Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Reclaim Your Breath"

Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Reclaim Your Breath"

"When the Buddha talks about killing anger, he doesn’t say you should feel guilty about having anger. The Buddha doesn’t lay guilt trips on anybody. He simply reminds you that it’s not in your best interest to let the anger take over. In his words, if you can gain victory over your anger, it’s worth a lot more than victory over other people. One of the problems that can come up when we hold our anger in check is that we feel we’ve lost out to the other side. If we hold the anger in check unskillfully, it can lead to depression. So we’ve got to learn to think more strategically around the anger.

The wise strategy goes in two directions. One is looking at your assumptions. Which of your assumptions have been violated? When you can identify it, then you have to ask yourself, in all fairness, is it a good assumption? Sometimes it is; sometimes it isn’t. If you can begin to see that the assumption was unrealistic, you’ve got to turn around and deal with it. Ask yourself where it came from, why you’re holding onto it when it obviously causes a lot of problems. But if the assumption seems clear and aboveboard, then the next question is how do you skillfully apply that assumption, given that the situation you’re presented with doesn’t meet the standards set by your assumption? Is right now the time to speak, or do you want to wait a little while later? Is right now the time to act, or do you want to wait until later? 

And what would be the most skillful thing to say or do?

This is where it’s good to live around people who’ve learned to bring their anger under some control, who can deal with difficult situations, can deal with injustices, can deal with all the problems that really need to be dealt with in the world, in an effective way, without letting the anger take over. You can see from their example how it’s done. If you can’t live around people like that, try to read up on how the Buddha dealt with difficult people. Read up on other cases of how to deal with difficult people. Just because you’re getting some control over your anger doesn’t mean that you have to be a doormat, but it is important that you’re very clear that winning a victory over yourself is more important than winning a victory over others.

In this case, you’re winning a victory over your anger. You’re not losing out when you’re not showing or expressing your anger. You can think of it as a strategic move. The less you show your anger, the fewer people will know where your buttons are. They won’t be able to press them so easily. There are a lot of ways in which life is like a poker game. You don’t want to show your hand. You keep it close to your chest, and you want to keep a poker face so that no one else can read you.

So it’s not just out of general niceness that you want to control your anger. There are times when you’ve got to think strategically, and you can’t let your anger show — because it is a kind of weakness."

Antony Woods shared a link to the group:

Thanissaro Bhikkhu's Dhamma Teachings Pure & Simple.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/kee/pureandsimple.html

21st November, 2022