The Roots of Anger,
Irritation,
And Annoyance Anger and rage get a great deal of attention now.
Algorithms bypass civility,
Politeness,
Generosity,
Kindness,
And go straight to rage as the easiest way to grab attention.
Responses that include angry,
Unchecked,
Unexamined words are simply another way to practice anger.
No matter what the other person said or wrote,
Our work is choosing another way.
And though it may seem new at this time in our country,
Our history,
It has been ever thus.
If we step back a bit,
We might notice irritation,
Impatience,
Or annoyance came first,
But we were just not paying attention.
They are often initial steps on the path to anger,
And it can be helpful to trace the roots of those responses to childhood.
To look at how the people in our family of origin,
Their friends,
Our uncles,
Our aunts,
Reacted to situations and people they found difficult,
Because we learned from them.
My extended family was full of feisty European immigrants struggling to adapt,
Laboring and working-class people who pinched pennies and stretched dollars to survive the depression.
They tried to suppress anger at their situation,
But sarcasm was their release,
And I quickly learned that a sharp,
Funny comment got a lot of positive attention.
I became the person in high school and college who made people laugh with biting observations about other people,
Better them than me.
I did not want to be the object of that nastiness.
I wanted to be the person delivering the barb,
Not the one receiving it.
But when I was introduced to meditation in my 20s,
I was already questioning this way of speaking and being.
Teachings about right speech,
One step in the very practical Noble Eightfold Path,
As well as a community of people who did not encourage that behavior,
Helped me notice what was going on inside my mind,
What kind of thoughts I was generating,
And begin to address them.
But I didn't suddenly jump from irritation and sarcasm to equanimity and calm.
Those behaviors were conditioned in childhood,
And changing them required my attention.
And in the last few years,
In a social and political climate of seemingly unbridled rage and anger from politicians,
Influencers,
Podcasters,
And more,
I'm aware of my annoyance,
Aware of it increasing,
Looking for an outlet,
Wanting to join in,
As norms of civil discourse fall apart.
Irritation and annoyance bump along in our lives under the surface.
We may be vaguely aware of them hovering in the background,
But we don't pause and bring them into the light of awareness,
So that when we're in a situation that triggers us,
In our car,
Stuck in traffic,
Or standing in a long,
Slow checkout line,
We explode.
It might not be yelling,
It might be impatience with whoever's nearby,
Or we create an angry story in our head and embellish it as we get closer,
Then take it out on the cashier,
When it's finally our turn.
For me,
The car is ground zero.
As soon as I leave the driveway,
I know where I am internally by how quickly I want to swear.
But when I yell in the car,
Something I would never do outside of it,
I'm just practicing irritation and impatience,
And that makes me a dangerous driver.
We underestimate these unchecked feelings.
We think they're trivial.
For myself,
When I'm irritated with people and don't pause to sense what's happening in my mind and body,
I fall back on conditioned responses.
When I'm an impatient driver,
I'm sure I know exactly who that other reckless driver is.
Without meeting them,
I'm sure they are a certain gender or race or age.
I make assumptions based on the vehicle they're driving or the neighborhood I'm driving through.
It's all illusion.
There's nothing true about any of it.
They are conditioned thoughts and prejudices generated by an unexamined and unrestrained mind.
As the Buddha said in the Adhānta Sutta,
Monks,
I know not of any other single thing that brings such woe as the mind that is untamed,
Uncontrolled,
Unguarded,
And unrestrained.
I love the language of the ancient suttas,
But the following story,
Attributed to Thich Nhat Hanh,
Is maybe a more contemporary way to make the point.
The teacher says,
You are holding a cup of coffee and someone bumps into you and you spill the coffee.
Why,
The teacher asks,
Did you spill the coffee?
The students immediately reply,
Because someone bumped into me.
No,
Says the teacher,
You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup.
If it was tea,
You would have spilled tea.
Whatever is in the cup is what will spill out.
So when life comes along and shakes you,
Whatever is inside will come out.
We can pretend we're calm until we get rattled.
What's in our cup?
When life gets tough,
When the situation gets difficult,
What spills out?
When we say the sarcastic thing or do the impatient thing,
We unconsciously train the mind to allow those things to spill out.
The universal practice for training the mind is pausing.
Pausing to notice the space between ourselves and irritation and annoyance.
In a separate guided meditation,
Pausing with Irritation and Annoyance,
We practice pausing with your situation.
I hope you'll look for it and listen and practice with me.
Thank you for listening.
If this talk was helpful,
Please rate and write a review.
It helps others find my work,
And I very much appreciate it.
Be well.
