Thanissara on “Don’t Worry, Be Angry: Buddhist Wisdom on Anger”

A reflection on practice by Other Teachers & Folks We Value

It is important to feel upset, remorse, and anger at what humans have done. It means we have a conscience. In Buddhist understanding, the force of conscience is the guardian of the world.

It is important to let ourselves feel outrage rather than sanitize this raw emotion with spiritual speak or shame it as ignoble. Yet if we harbor or act out of anger, it almost always poisons us, diminishing our credibility and harming others. The late Thai Buddhist teacher Ajahn Chah recommended we “catch emotions in the net of mindfulness, and then examine them before reacting.” Anger is a warning that something is invading and overwhelming us. If we don’t take heed, disorder and destruction will follow.

Holding onto anger, however, is not sustainable. There is a fine line between feeling anger and being blinded by its energy. Anger can sometimes arise when we activate early patterning. This kind of upset needs careful tending.

Anger as a healthy response to injustice has a different quality. It is clarifying. In Buddhist teachings, particularly in Vajrayana Buddhism, so-called negative emotions mask pure essential energy. Once the coarser emotion is transmuted, the finer energy is distilled.

Anger is traditionally thought to be close to wisdom. When not projected outward onto others or inward toward the self, it gives us the necessary energy and clarity to understand what needs to be done.

If we prematurely condemn or repress anger because we think it unworthy to feel, then we will fail to transform it. The fullness of its embodied energy will remain unavailable to us. We won’t be able to protect what needs to be protected; we will let what is most precious slip away.

Thanissara started Buddhist practice in the Burmese school in 1975. Inspired to ordain after meeting Ajahn Chah, she spent 12 years as a Buddhist nun. She has facilitated meditation retreats internationally for the last 30 years & has an MA in Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy Practice from the Karuna Institute in the UK. With Kittisaro, she co-founded Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat in South Africa & Sacred Mountain Sangha in California. Her latest book is Time To Stand Up, An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth.

Read full article in Tricycle 2017.