Buddha – the one who knows about the ego, and anger.
Spiritual Practice : Part K
Dissatisfaction and Anger
K 1. Dull Heavy Feelings.
(This talk was delivered straight after one of our meditations.)
“So let’s take stock of how we really feel right now. We’ve just invested half an hour in slowing down our minds, and moving towards rest and quiet. While staying awake and alert. We can now look beneath the surface and into our mind, so to speak.
If we are not radiantly happy and radiantly peaceful right now, there is a reason. Something burdens our buoyancy, weighs us the down.
This burden is our own painful emotional feelings. They prevent us from being really cheerful, charming and attractive to other people. They prevent us from rising up to this high level. In fact, we might be far from being the “life of the party” right now.
The ego fears this loss of social position and status.. Its paranoia of separation and isolation, of conflict, of loss of status, can be triggered by this innocuous experience of being in a little slump. So we can expect these dull and heavy feelings to be denied, concealed and suppressed.
The usual tactic to hide these dull feelings is to proliferate mental activity. For thinking masks feelings, obscuring feelings in a fog or smoke of ignorance. Since this mental activity is actually driven by pain, then the thoughts will also be painful. We can expect thoughts of blame and resentment, or worries over what might go wrong, or thoughts of despair and defeat, or plans to harm that which we need to protect, or others.
Or the thoughts can be much milder, with no strong criticism or fear or despair or destructiveness. Just unnecessary and unhelpful thoughts, not particularly painful, but enough to cover up the “awkward silence” which will reveal the underlying uncomfortableness. Enough busy-ness to prevent stillness and silence, to prevent appreciation and inspiration, and enough busy-ness to keep us out of the Here and Now.
Those are the tactics of the ego, to maintain the false mind made sense of self.
But we are now in the meditation space. This is our rest time from work, from the need to impress others and influence them. There is no need to create interesting conversation, no need to be bright and cheerful right now. No need even to talk. Time to rest from unnecessary busy-ness.
So there is no need now to suppress any dull feelings. No need to pretend that they don’t exist. We can just enjoy the rest, even if we are not radiantly happy and peaceful right now.
The important thing is to allow these dull feelings just to be there. There is no need to be frightened of them, in fact we have the strength to feel them and not suppress them.
Then we can investigate : what happens to these dull feelings, when they are uncomplicated by mental noise, chatter and clutter? How long do they last for, if we can keep them uncomplicated by pain driven thought? Do we really need to be frightened of them? What can we learn from this, about the cause of much of our suffering?”
What Follows ....
The next section on “Anger” explores the opposite experience to dull heavy feelings. Best read another time …..
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K 2. Anger.
K ii) Anger, a Special Case Defilement.
Anger is the force that men used to need to defend their village and crops, their women and children. It gave the strength that men used to need, to hit out against invaders, using weapons. That was in the old days, before guns were invented, and before the modern weapons of mass destructions came to dominate conflict over land ownership.
These days, the State has monopolised nearly all armed violence. This is now done by police and the military. These days anger will betray a man who tries to defend his territory, for the State always has higher levels of violence to inflict on independent minded men. And the State thinks it should be in charge.
Yet anger remains a basic force in people. It gives strength and daring, it is used to dominate other people, it is used to drive away unwanted people. So anger is quite attractive to the ego.
Moreover, some occupations are quite hardening to the men who have to do them. Bulldozing forest, spraying poisons, the fumes and filth of mechanical repairs, slaughtering in the abattoirs, clearing blocked sewage pipes, even playing pub rock music. The worst is being made into cannon fodder to suit other people’s political interests.
Too often, the men are compelled to build a hardened exterior, carrying a lot of unreleased tension and rigidity, to protect the vulnerable inner child within. The body armour prevents any discharge of distress, and makes them vulnerable to alcohol and tobacco. For such men, the range of emotions allowable to them can be restricted to anger and little more than that.
In preparation for this, society trains boys not to cry.
This is the oppression of Men.
Those of us who are on the Path learned long ago to leave fighting behind us. It’s something that primary school kids do. But we still come in contact with other men who have not taken this Path.
Spiritual practice can give us the strength needed to have some connection with hardened men, yet not be drawn into their oppression, and establish clear boundaries about being hardened.
For myself, anger is very unlikely to arise in me when I am with others, due to my training. In fact, I have expressed anger to others only twice in the last 15 years. It was when I had great need to get rid of someone who i needed to sever contact with.
For someone like me, anger will arise when I am alone. It is often a natural outcome from depressing defilements that rob us of our vitality. For anger will give strength and heat. It is an antidote to feeling demoralised and weak. It can be an essential response of the body to restore vitality. It can do little harm if directed at thoughts not people, and not allowed to continue for long.
(This talk was delivered straight after one of our meditations.)
“So let’s take stock of how we really feel right now. We’ve just invested half an hour in slowing down our minds, and moving towards rest and quiet. While staying awake and alert. We can now look beneath the surface and into our mind, so to speak.
If we are not radiantly happy and radiantly peaceful right now, there is a reason. Something burdens our buoyancy, weighs us the down.
This burden is our own painful emotional feelings. They prevent us from being really cheerful, charming and attractive to other people. They prevent us from rising up to this high level. In fact, we might be far from being the “life of the party” right now.
The ego fears this loss of social position and status.. Its paranoia of separation and isolation, of conflict, of loss of status, can be triggered by this innocuous experience of being in a little slump. So we can expect these dull and heavy feelings to be denied, concealed and suppressed.
The usual tactic to hide these dull feelings is to proliferate mental activity. For thinking masks feelings, obscuring feelings in a fog or smoke of ignorance. Since this mental activity is actually driven by pain, then the thoughts will also be painful. We can expect thoughts of blame and resentment, or worries over what might go wrong, or thoughts of despair and defeat, or plans to harm that which we need to protect, or others.
Or the thoughts can be much milder, with no strong criticism or fear or despair or destructiveness. Just unnecessary and unhelpful thoughts, not particularly painful, but enough to cover up the “awkward silence” which will reveal the underlying uncomfortableness. Enough busy-ness to prevent stillness and silence, to prevent appreciation and inspiration, and enough busy-ness to keep us out of the Here and Now.
Those are the tactics of the ego, to maintain the false mind made sense of self.
But we are now in the meditation space. This is our rest time from work, from the need to impress others and influence them. There is no need to create interesting conversation, no need to be bright and cheerful right now. No need even to talk. Time to rest from unnecessary busy-ness.
So there is no need now to suppress any dull feelings. No need to pretend that they don’t exist. We can just enjoy the rest, even if we are not radiantly happy and peaceful right now.
The important thing is to allow these dull feelings just to be there. There is no need to be frightened of them, in fact we have the strength to feel them and not suppress them.
Then we can investigate : what happens to these dull feelings, when they are uncomplicated by mental noise, chatter and clutter? How long do they last for, if we can keep them uncomplicated by pain driven thought? Do we really need to be frightened of them? What can we learn from this, about the cause of much of our suffering?”
What Follows ....
The next section on “Anger” explores the opposite experience to dull heavy feelings. Best read another time …..
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
K 2. Anger.
K ii) Anger, a Special Case Defilement.
Anger is the force that men used to need to defend their village and crops, their women and children. It gave the strength that men used to need, to hit out against invaders, using weapons. That was in the old days, before guns were invented, and before the modern weapons of mass destructions came to dominate conflict over land ownership.
These days, the State has monopolised nearly all armed violence. This is now done by police and the military. These days anger will betray a man who tries to defend his territory, for the State always has higher levels of violence to inflict on independent minded men. And the State thinks it should be in charge.
Yet anger remains a basic force in people. It gives strength and daring, it is used to dominate other people, it is used to drive away unwanted people. So anger is quite attractive to the ego.
Moreover, some occupations are quite hardening to the men who have to do them. Bulldozing forest, spraying poisons, the fumes and filth of mechanical repairs, slaughtering in the abattoirs, clearing blocked sewage pipes, even playing pub rock music. The worst is being made into cannon fodder to suit other people’s political interests.
Too often, the men are compelled to build a hardened exterior, carrying a lot of unreleased tension and rigidity, to protect the vulnerable inner child within. The body armour prevents any discharge of distress, and makes them vulnerable to alcohol and tobacco. For such men, the range of emotions allowable to them can be restricted to anger and little more than that.
In preparation for this, society trains boys not to cry.
This is the oppression of Men.
Those of us who are on the Path learned long ago to leave fighting behind us. It’s something that primary school kids do. But we still come in contact with other men who have not taken this Path.
Spiritual practice can give us the strength needed to have some connection with hardened men, yet not be drawn into their oppression, and establish clear boundaries about being hardened.
For myself, anger is very unlikely to arise in me when I am with others, due to my training. In fact, I have expressed anger to others only twice in the last 15 years. It was when I had great need to get rid of someone who i needed to sever contact with.
For someone like me, anger will arise when I am alone. It is often a natural outcome from depressing defilements that rob us of our vitality. For anger will give strength and heat. It is an antidote to feeling demoralised and weak. It can be an essential response of the body to restore vitality. It can do little harm if directed at thoughts not people, and not allowed to continue for long.
