In an earlier post, I made a remark about getting pissed off at people for being pretentious, and in response, Hansen said the following:

"[In] dealing with that anger it could be that there is something in there that you want, something in there that you don't want, and only you can discern what that is."

I've been trying to answer the question of what it is I want from anger, and I don't have a definite answer, but I think it's a really interesting idea, and I thought it would be interesting to start a thread about it.

So, do you all find Hansen's idea to be true?
Can you think of an example wherein you thought your anger was involuntary, but later discovered that there was some reason that prompted you into deciding to become angry?

Hi Brady

In my experience anger is always very simple.

If I want things to be a certain way, either consciously or unconsciously, odds are the way I want it to be does not reflect the way things are. When I do not get what I want, my desire is frustrated, and anger arises.

On a related note, depression seems to be repressed anger after I give up thinking I can change things, but still want them to be different to the way they are.

Anger is always based on a limited first person perspective which either ignores other perspectives (I am always right) or actively opposes them (I am right you are wrong).

Examples are:
I deserve the right of way (no one else does)
How dare you treat me like this (you are not free to be yourself)

To counter these problems try opening to other perspectives, seeing that your own perspective is always limited and never right in an absolute sense, giving up the illusion of control, and allowing things to be as they are.

Craig

That's it in a nutshell. I also experience it in what is probably a subcontext of that main process: to get attention, which I guess is also desire, for recognition/acceptance. A lot of my fantasies will often involve some kind of anger so that others can see I'm pissed, and then sympathise with my situation. So it can be an attention-seeking device too I think. Took me a long time to realise that one. It became particularly poignant on retreat.

I also think the energy of Anger tends to cover up a deeper sense of wounding (shame, guilt, betrayal). Perfect anger just feels like motivating energy and a very clear goal-oriented mind. Most of my anger tends to overshoot... and when I investigate, often there is a bit of hurt that I'm blocking/obscuring by defensively boosting the intensity level of the emotion. Took me a looooong time to figure that out!

One method worth looking at for approaching this is "The Work" of Byron Katie. Tough, but can be super effective.

Chris

I think this is pretty brilliant.




The advice you give works well for the examples you give, but the examples you give prefigure arrogance from the speaker.
What happens when you're angry for a more justified reason?

Examples:
Why am I always alone? I deserve a girlfriend/boyfriend.
Why do I have this debilitating disease? I deserve to be healthy.

I think your solution is still at least partially relevant for these examples, but it complicates the issue, doesn't it?

I become angry when my life becomes unmanagable.

My life is unmanagable because I have character defects.

I have character defects because I have not taken responsibility for myself.

I become dependent because it takes less effort.

Depression sometimes is learned helplessness.

We help each other become helpless because then we have someone to blame.

and on and on and on...

....just speaking from the first person singular.

p e a c e

h a n s e n

Hi Brady

This is a trifle longer than I set out to write, but here it is



What's the difference between arrogance and justification? Arrogance (to me) implies someone overly confident and closed to other perspectives. While feeling justified happens to provide confidence and results in being closed to other perspectives.

Think of a time when you felt arrogant, and think of a time when you felt justified. One comes from a first person perspective (thinking on your own behalf), and one comes from a third person perspective (thinking of how you must be coming across to someone else).

Let's keep perspective in perspective (hehe). It is just a complex set of thoughts. Promoting perspective to be more than just thought is where the problem begins. Does it seem to you that your perspective on the world IS the world or the way the world is?

Think about times you've been wrong and didn't know until later. I don't know about you but I'm frequently discovering I was wrong. I never know at the time, I thought something was true but it turned out to be false. Much of the time it may seem as though you are right. Does it ever seem as though you are wrong? I don't recall ever coming to that conclusion myself. The only times I think of myself as being wrong are from a third person perspective when I have been told I was wrong and I accepted that as true!

Another key ingredient for anger is the notion of importance. This is the want part of the equation. We want things because we have decided they are important to us. Without importance, anger does not arise. 'Should', 'need' and 'must' are watch words for detecting importance.

With importance, conscious thoughts become sticky and we can't ignore them so we can form a habit of acting upon them. Acting upon the things we take to be important makes them pass away.

With importance, subconscious thoughts are the beliefs which we react to almost unthinkingly when we get upset. These form a large part of our identity.



Deserve is another word for should. I 'should' have a girlfriend. Aside from it denoting its importance to us, what does this say exactly? That someone owes it to us? The universe? God? Our parents? Why would we deserve anything at all? Are those the people we should blame for a debilitating disease? Must we have someone to blame? Will that make it better or solve the problem?

It begins when the thought of a possibility occurs. I could have the girlfriend/boyfriend I do not have. I could be healthier than I am. Then importance arrives, and I start wanting things to be the way I have conceived of. The more I want it the more upset I become and the less chance I have at changing things. It's all happening in our imagination yet it's causing us real suffering.

That is a disempowering thinking pattern.

Consider an alternative. I can take responsibility for every decision I took leading up until this very moment, which is pretty much why I am where I am today. I have a choice to affect the future but that choice is now and I take full responsibility for making this choice myself under my own free will.

I cannot be healthier than I am right in this moment.
I cannot have a girlfriend/boyfriend right now because I do not have one.

If I want a girlfriend or boyfriend I can start taking chances - introduce myself to strangers, ask people on a date, try speed dating, whatever. What I can't do is change the past or make the present line up with my imagination.

Only right now do I have a choice. Right now I can accept things the way they are, and even make the most of them. If I am alone, it means I am free to meet someone new tonight. If I am unwell, it's better than being comatose or dead. If I am dying, I can make the most of every minute I have left. It may sound morbid but it's a simple fact of life that death is coming for every last one of us, whether we like it or not.

Mahatma Ghandi said "Be the change you want to see in the world"

Is there room for anger when we approach life in this way?

Craig

Hello Brady, you wrote:



I do my best not to get angry, but I'm married, and I'm on the internet and I read the news. I work for myself so I don't have the opportunities for rage at coworkers or bosses but I do encounter enough triggers in my day to day life if I want to be angry. Frankly I find anger too debilitating. Anger doesn't just destroy my present moment, it tends to disrupt later moments through a kind of anger hangover. I used to be able, when I was younger, to get angry without these toxic after effects. Perhaps I was just less sensitive.

Here's what I've found out:

1) Anger happens. There's no justification, no rationalization, no excuse that is actually useful. It is just an event. A sensation. An emotion. It arises and, if I don't use it as the fuel for a nice bonfire of a story, it passes away.

2) Anger contains real data about me. It's not very useful for me to use anger to analyze other people or other events but it is incredibly useful to help me to look at me. Anger teaches me about the three characteristics (because to experience it you must, at least momentarily, deny its unsatisfactoriness, its impermanence, and the fact that there's no real self that can feel angry).

3) While formal meditation is just wonderful, using meditative techniques to dissolve anger isn't really useful (unless you're so angry you will hurt someone else - in which case use anything you can). Reason is more useful.

4) For the reason above it is necessary to experience anger until you experience the toxic effects of anger. That shouldn't take long.

Anger is karma in action. It comes from karma, it creates karma, it is karma. Karma is dharma. It is the only real dharma you have, since it is rooted in your life, in your body, in your mind. Anger contains the seed of freedom. We are human. Humans experience negative, afflictive, or toxic emotions. These emotions, more perhaps even than the positive emotions, are the fuel, as Trungpa Rinpoche indicated, that light the torch of our own liberation. We cannot experience freedom from suffering unless we suffer. I'm not sure, if we are just plain happy, why we would want freedom from suffering. But if you are angry, you experience suffering, and you may consider yourself fortunate to be at the First Noble Truth, with the whole of the Path before you. Again (and, hopefully, again and again and again).

-Mark

That was one mighty fine post, Mr. Defrates. Nicely done.

thats exactly what i see. to experience anger, i must, at least momentarily, deny the fact that there's no real self that can feel angry - that is, i must 'be' someone who is angry in order for that anger to occur, as an event, as a sensation, in the first place.

seems obvious to me that the solution then is to simply not 'be' that someone to begin with.