how to deal with anger?

There is no dearth of philosophy/literature talking about why anger is a bad thing and we must deal with it, and musn’t do rash things that we will regret later, and so on. Its nice to hear about that when things are nice and everything’s fine, but when there’s actually a bad situation then an angry man dosen’t have time to think about rationality. Not idealistically but practically speaking, we may know what the right thing to do is (jaanaami dharmam…!), but the scope for making the right choice becomes less! 😛

I had written these notes many years ago, and it still makes sense. So I e-unearthed it since I came across a quote recently, so posting it here after some editing.

It must be noted that I am only a common man, a very ordinary fellow and I try to write here whatever is applicable for me in my everyday ordinary life, not for some idealist.

There’s a quote by Buddha, which I found to be amazingly pragmatic. It dosen’t say “don’t be angry” but rather tells you what the basic problem with anger really is… though how when we are angry and we want to harm someone else feeling that its perfectly justified, how the anger is actually harming oneself first…

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else — you are the one who gets burned.”

It took me a lot of time to understand that this was not merely a metaphor, a person literally burns with anger!

The below are some additional ideas…

We feel any negative feeling because we hold on to our past. If we just let go off our past… even the previous terrible hour… or the previous terrible minute… just let it go… its scary and doesn’t make sense because what made you angry was so important, and how can you just forget it so easily… but just let it go.

Something like while skydiving… a sky-diver before jumping into the open vastness below… has to let go of his grip on the plane! And then, he experiences the exhilaration of real freedom and lightness!

Then… the following makes sense only if you succeed in the above and are in a calmer state of mind:

face reality.

Accept the fact that whatever’s happened has already happened. It’s better than the other option where you waste hours together dreaming of how much better things could’ve be if it had not happened. Then see what’s the best thing that can be done about it now.

Buddha’s quote was an excellent aid in understanding  demystifying myths about Gandhi by Mark Shepard. (If you don’t get time to read the whole article, you could atleast just read the last para)

The quote that reminded me of the above post…

July 18, 2006

I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power that can move the world.
– Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi provides a perfect example of how anger can be harnessed. As a young, unknown, brown-skinned lawyer traveling in South Africa on business, he was roughly thrown from the train because he refused to surrender his first-class ticket and move to the third-class compartment. He spent a cold, sleepless night on the railway platform.

Later, he said this was the turning point of his life: for on that night, full of anger because of this personal injustice, as well as the countless injustices suffered by so many others every day in South Africa, he resolved not to rest until he had set those injustices right. On that night he conquered his anger and vowed to resist injustice, not by violence or retaliation, but through the loving power of nonviolent resistance, which elevates the consciousness of both oppressed and oppressor.

We may never be called on to liberate a people or lead a vast nation, but Gandhi’s example can apply in a small way in our own lives, when we decide to return good will for ill will, love for hatred, in the innumerable little acts of daily life.

Source: Eknath Easwaran’s Thought For The Day