Recently, while playing Scrabble (natch), my opponent said she was giving me a righteous thrashing (and she was). But this juicy phrase also calls to mind some of my internal struggles with Buddhist philosophy. (I can hear Shunryu Suzuki right now, telling me that the struggle is not the point. That figuring out the philosophy is not the point. Just sit. Just be now. Even this is part of the feedback loop.)
See, in Christianity, and, as far as I know, in Islam as well, there is such a thing as righteous anger. I'm not sure the phrase would make much sense to a Buddhist. I know of no tale of a Buddha clearing the counting tables in the temple, no Zen armies unleashed upon the enemies of God. Part of me likes this. But part of me doesn't want to let go of a not-so-little coal of burning rage. At the past. At injustice. At the oppressors. The argument is that the rage I feel is earned. The recipients are deserving. Their sins unforgivable. Frankly, it feels good to be mad sometimes.
Now, I can see some of the delusion inherent in this anger. After all, everyone who feels angry, at that moment, feels his target deserves it, though instead the real target may be oneself or person involved in a past interaction. Anger is misleading and opportunistic. Furthermore, delivering of righteous thrashings serves to perpetuate angry hurts. As we thrash the Iraqis, more and more Iraqis begin to nurse fantasies of thrashing us. (Forgetting, for a moment, that national identities are also delusions.)
I know that letting a feeling be and repressing it are two different things, but I am a little wary of doing the latter. I've spent many years with a chasm between brain and body and I am loathe to do anything to endanger the bridge. Indeed I hope the teachings of Buddhism can be a bridge.
And if they are not, they are not.
As is so often the case with tumultuous feeling, I have circled the thing here, without really nailing it down. I am unable to be more organized in this matter because I am just teasing these thoughts out here for the first time. So thank you for your patience, and I apologize for the mess.
My old method would be to deliver to myself a searing and righteous mental thrashing for being so unfocused. But maybe I can leave it unresolved, and allow these seemingly conflicting feelings to coexist until they reconcile. (Like two cats meeting each other for the first time.)
3 comments:
Apparently Buddhas can appear in wrathful states, at least in Tibetan tradition. The "usual" Buddhas radiate bliss and tranquility. But sometimes we are so trapped in our ignorant habitual ways that Buddhas need to appear in a so-called wrathful state to kick us out of the cycles we are trapped in. (Somewhat related: I know a lot of alcoholics view their alchoholism as a blessing in disguise as it led them to a life which they feel is happier than if they had never been forced to confront and overcome such darkness.) So I guess anger is okay according to Buddhism, provided it is used for the benefit of sentient beings. For me anger is often simply a poison. It ends up helping no-one and harming many.
This all brings to mind the Vietnamese Buddhist monk who set fire to himself and was burned alive during the Vietnam war. According to Thich Nhat Hanh there was something of a schism among Vietnamese Buddhists during the war between those who wanted to remain aloof and those who wanted to actively participate, sometimes violently. This monk came to the conclusion that the best way he could help the situation was to draw attention to it by setting himself on fire. I suggest that this monk had quite a bit of anger, but also frustration and sadness. He perceived that killing others would accomplish nothing.
Well, Beckett, you don't have a monopoly on diffuse rambling posts!
I have to agree with vacuous about anger. It almost never improves things. Oddly, the few times I've felt truly righteous anger, i.e. turned out to be justified, are the times I've expressed my anger the most mildly. The many other times when my anger was a result of a skewed perception or some other psychic fault, I got much angrier and hence felt much worse afterwards.
It is useful for me, too, to note that there is a difference between forcefulness and anger.
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