Dealing With The Past, Anger, Regret (Talk 3)

Dealing with Anger and Regret from the Past

Suggested Reading: The Untethered Soul (Michael Singer)

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Transcript

Dealing with the past,

Anger,

And regret.

What is the nature of anger?

Anger is the emotion that arrives when you are resisting what is.

When you have the feeling that what happened,

What was said,

What was done,

Was bad or unfair.

By definition,

You think things should have happened differently,

Gone differently,

Been said differently,

And that it should not have happened this way.

We deal here with anger of the past rather than anger of the present.

Anger of the present moment sometimes is necessary and helpful in that it has a small protective role in your life.

If you are sometimes a timid person and do not get easily angry,

And will not sometimes fight back or fight for things you desire,

Anger sometimes allows you to overcome any hesitancy and allows you to do so.

So if you were attacked by a bear or a wild animal or some other situation where you needed something to go beyond your timid self,

Anger will protect you in that sort of instance.

On the other hand,

Anger of the past,

Where something has already happened and you are not in any present danger,

Is not helpful,

Is pathological.

The pathology of holding on to anger is ingrained within our beings.

It is how we evolved.

There is a quote that went something along the lines of,

A man will travel halfway around the world to take his revenge,

But he will not travel across the street to pay back a favor.

We are hardwired in our beings to seek revenge.

The Buddha used the simile of anger being a honey-tipped poison arrow.

It was honey-tipped in the sense that there was something sweet about it,

For both two reasons.

The first was that there was an egoic pleasure in keeping anger alive.

By keeping your story of anger alive,

It fed your ego and your feeling of uniqueness.

So if you were treated badly by a cashier,

Or by a store,

Or by some other person,

You kept this anger alive because there was a uniqueness in it.

Not only did you want to hold on to your anger,

You wanted the world to know about it.

So you started a protest outside a store,

Or you wrote a hundred different reviews,

Or you badmouthed them to a hundred different people that you encountered,

With the idea that your ego is elevated when you have been wronged.

Being wronged makes you unique,

And the ego is about seeking your individual uniqueness.

Hence there is an egoic pleasure in keeping anger alive.

The second reason why there is the honey-tipped poison arrow is that we think revenge is sweet,

And it will alleviate your pain.

So the idea is that even though you are experiencing pain,

It will be worth it when you take your revenge.

And so therefore,

You hold on to your anger even though it causes you pain,

Because you will await a pleasurable moment of revenge.

There are two reasons why that in general does not work.

The first is that revenge does not stop the pain of the memory of what happened.

So if you lost something,

Or lost somebody,

Or a relationship was lost,

Or this was broken,

Or your house is destroyed,

It does not stop the pain of that memory of loss.

So that even if you took your revenge,

If you ever saw a picture of someone who reminded you of the person who caused you pain,

Or if someone said something that reminded you of that,

Or if you heard something,

Or you saw a newspaper clipping of them,

The idea is that your pain from the past would arise again.

This would be the case if the person you wanted to take revenge against was even already dead.

I have met people who,

I met someone who was 80 years old who was still angry about the way her mother was treated,

But this all happened about 60 years ago,

And everyone involved in that story has long since passed away.

And yet she kept holding on to that anger even 60 years later.

The second reason why revenge does not alleviate your suffering is that it does not bring back what was lost.

So whatever was destroyed,

Whatever happened,

Whatever was broken,

Whatever has changed,

It is not brought back once you take your revenge.

The idea is change has already occurred,

And it cannot usually be undone.

Something to realize,

And this goes back to our first talk of suffering,

Is that the source of your suffering is not due to the cause of your loss,

But a wrong view of impermanence.

So if you remember dependent origination,

Everything started with ignorance.

Ignorance was the start of all suffering.

So the wrong view of impermanence means that you thought something was permanent when in reality it was impermanent.

It was always going to be lost someday.

Someone was always going to die,

Something was always going to be broken,

Something would fall apart,

Something would change.

The idea is change is inevitable,

And your source of suffering is not from change,

Or it is not from the cause of that change.

Your source of suffering is from attachment to the past.

Something to realize is that anger is a state of suffering.

To hold a lot of anger is to be suffering.

You can ask yourself,

You can ask other people around you,

Do you know anyone who is very happy and at the same time very angry?

Have you met anyone who you thought,

That's someone who looks happy,

But all you encountered was anger?

Anger is a state of suffering.

The Buddha had a metaphor that holding on to anger was like holding on to a burning coal and expecting the other person to be burnt.

The other metaphor was holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

The idea is that anger causes your personal suffering,

And often the other person is not affected in the least way ever.

The content of the anger or the cause of the anger is irrelevant,

Meaning the uniqueness of why you are suffering or the uniqueness of your injustice is actually irrelevant to your pursuit of happiness.

It is as if I said to you,

This coal that I am holding is not just any coal,

It is a gold coal,

Or it is a silver coal,

Or it is a platinum or a brown coal.

The content of your coal does not matter.

What matters is that it is burning your hand as long as you hold it.

The idea is to let go of the coal regardless of how special the coal is because it is causing you suffering.

The nature of anger,

It has a quality of being blinding.

It prevents you from seeing,

It prevents you from sizing up and judging accurately.

It inflames you sometimes very quickly,

And it prevents you from thinking clearly.

If you have an argument with your friend,

The last thing you will think about and the thing you will only think about is that argument.

You may forget that you were friends for 30 years,

You may forget all the positive things that friend has ever done for you,

You may forget all your history,

The times where your friend came through for you.

Everything is forgotten,

And the only thing you are not blind to is that last argument that you had,

Or the last thing that they did,

Or the last whatever it was that caused your anger.

Even if you are angry at your parents,

You are going to forget all your childhood,

Where they raised you and fed you,

And all the things they have done to support you,

And all you will remember is the one thing about them that made you angry.

Thus,

Your anger has a quality of blinding you to all good things and other people.

When two people have an argument,

Or a discussion,

Or debate,

And both sides are angry,

Nothing can ever come of that.

No sort of progress can be made.

And generally when two people are angry at each other,

All they do is lash their anger at each other.

But if one person is angry and the other person is calm,

Then sometimes the calm can unwind the anger of the other person,

And now that person can become rational again.

So what is the way of dealing with anger?

In a word,

It is basically forgiveness.

Forgive the anger and let go of it,

And you will no longer suffer from it.

It is not revenge that stops your suffering from anger,

It is forgiveness.

This is where the Christian philosophy of turning the other cheek is actually quite relevant.

You are not forgiving and turning the other cheek for the sake of the other person.

You are doing it for the sake of yourself so that you can let go of your anger.

Understand that your forgiveness is for yourself just as much as it is for the other person.

Your forgiveness is a much more thorough curing agent than revenge,

Because if you forgive and truly forgive,

Even if the memory of that pain comes back,

You will not express anger or feel anger,

Even if you have lost something and it cannot be brought back.

Your forgiveness will relieve you of that pain.

The idea is that forgiveness works in a way that revenge does not.

So how do we go about finding forgiveness,

Especially if our anger is deep-rooted?

The first step is empathy.

Finding common ground between yourself and the other person.

Anger is always an extension of ego,

Of self versus other.

There is me and there is the other,

And that other is my enemy.

Anger at an external enemy is always an extension of your own ego.

Empathy lies in bridging that extension so that you and other are no longer separate.

Seeing yourself in other people and seeing other people in yourself.

The idea is to understand that a person is not just a person.

A person is a summation of all their experiences and their nature and their genetics and all those things.

Meaning we are a product of our environment as well as our choices,

As well as the people around us,

As well as all these other things which influence us.

Understand that that has a great deal in how we have become who we are.

If you came from a long line of alcoholics where the past 10 generations were all alcoholic,

What is the chance you would be a sober individual without a good struggle?

If you came from poverty and you were born in the ghetto and all the people around you were ignorant or dealt drugs or were criminals and all sorts of things and you had no access to jobs or schooling or good education or things like that,

What is the chance that you would turn out well?

If all your friends were gang members,

What is the likelihood that you would not also be caught within that?

If you grew up and all your family was full of racists or unethical people,

What are the chances that you would not become the same?

If on the other hand you were born into privilege,

You were born to great wealth,

Is it not likely that you would also gain arrogance from that?

Is it not likely also that you would also become attuned to wealth and would have difficulty with living with modest means?

Would it not also be likely that you would look at people with lesser means as lesser people?

Is it not likely that you would act in a more entitled way,

Thinking of your own self superiority because you had more material goods?

There are many interesting stories where you took someone who was poor and transported them into a situation where they were surrounded by rich and transported someone rich to an environment where they were surrounded by poor,

And you note that their characters change.

They change not because they were forced to,

They change because some of their character is a natural product of their environment.

And so the idea is to see yourself in other people and other people in yourself,

And that other people can change just as the way you can change.

And not to see differences in self and other.

So if I saw someone who was greedy and arrogant,

I would look at myself and say,

I am like that person.

I am also someone who possesses greed and arrogance.

It is simply a differential of size which separates us,

Meaning I am slightly less greedy and slightly less arrogant than that person,

But those things exist in me just the same.

If I see hateful or racist people or people who treat others poorly,

I understand that I also possess hatred.

I also have some ignorance in myself.

And it is only a degree of size which separates myself and that person.

Thus it is a matter of ego where I differentiate myself in them,

Saying,

Because I have less,

I am superior.

Because he has more,

He is inferior.

The next step after empathy is to find compassion.

The idea is understand that that other person,

Even if he is richer than me or has more resources or is in a better spot with more material goods,

Understand that that person suffers as well.

That all have their suffering,

Rich and poor alike.

We just suffer in different amounts.

Understand the nature of the human condition is to be bound by suffering.

And this is something that unites all of mankind.

It is helpful in the Socratic philosophical tradition to see the world as wise and ignorant rather than good and evil.

There is a maxim that people always do what they think is in their best interest,

But people do not always know what their best interest is because of their judgments.

Meaning if you see the good in the world as material goods and you steal my material goods because you think that is best,

It is because you have done that thinking that was best for you.

There is a maxim both in Stoic and Socratic philosophy,

People always seek what is best for themselves.

The error lies in knowing what is best for ourselves.

The problem is with measurement,

So that if I,

Alongside another person,

Gaze into the distance and try to measure the distance between two objects,

People with different abilities will be able to judge accurately or inaccurately.

And this weighing of what is good and what is bad for oneself,

Our errors lie along this trajectory.

But that all individuals always do what they think is in their own interests.

Even people who murder and kill,

They do so because they think that doing that is in their best interest because they either attach to life,

Have a desire to live,

Or desire some other thing which they think will bring them happiness.

The idea of much of the world is mistaken in what brings happiness,

And we chase it in all sorts of different ways,

And we each chase it in our unique way thinking we know the way to happiness.

Thus both wise and ignorant people both seek to benefit themselves,

But where some are some compared to others are erroneous in their judgments because they do not have the ability to weigh and measure as other people.

Therefore it is easier for one to forgive if you look at someone not as good or evil but as wise or ignorant.

If you saw a child misbehave and do something that was not wise,

You do not have a great anger or hatred of that child because you understand that that child is ignorant and does not know any better.

There is a great quote by Confucius that is,

The gentleman does not judge other people the way that he judges himself.

He judges other people according to their potential.

Meaning if someone is born with a low IQ or has very poor education or things like that,

You do not assume him to be genius and expect great things out of him.

If someone is born with a very high potential,

You may be much harsher and judge them more strictly because you expect greater things out of them.

Some people who are more amongst the common variety,

If they behave in a way that many common people behave,

You do not expect anything different because their potential may not have been very high to begin with.

The example that I remember that was given was if a teacher in the countryside had different needs,

If the son of the farmer who had very low overall potential,

If he got a C in his test,

You congratulated him and told him he did very well.

But if the son of a scholar got a B but was capable of an A,

You scolded him and said you could do more.

The idea is that if you understand wisdom and ignorance,

Do not judge people by the way you judge yourself,

Judge them according to your potential.

Another way which helps people deal with anger is a sort of optimism,

Of seeing the world through a kinder eye.

As we said in the first talk,

For the Stoics,

Your judgments and impressions,

These were one of the things that were within your control.

So how you see the world and how you look at it.

If you see the worst of people,

You will have much cynicism and anger and you will suffer accordingly.

So if someone is tailgating you while you are driving,

You could approach that in different ways.

You can see them as an enemy,

As a terrible person,

As an evil person,

And say these are terrible people who are tailgating me.

Or you could think to yourself,

Maybe there is a reason for it.

Maybe this person has a pregnant wife in the back seat and they're about to deliver labor.

Maybe this person is rushing home because they received a phone call from their school that something is wrong with their child.

Maybe this person is late for something very crucial and important.

If you assume the worst,

You may get into a road rage battle and you may have conflict and every time you have something that reminds you of that incident,

That anger will arise again.

If you assume the best and assume that it is not a bad person behind you,

But a person in need,

You pull aside,

You let them pass,

And you do not think about it again,

It does not bother you again.

The Buddha once said something about that one should let anger wash away as if it were a river,

So that it arises momentarily but is let go right away.

There is another maxim that is important to keep in mind and that is the way you see the world is the way that you will see yourself.

If you see the world in a cynical and a judgmental way,

It is also the way you will look at yourself.

They say that perfectionists,

Those who expect perfection from other people,

They also do the same of their self,

And they are the ones who punish themselves the most.

Remember what we said from Thoreau that the mind is one's worst master.

So how you look at other people,

How you judge them,

When you are done judging them,

You will judge yourself the same way.

If you are kind to others and see them in kind light,

You will also look at yourself in kind light.

You will look at all your own failings and shortcomings in a kind light.

And if you accept others as they are,

You may be able to accept yourself as what you are.

There is a line from the movie Run by Night where he said something like,

What you put out in the world is always what comes back to you,

But never went in the way that you expect.

In the same way that you deal with anger of the past towards someone else,

It is a similar way where you deal with regret,

Or shame,

Or humiliation,

Or any of these kind of things.

The idea is you,

Instead of feeling anger towards someone else,

When you have regret,

There is a kind of anger towards yourself.

And so you have to go through the same process.

Empathy of yourself,

Understanding that you are a product of your environment,

The people around you,

And all these other things.

And while you made choices that you may regret,

Understand that sometimes at the time you may not have been in a position to make a better choice.

Have empathy for yourself.

The next step again is to have compassion for yourself.

Understand that just like other people are suffering,

You are suffering as well.

And the last step,

Again,

Is forgiveness.

To forgive yourself for what happened,

Just as you forgave other people for what happened.

There is a very interesting analogy in the book,

The Untethered Soul,

The Untethered Soul,

Where he talks about the nature of anger and suffering and all the events that cause problems in one's life.

The idea is that any time you have an experience of intense pain,

Or humiliation,

Or shame,

Or loss,

Or betrayal,

The metaphor he uses was that a thorn gets stuck inside of you.

And this thorn causes you great pain.

And as time goes on,

You try to avoid anything which pricks the thorn,

Because it brings back the pain that once you had.

And the idea is that you wrap this thorn in sort of a bubble tape,

Thicker and thicker layers,

So that nothing can touch this thorn and cause you that kind of pain again.

In a similar way in people's regular lives,

They put up walls.

They put up walls so that they can't let people in,

Because letting someone in in the past has caused them great pain.

And so someone goes through life wrapping themselves in a great layer of bubbles,

And as a result of enough putting up enough walls or putting up enough bubbles,

They do not experience pain for a very long time.

And then one day something happens where something touches them,

And it makes its way past all that bubble tape,

All those walls,

And it reignites that pain again.

And you suddenly understand all those walls and all that bubble tape that you put around the thorn did not stop the pain.

And so the idea was,

Rather than ignoring it or trying to put bubbles around it or trying to not remember it by doing other things or distracting yourself,

The idea was to experience your pain and pull out the thorn and allow yourself to heal.

So you had to experience the pain of what happened,

And you had to bathe yourself in a sort of kindness and love and forgiveness,

And only by doing that could you allow that thorn to come out and allow yourself to heal.

The idea in that book was that you were supposed to go through your life and look at the thorns that have been put inside you from all your different life experiences,

And one by one pull them out and let them heal through a sort of self-love.

And the idea is that once you pulled out all your thorns,

You returned to the way you were when you were a child.

You weren't childlike in that you weren't naive and that you had no knowledge of the world,

But you were childlike in that you had no walls and you had an ability to trust and connect with others.

And the idea was that this was the happiest way to live,

To be able to make friends,

To be able to trust someone else,

And that this could not come about if you had too many thorns inside of you.

Your thorns had to be pulled out for you to experience the state of happiness.

The last thing I will mention is the usefulness of the loving kindness meditation.

For people who suffer from anger or who are angry at someone,

Sometimes this is a very useful practice to do.

The general gist of it is,

First you start by thinking of while you are meditating,

You think of someone you love,

And in your heart you try to generate a loving feeling towards them.

You do that for several minutes,

And then you think about someone you like,

And you try to generate and maintain that same loving feeling towards them.

Then you think about someone you are neutral towards,

Who you neither like nor dislike,

This might be just an acquaintance or someone you've seen before,

And you try to generate that loving feeling towards them.

The last is you think about an enemy,

Someone you hate,

Someone who's done something to you,

And then you try to generate that loving feeling towards them,

With the idea that it may help you forgive and move on with your life.

This will conclude my talk on anger and dealing with the past,

And regret.

Suggested reading is The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.

If you have benefited from this talk,

I ask that you do one good deed in return.

The deed is not bound by size,

But only bound by sincerity.

Thank you for listening.

Reviews

Great talk.
Thsnk you!

Very good thank you