Happiness Lies in No Anger

by Professor Cheng Chen-huang

Everybody seeks happiness, and the whole of mankind seeks world peace. But, because of the anger prevalent in all sentient beings, few people feel true happiness, and world peace seems an impossible mission. Why? According to Buddhism, anger has the most destructive power among all negative emotions. Anger will afflict and weaken one’s body and mind. On a larger scale, anger will harm or even destroy the world.

ANGER CAUSES THE GREATEST DAMAGE

Says the Maha-prajna-paramita-sastra, “The damage caused by anger is the greatest among the three poisons of greed, anger and ignorance. Of the 98 negative emotions, anger is the strongest. Of all mental sickness, anger is the most difficult to cure.”

Anger arises when one feels that something or someone is against his or her wish. Driven by anger, one will become aggressive, irritated, annoyed, frustrated, prejudicial, hurtful, resentful, disgusted and so on. Conflict, dispute, disharmony, fighting, killing and war will thus ensue.

The Chapter of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva in the Avatamsaka Sutra singles out the adverse effects of anger, “Whenever a thought of anger arises, one million doors of obstacles open. A single flame of anger will burn down the forest-like merits.” Anger is thus recognised as the biggest enemy to meditation, spiritual happiness, interpersonal relationships and world peace.

Due to the above, the Agama Sutra stresses the benefit of no anger – “If the mind is purified, sentient beings will be purified.” Similar emphasis is found in the Vimalakirti-nirdesa-sutra, “Because of the purification of the mind, the world will be purified.” Conversely, anger will bring impurities to sentient beings and the world.

On a minute and subtle level, anger radiates unwholesome thoughtwaves to harm the surroundings. An experiment conducted by a biologist demonstrated that a flower showered with love would flourish exuberantly while a flower that was subjected to angry words and curses would wither.

CEASE ANGER BY TRAINING

Since the habitual tendency of getting angry has been firmly embedded in our alaya or root consciousness, we need to train ourselves over long periods of time to cease our anger. Rome was not built in a day, not to mention eradicating and transforming the negative karmic imprints in our mind accumulated from the beginningless past.

The following are some practical techniques, arranged according to their levels of complexity, which you can try when dealing with anger:

1 - Take long inhalation, go jogging, running, swimming, or do qigong, yoga and other workouts to release tension and calm down the outburst of angry fire.

2 - Embrace Mother Nature by going hiking. Nature has its own rhythm and way of keeping everything in balance. In natural surroundings, one will feel peaceful and let go of one’s defence mechanism.

3 - Read or listen to teachings on health, EQ and the Buddha-dharma. Knowledge is power. Reading and listening are the two most efficient ways to strengthen one’s mental power.

4 - Contemplate and reflect again and again on what one has learned to internalise the understanding of the shortcomings of anger and the benefits of no anger.

5 - Take the precept of no anger and observe it strictly. No anger is the basic precept for both laity and monastics. Perfection of tolerance is one of the six or ten perfections of a bodhisattva to attain Buddhahood. The Agama Sutra says, “All Buddhas attain Nirvana. But you don’t because of your angry fire.”

6 - Believe and have faith in Karma. What we receive now is due to what we did before. What we do now paves the way for what we will receive in the future. When we receive unpleasant treatment, take it as a way to purify our past bad Karma. If we hope to be treated nicely in future, we should not get angry now.

7 - Accept the principle of rebirth. Because of our unwholesome Karma, we are entrapped in the cycle of birth and death. Our so-called “enemy” in this present life might be our relative or a friend in our past life. We treat our relatives and friends in this life nicely, so how can we get angry with a relative or friend from our past life? In order to get emancipation from samsara, we should develop love and compassion.

8 - Practise the seven-point cause-and-effect instruction as taught by Atisha in the 11th century: recognising all sentient beings as one’s mother, recognising the kindness of mother sentient beings, wishing to repay their kindness, generating affectionate love towards all sentient beings, generating great compassion, generating the extraordinary intention of freeing all beings from suffering and bringing them happiness, and developing the enlightened mind or Bodhicitta. In the above sequence, the preceding factor is the cause of the following factor while the following factor is the effect of the preceding factor. The fifth factor, generating compassion, is the effect of the first four factors on the one hand and the cause of the last two factors on the other hand. Compassion is the pivotal point of the bodhisattva path. Hence, meditation on compassion is the best antidote to anger.

9 - Practise the vijnapti-matrata yogacara veda. This doctrine states that the world is nothing but the projection of our consciousness or prejudice based on past experiences. The world is empty of inherent nature and thus is unreal. For that reason, we should not be affected by the surroundings. We should develop a peaceful mind in order to see through all phenomena.

10 - Abide in Buddha-nature which is beyond duality, imagination and speech. Observe the admonition in the Diamond Sutra, “One should generate one’s thoughts without any abiding.” Also follow Master Hui Neng’s advice at the very beginning of the Sixth Patriarch’s Platform Sutra, “Everybody has the enlightened mind which is originally pure. Use this mind, and at once you become a Buddha.”