can be aware of the sensations throughout your whole body. And so, Our topic is working with anger. And last month, Venerable Sangye Khadro gave a talk on some of the factors that make anger arise. We talked about the fact that we have seeds of anger in our mind stream. They're not always there, We're not always angry, But the seed, The potential, Is present in our mind stream. And when the right conditions arise, So does that seed of anger, Which we express in various ways. We also talked about the emotional, Emotional, And mental habits that we have that tend us toward anger, Or how we react to anger. But these are actually something we can learn about, Know about, And change, If we wish. And we also began to touch on the fact that it is how we think. Often our own ideas of what we interpret is going on that either trigger or feed the anger that's in our mind. So that's what we're going to look at today. Just a demonstration to see how that works. So we'll start by bringing to mind an encounter we had recently, Fairly fresh if you can, That was resulted in an angry exchange with someone. Or even if you didn't express it, If you were angry and it was stayed with you. But a recent incidence where anger was really present, And yeah, Really present in your mind and in your experience, With someone else. And for the moment, Just find one, See what comes up. And as you bring the situation to mind, Try to turn your attention inward to what you were thinking and feeling as this was taking place. Not what the other person said, Not what they did, But looking at your own inner experience. What were you thinking? What feelings were coming up? See if you can identify how you were describing the situation to yourself as it was happening. What was the inner narrative? And can you see how did the way you describe the situation to yourself influence what you experienced? Again, We're keeping this to our own experience, Not what the other person is saying or doing. What we were telling ourselves. And how that influenced us. And so then let's take a look at how that story or how our attitude affected what we said and did in that situation. And then how did the words we said, Our actions, Affect the situation? And how did the other person respond to what you said or what you did? So, Stepping back and get a wider view, We can ask ourselves, Was the view I was holding realistic? Meaning, Was I seeing all sides of this situation? Or was I mostly looking through the lens of I, Me, My, And mine? Sometimes our mind wants to fight back on this one and say, Yes, I was right. But I was right. And you may have been. But that's not the question. So think how you might have viewed the situation if you had had a broad mind and been able to see all 360 degrees of what was going on. Check when you think in that broader way, Is there still anger presence in that situation in your mind? I mean, There may still be anger. There may be not. But imagine how your experience might have been different, How your experience could be different, If you were able to hold the view of everyone in that situation. How would that change your experience? So, We can take this a step further, Too, And look at forgiving ourselves and forgiving the other person as a possibility. So, If we examine what was going on, What we were thinking, What we were telling ourselves, What we did, We can also acknowledge that, Wow, I was just trying to be happy. Really, Or not suffer. That was the motivating factor underneath all of it. And the self-focused attention was strong out of that desire. And our habits, And so forth, Led us to follow through like we always do. So, It's a chance to forgive ourselves for that habit. And to recognize that the other people, Other person, Was also driven by their own wish to be happy, Free of suffering, Following their seeds, Following their habits, Just like me. And so, Seeing if we, Too, Can put down, Not condoning wrong behaviors, Not that, But simply recognizing that we were coming from habitual places with a narrow view, And wishing to put down the anger that brought about the situation. Just wishing that for ourselves and for the other person. And so, The conclusion we can draw is to determine, To try to pay attention to what we're telling ourselves. How are the stories that we tell really influencing how we experience the world? To be aware of it. And through that awareness, We start to see the habits. And can open to the ideas for how to change how we're thinking to support our own happiness and that of others. So, Think about that for a few minutes. And just from this little exercise, We can determine and actually feel empowered to cultivate beneficial and realistic ways of seeing our lives and our experiences. So, We'll dedicate in this session. So, What that means is we're going to dedicate the merit, Is how we say it. What that means is that we acknowledge that it's been a very, I hope fruitful, But definitely a virtuous activity to take a look at our own minds and see what's going on and how we can grow ourselves. And so, In doing that, We create a lot of positive energy in ourselves, Positive energy in the group. And so, We want to share that. We'll share that positive energy with the same expansive number of people that we wanted to practice for the benefit of. And so, By that may conflict motivated by anger in some way, Some way be diminished by our practice. Most importantly in ourselves.