Good morning, everyone. I want to talk today about practicing with anger. And we had a talk last month by Mike Evans, a very fine talk about this, very different from the talk that I'm going to give this morning. But Mike talks very personally about his issues in process with anger, and talked a lot about it in terms of fear and relationship with fear and anger. So unfortunately, that talk was not recorded. Oh, are we recording this one? We are. Good. Anyway. And also some of you may be here expecting Asian Nancy Easton, who was originally scheduled to get a contact this morning about Xander's end of forms.

[01:07]

Asian's dad passed away this week, so she's back east with her family. So. I'm here and I'm for those of you don't know, I'm talking waiting with her driving teacher and she's dragging And again, I want to talk about anger and practicing with anger and how that works. But I want to start with the five skandhas, sometimes translated as advocates. So we talk about, we chant the five skandhas in the Heart Sutra, which we often chant. And these are said to be all of the components of are experienced. Everything is made up of these five standards. And they are forms, sensations, perceptions, formations, and consciousness.

[02:08]

The second one is what I want to talk about today. Sensations sometimes translated as feelings, forms, feelings, perceptions, impulses or formations, and consciousness. So this second skanda is not about feelings as in emotions, although emotions are part of our practice too. And so when we talk about all of this relationship to zazen and how our zazen experience and practicing zazen, subsiding over some period develops intimacy. Actually, I would say with all the five senses, but particularly I want to talk about the second one. So this is not the only sensations and sense of emotions. This is as early Buddhist psychology and Abhidharma says that there is always when we have consciousness, when anyone has consciousness, there is always

[03:17]

some object of consciousness, something that we are attending to. And so in this sense, the second skanda, the sensations, the first two are responses. So whatever the object is, we either have positive, negative, or neutral responses. So I wanna talk about the negative responses today because these three aspects of our awareness, of our awareness whenever, can become problematic. They become when in extreme, three poisons, three hate and delusion. So our practice, is about not holding on to anything. So our precepts, in our 16 precepts, our precept about anger is not harbored in our will.

[04:25]

So it's just natural. It's part of the nature of consciousness. Then we do have positive, negative, or neutral responses. But these negative responses, which often take the form of anger, aversion at least, things we don't like, we wish to push away. This can be anger, but our precepts, our guidance for how to practice with this is to not harbor ill will, to not hold on to anger. to not turn anger into hatred or grudge or resentment. And this is difficult. So one of the gifts of plaza practice, one of the many gifts, is that we become intimate with our own responses, positive, negative, and positive.

[05:37]

So positive responses can be turned into greed or lust or trying to grasp things, which is not helpful. So this is about how we recognize this self, how we recognize our own responses and how do we not react to these situations. And our ancient linguistic trauma is that we do have habits and patterns of reacting. And in various ways, each of us, in our own way, have, when we see, when we have some negative reaction, there's something we don't like. We might have some reactive habit, habit pattern of turning that into anger.

[06:44]

So our practice is to be familiar, to be intimate with our own patterns of reaction. And then how can we turn that into a positive response? An aware response based on The gift of Zazen is some space around our reactions, some space where we can, and again, when we become familiar and intimate with our own patterns of reaction, our own habits of reaction, we can see what it's like when we get angry. We can feel that. We can start to know, oh, yeah, I'm angry about that. And then, you know, sometimes it takes a long time. We have habits from childhood, maybe from even before childhood, from past lives and from family patterns of reacting negatively and getting angry or trying to grasp onto positive things and greed.

[07:57]

So our practice is about Getting to know that, getting to know you, getting to know ourselves, and not reacting. So harboring ill will is when we have some angry response, negative response, and we turn that into grudge or resentment or even hatred. This is a huge problem in the world, as you know. How to not harbor or will. How to not make a hard word. How to not hold onto it as some precious, oh, I'm angry about this or that. And get ourselves up about it. We have those patterns of reacting. And sometimes this precept is translated as not get angry.

[09:00]

But again, every Dharma, Buddhist psychology teaches us we do have positive, negative, and neutral responses to things. I like vanilla ice cream. I have a positive response to it. I don't have to go out and try and buy all the vanilla ice cream in Chicago for myself. I like chocolate, but I don't like chocolate ice cream for some reason. It's just me. I know a lot of you like chocolate ice cream. But, you know, that's not that I want to destroy all the chocolate ice cream in Chicago. How do we not react in some extreme way? So to not get angry means to not harbor ill will very, very quickly. How do we become so familiar with our patterns of negative response that we see through them and don't make them into a thing?

[10:07]

One way to see this is to not take things personally, even though, of course, we have strong habits of taking things personally. How do we see through those habits? This is where the intersection of That practice in Western psychology is very helpful because Western psychology, therapy, whatever, you know, helps us, also shows us to see through these patterns, to get to know our own patterns and to not react to them. So there are antidotes. There are practices that we can do to help not overreact to negative responses against. So there are these attitudes. And these are practices we can actually do and think about and sit with and

[11:12]

help with it. So one of the most important is patience. This is one of the, and we have this list of 16 precepts. We also have these six or 10 transcendent practices that are needed. And one of those is patience, tolerance, and that means for ourselves to be patient with our own intakes. The way to study patience is to see, when do we become impatient? When do we want to lash out when we have some negative response? How do we be patient? There are all kinds of everyday examples of negative responses. Somebody cutting a head in line or somebody cutting us off in traffic. We get very upset and angry, you know, at this kid. Uncontrolled, this could turn into road rage and be very destructive. Road rage is an example of how it will go well.

[12:14]

Now you will be patient and tolerant, tolerant, positive, negative, and neutral responses. This is natural practice. We can focus on patients. but again, just to really study when we do become impatient because that happens, you know, just as we have negative reactions or aversion to things or positive or options. How do we study our impatience? Somebody cuts in line, cuts ahead of us in traffic. It's very easy to get upset. Of course, there's lots of other examples, but those are everyday examples. I used to think, well, maybe that person is rushing to the hospital because somebody loves events in the hospital.

[13:20]

I try to think of, I try to make excuses for those people who I might respond to with anger and see that we don't really know the whole situation, what's going on up in there. So patience is very helpful in terms of not turning our negative responses to some reactive development of anger, will, and hatred. There are other antidotes. One of them is the practice of insight. This is the sixth part of it. Sometimes translated as wisdom, but it really, it also could be translated as just to see, clearly, to look in, to look into what's going on. And this is very important while harboring a will.

[14:22]

What is the situation that allows us to have these negative feelings behind us? And then... Is there some way in that situation to respond positively, to be helpful? So this brings up another requirement, the skillful means. How do we skillfully take care of our own anger and the anger of others in the world, of course, and not react, not turn into a harbor of ill will and hatred? These are very practical aspects of our practice, our basic bodhisattva practice. then all become clear in zazen. And skillful means knowing, trying to respond helpfully to some situation that has provided us the opportunity to see our own anger.

[15:26]

How do we respond skillfully? What is skillful means? Well, now sometimes we can think about situations I remember thinking about what would be a skillful way to respond as opposed to trying to have a car race for the person to cut us off at a magnet. But skillful means it's also a matter of patience and immediate response. What is skillful? What would be helpful in a situation? How do we respond? How do we do something helpful? Sometimes we don't know. In fact, most of the time, we don't know what to do. We respond helpful to some situation that has allowed us to feel anger, heartbreak, or grief, start grasping.

[16:28]

How do we pay attention to these things? Sometimes skillful means just sitting, silent, still. Paying attention, though. So Zazen is not just don't sleep. Zazen is, and patience is not passive either. Patience is observing closely. Our own feelings, our own responses, our own reactions, and what's going on in the situation around us that allows us to feel kind of, to not turn it into harbors of their will. So all of this is challenging. These are practices because it takes time to actually become really familiar and intimate with our own patterns of aversion and negative response.

[17:31]

So, it says to study the way is to study the self. Studying the self means to get to know our own karmic, ancient twisted karmic patterns, habits of reactivity. And the more intimate we are with them, the more we can not react. We have some space around these positive, negative, and neutral responses. Some patients will lose it. And then we can just pay attention. So Zazen is just gently sustaining attention. Patience is about just gently sustaining attention. So we see what's going on with us and with people around us. And then skillful means is, okay, what would be helpful? And sometimes it's trial and error. Sometimes it's really important to make mistakes.

[18:34]

And sometimes it's good to not make wrong mistakes or to make helpful mistakes. But we can't always control this. This is not a matter of something we can control. It's the matter of awareness. And it takes time. And we get impatient with our own, we can get easily impatient with our own patterns of reactivity, our own patterns of arbitrary will, holding resentment. And these practices are about seeing that that's not helpful. Again, to really feel What is our pattern of reacting with anger? How do we feel the anger, not try and deny it or get rid of it, but just feel it and not react, but maybe respond in some way that might be helpful.

[19:46]

It might help the situation. This is a challenging practice of how we take care of the world and our environment. It should help us. And again, sometimes it's just a matter of paying attention, as we had in July. So I confess that my own anger often happens in response to politicians or situations in the world. I try not to name people because we don't speak of the faults of others, but we don't, but that doesn't mean, that precept doesn't mean we don't pay attention to what's going on. So what is the situation that allows us to see, for me, my own reaction of anger against politicians who, and others who,

[20:55]

encourage cruelty, who actually, you know, their election policy is about intensifying cruelty against some other people who were then disqualified from being humans. I get upset about this, I really do. And yet, for me, one of the ways I've tried to work with this anyway, to respond to politicians promoting cruelty or promoting warfare, is not to blame individuals, but to see patterns and systems in the world. And I'm part of that. Each of us has our own pattern. anger and then go to war with somebody because we don't like something they said or whatever.

[22:01]

We don't like their opinions or no. So this is the challenge. There is a commentary I found in Mahayana commentary about the precepts that says, It's a transgression of the precept about anger. If you don't get angry when it's appropriate. So that's a whole different spin on it. But then what do you do with that anger? Again, it's not about harboring your will. It's not about promoting hatred. It's not about, you know, say those people over there are subhuman and we should work them out or whatever. This is difficult. We live in a world where it's very difficult practice this precept of not harboring ill will. There are lots of encouragements in our culture, in our media, in our government, politicians, to promote harboring ill will.

[23:03]

Well, don't get angry with your friends, but those people over there, gosh, you have to keep them out of the country or whatever. How do we practice with that kind of effort? Again, it's the same answer to those patients, but paying attention, seeing if there's something helpful we can do. For example, contacting your representatives to encourage a C-scotter when there's a vicious war going on. And not succumbing to this other precept, those faults of others. Again, that doesn't mean that we don't pay attention to what's going on around us or in the world. But how do we not turn that into name-calling and make that a whole situation, make that a harbor? What makes it do that? This is challenging.

[24:04]

We live in a challenging time, a challenging world. So there's all those kinds of situations which can help be ill will and hatred and exaggeration of anger. But again, to see the whole situation. This is challenging, but this is a practice. This is being, I would say this is the sixth part of it, too. Practicing. To see what's actually going on in those global means. What can we do that might be helpful? And part of our basic practice is we don't know the outcome. We do things trying to be helpful, but we don't know. We don't necessarily know the outcome. We send ripples of kindness, caring, and awareness into the world where we're not going to see the results.

[25:09]

But they make a difference, our caring, our goodness, and our awareness. So in addition to these societal situations that can allow us to feel our own anger, we have misunderstandings and different differences of opinions with people around us. This is just part of the way the world is. And maybe we can get angry with somebody who has a different opinion than us. But again, that's not helpful. So in these personal situations, there are also practices that can help. It can help us from changing the reaction of negativity, aversion, anger, not into a hardware of ill will, but just, okay, what's going on here? How do we pay attention?

[26:10]

So one of the main practices about this is listening. Listening to others. Trying to, you know, we can share our perspective on things, but also listen to other perspectives. In fact, the total wisdom of the Buddha, the unsurpassed, complete, perfect awakening is to see all of the different perspectives of all of the different beings. To really... not just listen to, but actually appreciate all of the different viewpoints. Of course, this is challenging. None of us, you know, have the capacity to, you know, hear the viewpoints of the trees outside. Some of us maybe can do that, but anyway, there's some, and then all the different people in our world, in our sangha, in our city and country,

[27:16]

So how do we listen? How do we give ourselves the opportunity to see other perspectives? And some of them, some of the perspectives might be really helpful and help us to see how we would get caught up in some perspective that was not so helpful. This is a process. This is lifelong learning. This is a practice. It's a practice. And again, skillful responses, skillful means, the formal practice of skillful means, is about listening, often about silence, and then at some point, we might say, oh, maybe I could say such and such. Maybe I can listen to that person. Maybe I can share. Or there's this other perspective that maybe includes my perspective and the other perspective. This is all the extended practice of Bodhisattvas.

[28:21]

And everybody here is involved in Bodhisattva practice. That's what we're speaking. And we're starting to bring this realm of love together. So we sit facing the wall, facing the wall, facing ourselves, silently, in silence, as much as possible, On mine, they'd be whirling around. On mine, they'd be racing around. But also, we can have a batch of breath and to posture and just pay attention. Not just to the others around us with different viewpoints, but also to all the different viewpoints on our own seat. Seeing it, we have access to a multitude of So, okay, so maybe that's enough for me to say. What I wanted to talk about, practicing the language, having space around language, listening, respecting, so respect, I didn't mention that word, that's important, to respect all the different peoples, that from wherever somebody is sitting, they might have some very different

[29:43]

response about what to do in the room and what's helpful, who to vote for or whatever. It's, you know, we have to try and listen to where people's fears and people's awareness of the situation. So, okay. Maybe I've said everything I wanted to, or I might imagine more, but I would really like to open this up to discussion and we have a bunch of people online and a couple of people here that know it. So maybe you can tell me if people online have some comment, some thoughts, question, raise your hand, or you can go to the raise hand function at the bottom. So he has her hand up, but I'll throw my name on the stack too, but you're first. And I'll just say that please make your point and allow time for others.

[30:46]

So thank you, Eve. Yeah. Thank you very much for the talk. And I mean, I was thinking, I mean, sometimes anger, you know, can be a sign that like you need to set a boundary. Um, you know, frankly, sometimes I feel like women in the workplace have a problem with that. Um, But I guess what you're saying to me, it's like, okay, somebody, you know, there's rotten food. You don't, you know, maybe you do feel angry about it, but then like you throw it out, you don't eat it. And then if somebody's giving you rotten food, you know, maybe you do feel angry at them, but then you just, you know, you can let go of the anger and say, okay, if this person's giving me rotten food, maybe I shouldn't eat with them, you know? Tiger is muted.

[31:51]

Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Tiger. Hold on. I did it. Don't unmute, please, Tiger. It looks like I'm muted. No, it's through this microphone. Okay, so I was just saying that I appreciate what you said, and yeah, and I asked if you had something else. Okay, there's somebody else. Go ahead. Yeah, I'll give priority to Todd because my question is really similar to you. So go ahead, Todd. Hi, guys. Thank you. I used to definitely have a lot of problems with anger and road rage and driving too fast. And I had one epiphany one time when I started to think about other conditions that cause people to behave a certain way and thinking about the history of slavery. And I even thought, Well, on the deeper level of no self, no other, and the end of your verse of dog and about our body and mind dropping off and others is when I go to work.

[32:58]

I have to go to that deep level sometimes if when I'm rushing to work, someone pulls in front of me and I'm in a rush and they're going really, really slow. It actually helps me to go to that deep pedantic level of there's no self no other that's me that's or at least my brother or sister but i thought when i was thinking about slavery one time about the power of environment how we're all what 99 the same genetic dna where i heard one time i wondered to myself if i grew up in alabama in 1800 i would hope i would have been against slavery but I don't know, because that was my upbringing around me. And that little space, that little thought of scaring myself about that made me think about other things and current events in the future, the power of environment on the way people behave. Right. Everything in the whole world is part of what we is, how we are.

[34:03]

We're impacted by everything. Of course, our culture and our society and our history. So it's important to study history and to understand this. I mean, I have angry politicians who have tried to erase this. They're coming from their own situation. But anyway, thank you. Yes. How do we see our patterns of reacting to everything? Thank you. Dylan, you have something? Yeah. So my question is similar to Eve's, and I think it's about exploring the distinction between... I think it's easy to say not harboring ill will means to... then it's easy to misinterpret that to continue having a, like being not able to draw boundaries.

[35:11]

If there are, um, if you see enough evidence that, you know, your proximity to somebody needs to change. And that can be, I mean, that can be on the national level where like, okay, I'm not going to harbor ill will against a certain politicians, but that doesn't mean I'm going to vote for him or, you know, or I will vote for somebody else instead, but also on like the interpersonal level where, um, you know, you cannot harbor ill will. And I think, and also make a decision to make a change and stick to it. And I feel like I'm particularly like, I'm noticing that I'm susceptible to like, you know, because I want to be compassionate so much that I actually won't. do this sense of do this way of almost attempting to control somebody else by being like, well, if I show enough compassion or if I act a certain way, then inevitably they're going to change to the way that I want them to be.

[36:16]

And so then the behavior that I'm finding distressing or harmful is, is going to change. And so if I just keep doing that, then eventually, you know, that person will change to be the way that I want them to be. But that's violence almost in some way. And that I have to, you know, you just have to, or I have to accept that people are, that I can't change other people. And that once you give, once you receive certain data, that you have to make a change sometimes. Thank you. You raised a really important point that I didn't mention. That we have, one of the impulses we have is to kind of control, to control others you were talking about, to control ourselves, to control the world. And, you know, it's possible to have this insight that ultimately there's nothing we can control. I mean, of course, we all have areas where we are able to act and everybody who showed up today had control to go on Zoom or show up here or whatever.

[37:34]

So, of course, in the everyday activity, there are things we can take care of. But our sense of wanting to control things is kind of Kind of card wearing ill will, ill will towards that which we can't control. So how do we know the difference? But yeah, but we can still express kindness and try to listen to the other person's perspective. But if we're trying to listen just so that we can change their mind and control their opinion and convert that to our opinion, perspective, that's kind of the world. So this is very subtle. This is why bodhisattva practice is a lifelong practice or a practice of many lifetimes. How do we take care of the world in a kind, open-hearted way without trying to push it around according to what we think it should be?

[38:42]

This is subtle and difficult. Thank you very much, Joe. I see Chris has his hand up. Thank you, Tiger. And Dylan, when you said what you said, so my thoughts of, you know, it's not being patient. Patient is this sort of To me, this expectation that if I just wait long enough, it's going to change and be different. It's going to be the way I want it to be. Or that person is going to be the way I want them to be. And they're going to not be upsetting me or making me angry. So to me, it's working on not being a matter of being patient, but a matter of being tolerant and accepting. um, of what that is. And the other is the, um, is the, the, you know, harboring.

[39:48]

And I, you know, for my life thought of harbors as being safe places, right? Harbor is where you go to in the storm. Um, so I think it's sort of a, you know, maybe a harbor is not a good place to be and we should leave the harbor, um, and be tolerant. Thank you. Yeah, you brought up a couple of really important points. I think harbors are great, you know, depending on what we're harboring, you know. So to harbor kindness, to find a refuge. We are all refugees. We are being here. We're taking refuge. So There are different kinds of partners. I could say more about that, but I want to get back to, we're talking about patience. And the practice of patience is not passive.

[40:50]

We think that way. I mean, I think patience, as you described it, patience can mean sometimes, if I just wait long enough, things will work out and everything will be okay. That's not the practice of patience. as a body subject practice. Practice of patience as a body subject practice includes, requires paying attention, looking at a situation, and then responding. What is our response? And sometimes, as I was saying, sometimes we don't see any helpful response. Sometimes we might see, oh, that might be helpful, and we might try it. And then we learn by What happens? But, yeah, patience and sitting in zazen, we're not passive. We pay attention. And what does that mean? So, I'm sitting in zazen with gay attention to all of my thoughts and so forth.

[41:57]

Breathing in our posture and what's going on. But in the world also, yes, paying attention. Patience is Pay attention. And then to respond. How do we respond? Helpful. And there's no manual, instruction manual that tells us the answer in every situation. So patience, tolerance, forbearance, whatever you want to call it. It's not just waiting for something good to happen. Sometimes that does happen. That's great. But what is our responsibility? We have an ability to respond. Our responsibility is key to what we start to practice. And that requires all of the stuff, awareness, caring, kindness. Thank you. Kathy, did you have a comment or question? Yeah, yeah. I was thinking another aspect of this is that sometimes when we're getting in touch with our own anger, we tend to cut it off.

[43:08]

We tend to not be able to see it. You know, that there's a bit of a process in just recognizing your own anger and And then getting in touch with, OK, what caused this? What's related to this? Where did this come from? And sometimes we're angry at things that we don't feel legitimate to be angry at, like our mothers, for example. But and it takes a while to come to terms with that and feel validation. in your reactions you know kind of make them look at them closely decide for yourself the degree of legitimacy but that that acceptance of your anger I think is an important step before because some people are angry and not aware they're angry And they're acting out their anger.

[44:10]

And so to become aware of it and also aware of, okay, where did this come from? You know, maybe it was a mistaken process. Maybe it was a valid process. But to work through that, I think, is part of what allows you to then deal with what you're going to do with it, what's constructive action with it. Yes, yes. Thank you very much, Kathy. Right. So the first thing is that sometimes we're not aware of our anger. It's definitely the same. So again, we have to pay attention. We have to see, we have to feel what we feel. So I've sometimes mentioned as a practice to use the mantra or the koan, how does it feel? To actually pay attention to what we're feeling, what we're thinking, how we're responding. during Zazen in the world. And oh, there's anger here somewhere.

[45:14]

What is that now? Why do we have anger? Yeah, so we have to identify our anger, grasping, before we can not turn our anger into anger in our world. So yeah, this is why we sit and pay attention, study the self, get to know what it feels like. Thank you, Catherine. Thank you. Thank you. Some things that came up or the complexity of my thoughts about patients, because I feel like I'm a patient person, but as I really deeply consider that more fully, sometimes I'm using patients as like another version, another way to kind of close down. What I was hearing when you were speaking is when just to keep open and keep working with things when we feel anger.

[46:16]

And so I'll tell myself this is patience if I just kind of shut down a little because I don't have a big reaction. And yet I see that that's actually not patience. But there is sometimes when, you know, it's more genuine and I use patience as like a pause sometimes. To just open up because I know when I get angry, I feel tight and closed. I close down and it's just like, you know, it's habitual. It's a reaction, but it's not. it doesn't come out into the helpful zone, you know? So it's really beneficial to me to sit here and listen, you know, keep working with it and remind myself that I can, you know, the thing is to just don't tighten up and just close off, but to really start listening, use those other things that, that, you know, tighten up, like reopen the ears, maybe not the mouth, but you know and that give myself you know there's fear in there too like maybe I'm feeling like I can't deal with what's going on and yet you know I'm there I'm here so you know just keep listening and get curious about what I can what possibilities are there you know so it's been a very beneficial talk to me thank you you're very welcome and yes thank you for adding that we

[47:39]

Again, it's not about shutting down our anger. This is kind of subtle. This is why this requires long periods of practice to actually study the self as the event is. Or, you know, another common Zazen instruction is to take the backward step that turns our light inwardly to illuminate the self. To really see what's going on. Not to shut down. And yeah, we can hear patients that shut it down. That's not it. How do we keep paying attention in the middle of all this stuff? It's not straightforward or easy. It's practice and requires continuing practice. Yeah, I did have just, this has been a great discussion and offering. Thank you, everyone. One of the things that came up for me as we were talking was about working with a teacher.

[48:43]

And the depth and pervasiveness of reactivity is so stupendous that I found... taking refuge in my teacher in the sangha in people in my life to help me and support me but also hold me accountable for uh such reactivity is because zazen itself can be a little bit of a spiritual bypass but usually other people will let us know right away when we're veering around. So that's just a comment. So thank you, everyone. Thank you. That's very important. And we are blessed in Ancient Dragon Zen Gate Sangha that we have several teachers who can help us see when we are being reactive. And we have many other very experienced practitioners. So Sangha is very important in this.

[49:45]

It's not just paying attention ourselves, but paying attention together with each other. So thank you for that. It's very important. And yes, this has been a great discussion and it doesn't end. Practicing with anger, practicing with grasping, all of these are lifelong practices of bodhisattvas. So with that, thank you all very much. We will close with the four bodhisattva vows, which we'll chant two times and then we'll be in silence. So thank you.

[50:22]

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