Strong Against Anger & Fear

One of the lessons I learned from Ajaan Fuang is that it is possible to be right and wrong at the same time. In some cases, it’s a matter of taking a teaching that’s usually right and applying in the wrong way. For example, there’s the teaching on not-self: The right way to apply it is to learn to stop identifying with things that are unskillful. The wrong way to apply it is to deny responsibility in cases where you really are responsible.

Another way to be right and wrong is to be right about something but emotionally wrong. For example, when you’re angry about something that really wrong—people are being treated unjustly or you’ve been treated unjustly—if you get angry about it, you’re not going to help the situation. This is why you have to separate the issue from your anger, because anger is going to tell you that when you’re angry, you see things more clearly, black and white are really sharply defined. But the situation itself may require a more nuanced approach and you just make it worse by your sharp definitions. So you have to take the anger apart: Where is its allure? What do you like about the anger?

Usually there’s a sense of self-righteousness that goes with being right. There’s also the sense of power that comes with anger. You break through some of your shame and your compunction. You break through your fear of other people and you feel that you’re justified in doing things that are really harmful.

But, as the Buddha points out when he talks about speech, people can say things that are true or untrue; useful or useless; say it with a heart of goodwill or a heart filled with hate. Some people say hateful things that are untrue. But that’s nothing out of the ordinary. So you have no extraordinary rights to respond in ways that go against the precepts, that go against the wise application of what’s going to really be helpful.

This means you have to separate the anger from the situation. Realize that if you want to deal with the situation properly, you have to get that anger under control. This requires that you see it as not-self. You can step back from it and take it apart.

This is why it’s useful to think about the different kinds of fabrication that go into an emotion. There’s the way you breathe, there’s the way you talk to yourself, the images, the perceptions you hold in mind. You have to realize that you can breathe in different ways, you can talk to yourself in different ways, you can hold different perceptions in mind.

I was listening to a “Dhamma talk” a while back where someone was saying that if a strong emotion comes, you’ve just got to ride with it. You have no choice. Once it’s in motion, you’re committed to it. But the whole purpose of Buddha’s teaching is to alert you to choices that you didn’t know before—they might not have occurred to you. You can step out of your emotions. You can deal effectively with a bad situation but without anger. In fact, you deal with it more effectively without the anger.

So you have to learn to see through the way the mind talks to itself about how anger is good; it gets things done; you’ll show your power… Whatever the allure may be, whatever the rationale may be, you’re going to see through it.

The same goes for fear. There are lot of things to be feared. The world is topsy-turvy right now, and there are people who are intentionally making it topsy-turvy. They want to make you afraid and angry so that you’ll do stupid things. You’ve got to realize, again, that there are causes for fear, but when has the world ever been without causes for fear?

Think of that image of the four mountains: King Pasenadi comes to the Buddha in the middle of the day, and the Buddha asks him, “Where are you coming from? What have you been doing?” King Pasenadi, in a very amazing display of frankness, says, “All the typical things of someone who is obsessed with power.”

The Buddha says, “Suppose that someone reliable comes from the east, saying that there’s a huge mountain moving in from the east, crushing all living beings in its path. There’s another reliable person coming from the south, saying that there’s a mountain moving in from the south; another from the west; and another from the north: altogether, four mountains moving in. With this horrible, unavoidable destruction of life, what would you do?”

The king says, “What else could I do, except focus on the practice of the Dhamma?”

Then the Buddha says, “In the same way, I tell you: Aging, illness, and death are rolling in, crushing all living beings in their path. What are you going to do?”

“What else can I do but focus on the practice of the Dhamma?”

This is our refuge—it’s called the strength of conviction—realizing that the most important thing you can focus on is being skillful in your thoughts, skillful in your words, skillful in your deeds. You maintain that conviction, and you see that it’s your treasure. The virtue you maintain, the discernment you develop—these are all treasures. They’re not the kind of treasure that the kings can take away from you, dictators can take away from you, fire can burn, or water can wash away. The only way you can lose them is if you throw them away yourself.

So you have to be heedful. That’s the basis of all the strengths the Buddha recommended—conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment: They’re all based on heedfulness. That’s a point that’s not stressed often enough.

We hear so much about interconnectedness and the joy we should find in being interconnected—that somehow, if we appreciate our interconnectedness, we will be nicer to one another. Whereas the Buddha pointed out that the interconnections we have are more like feeding. That was the image he used to introduce the topic of causality—that all beings subsist on food. Without food, we couldn’t live. We’re eating all the time. That’s the nature of causality: We’re feeding on one another. That’s the nature of clinging: We’re feeding.

So our interconnections are not necessarily all that good. And the idea of interconnectedness is not a good guide to what should and shouldn’t be done. After all, complex systems don’t work for the benefit of all their members. Heedfulness is much better guide because it gives you strength to do the right thing. You realize that what the Buddha said is true, in terms of the truth of karma, the truth of rebirth, the truth of how to put an end to suffering. The emphasis in each case is on what you’re developing from within.

The media telling us that the important things are being done right now by somebody else, someplace else. But the Buddha’s telling us that the important things are what we’re doing right here, right now. As long as we maintain our virtue, our concentration, discernment, we keep ourselves safe and strong.

Again, with King Pasenadi: Once he’d met the Buddha, he started thinking about spiritual things. You get the impression that he wasn’t all that spiritual beforehand. He came one day and said, “You know, those people who have an army”—what they called the four-fold army in those days, cavalry, infantry, foot soldiers, archers—“if they don’t adhere to the precepts, they leave themselves unprotected. Whereas those who do hold to the precepts—even if they don’t have the army—are well-protected.” The Buddha affirmed that, yes, that was right. Our protection lies in our good karma. Our protection lies in the training of the mind. So don’t lose focus. That’s where your strength is, where your strength can be.

Think about this to give yourself more motivation, develop more of your powers of mindfulness, concentration, discernment. That’s how you become strong. So even though there are dangers outside, the typical ways of dealing with those dangers—through force of arms—are not the ones that are the most effective. The Buddha’s approach is counterintuitive in a lot of ways, but it’s counterintuitive only to our greed, aversion, and delusion. When you see things clearly, you see that he is really right. If you think that your wealth lies in things that people can take away, you’re constantly going to be afraid.

As for the fear of death, you’ve got this body that dies. That’s its nature. It could have died as soon as we were born—we’re fortunate that it didn’t. So when the body is not yours, when it’s not dependable, you’ve really got to depend on the mind. Make your mind a dependable mind. That way, you’ve a lot less to fear out of the world. After all, the body can go at any time. There may be a little clot developing someplace. It starts moving around and gets lodged in your brain, gets lodged in your heart, gets lodged in your kidneys—and that’s it.

Ajaan Lee has a nice passage where he talks about how easy it is to die. So while you’re living in this body that’s subject to aging, illness, and death all the time, you want to keep your focus on what you can do in training the mind so that it’s right and uses its rightness in the right way; so that anger doesn’t take over, fear doesn’t take over; so that you’re strong in your conviction—because once you’ve got the strength of conviction, the other strengths follow easily. Without the conviction, the other strengths fall apart.

So be convinced in the power of your actions because that’s what conviction in the Buddha’s awakening really means*—for us*. Our actions have more power than we might have suspected, and we can use that power for good or ill, but the Buddha left behind some good advice on how to use it for our best interests.

When you have that conviction, then all the other strengths follow. When you’re strong inside like this—that’s when you have a strength, a wealth that’s really yours, even though, ultimately, you let it go, when you get further advanced in the path.

For the time being, though, don’t apply the concept of not-self to this—the ability to develop your strengths. These strengths are yours—in other words, only you can create them and only you can throw them away. Now, there is that uncertainty that you might throw them away sometime. You’ve to be very careful, very heedful, very mindful. But as far as your safety right now, this is the best you’ve got. So, hold on to it as best you can.