Lam-rim 66: Anger

The Three Scopes of Motivation

We have three levels of motivation. One is thinking in terms of future lives: we want to continue to have better and better future lives. The reason for that is to be able to continue on the spiritual path and to avoid worst states that have tremendous suffering. We’re motivated by thinking about how death can come at any time and by thinking of the sufferings of the worst states. We really want to avoid that and have a healthy sense of fear of that, but we see that there’s a way out.  

On the intermediate level, we are aiming to gain liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth altogether, whether it’s in a better state or a worse state, because we see that even in the better states, we have, still, a great deal of suffering and problems. So, we want to renounce that kind of rebirth, and we are moved by that type of motivation. We look to see what the causes of this uncontrollably recurring rebirth are, and we work to get rid of them. 

On the advanced level, we are aiming for enlightenment because we see that everybody else is in the same situation. It’s really not tolerable at all to be liberated ourselves when everybody else is having so many problems. So, we see that in order to be able to help them, we need to go beyond liberation. We need to gain the omniscient state of a Buddha so that we can understand cause and effect completely and know how to help them the best – to know what the effect of anything that we teach them will be and what all of the causes of all their problems are. For this, we have to overcome our self-cherishing attitude and gain even more force behind our understanding of reality so that we can cut through our unawareness, or ignorance. This is the force of bodhichitta. With bodhichitta, the mind is aimed at our not-yet-happening enlightenment that can happen on the basis of our Buddha-nature factors – provided we bring about all the causes.

Initial Scope

The Precious Human Rebirth

We started with the initial scope, first, recognizing the precious human rebirths that we have. We have a temporary respite, or freedom, from the worst states in which we would not be able to develop ourselves spiritually at all, whether we’re talking about being in an animal realm or in some war zone or being so severely handicapped, mentally or physically that we couldn’t really study or learn. We also saw that our lives are filled with enriching factors. These are things that allow us to develop spiritually: the teachings are available; Buddha has taught them; there are masters that are continuing to teach them and realize them; and there are those who support the teachings and make them available to us. 

Death and Impermanence

So, we have all these opportunities and all these freedoms, but they are only temporary. They aren’t going to last forever because death will come for sure, and we never know when. And nothing is going to be of any help at the time of death except the strong instincts of the preventive measures that we have built up. Only those measures can help us avoid things getting worse in the future. Money’s not going to help, friends aren’t going to help, fame… none of these things will be of any help. And when we talk about preventive measures – that’s the meaning of the word “Dharma.” It’s something that will hold us back from falling into terrible situations and suffering. 

We looked at what could happen if we haven’t taken these preventive measures. And looking realistically at our minds and at the way that we have acted and spoken throughout our lives, we see that we have acted in destructive, disturbed ways far more frequently than in positive ways. So, for sure, it’s quite likely… I can’t say “for sure it’s quite likely.” That’s very contradictory. But in any case, we can say that it’s pretty much for sure that if we don’t do something, we’re going to be reborn in some worse state.  

Dreading Worse Rebirth States

We looked at what the worst states would be like as they’re formulated in the general Indian systems – being tortured in some sort of hellish realm; wandering around as a clutching ghost, not being able to satisfy hunger, thirst, being paranoid and so on; and being an animal, creeping along the ground and being hunted and eaten alive by other things. This is pretty horrible. And we took it quite seriously. We’re not talking about some fantasy realms here. We’re talking about what a mind is capable of experiencing within the whole spectrum of unhappiness and happiness, suffering and pleasure, and so on – not just a human mind that has human hardware, or body, as its basis but one that has the hardware of these other realms. So, we developed a very healthy sense of dread and fear of being reborn in one of these worst states. We really don’t want that to happen. And that causes us to be very careful. It doesn’t cause us to feel despair because we see that there’s a way to avoid that, and that is putting safe direction in our lives, what’s known as refuge – namely, going in the direction of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. 

Safe Direction

What this refers to – as the deepest meaning of Dharma – is (1) the state of mind in which… well, it’s not necessarily the state of mind but the stoppings themselves, the removals forever, of the obscurations, the causes of suffering, and also the suffering, and (2) the understandings, or true paths, that will bring that stopping about. Those true stoppings, or true cessations, and true paths, or true pathways of mind, can only exist on a mental continuum. When they exist in full on a mental continuum, it’s on the mental continuum of Buddhas. Buddhas are the one who teach and indicate how to do this. And when they exist only partially on a mental continuum, it’s on the mental continuums of aryas. That’s the Ayra Sangha, the community of highly realized beings. So, these Three Jewels, rare and precious (that’s the connotation of the Tibetan word), are what indicate that safe direction to us. So, we’re aiming for that. 

Refraining from Destructive Behavior

The first way to go in that direction, which will allow us to avoid gross suffering – the suffering of pain, unhappiness, depression, etc. – is to watch our behavior and to avoid destructive behavior, whether it be how we speak, how we think, or how we act. That got us into the whole discussion of karma. We went into a great deal of detail about that. 

Intermediate Scope

Then we started the intermediate scope. With the intermediate scope, we look at what it would be like to be born in one of the better realms. We saw that, even there, as a human, a god or an anti-god (the ones that fight against the gods), our lives would still be filled with a great deal of suffering and problems. It might not entail the gross suffering of pain – for instance, if we were in a higher god realm – but there would certainly be problems with the so-called worldly happiness that one has in these realms: it doesn’t last; it changes. And in general, even as humans, we never have enough of it, of regular happiness. It doesn’t satisfy completely, whether we’re talking about sense objects or mental states. It can’t be relied upon. And it changes into unhappiness, like the example of being in the sun: we might feel warm and comfortable, but if we’re in it too long, we feel very uncomfortable, and we have to get out of the sun.

Then, after going through all the different types of suffering and being quite disgusted and fed up with it, we started to look at the causes of suffering. This led us to the discussion of the disturbing emotions and attitudes. That’s where we are now in our treatment of the lam-rim. 

We started last time talking about what a disturbing emotion or attitude (nyon-mongs, Skt. klesha) is. We saw that, according to the definition, it is a state of mind that, when it arises, causes us to lose peace of mind and lose self-control. We could also add that it tends to make other people lose peace of mind as well: it makes them feel uncomfortable. Though that’s not part of the definition, we know from experience that if we are clinging to somebody, have hostility toward somebody, are being arrogant towards somebody and so on, the other person – unless they’re completely insensitive – feels uncomfortable. We discussed the definition in depth last time, so there’s no need to repeat. 

There are six root disturbing emotions and attitudes (rtsa-nyon drug). The first five, I call root disturbing “emotions.” The sixth one, which has five subdivisions, I call a root disturbing “attitude.” “Attitudes” means that there is some sort of view involved, a way of regarding how we exist, how the object exists, and so on. There are also twenty auxiliary or subsidiary disturbing emotions (nye-nyon nyi-shu). “Subsidiary” I think is a better word, because these disturbing emotions and attitudes are subsidiary to the root ones. They are subdivisions or derivations of them. 

There are various presentations of abhidharma from the different schools of early Buddhism. There were eighteen of these schools, now collectively known as “Hinayana.” Mahayana has its own abhidharma. Each has a slightly different list of these disturbing factors. So, there are plenty more of them than just these six and twenty.   

We looked at longing desire (‘dod-chags). Longing desire aims at any external or internal tainted object (meaning an object associated with confusion), whether an animate or inanimate object – so, it could be a person, an animal, our computer, our car – and it wishes to acquire that object based on regarding it as attractive by its very nature. If we don’t already have that object, then we simply have longing desire for it. If we have it but want more and more, we have greed. If we have it and don’t want to let go of it, we have attachment. So, there are these three aspects of longing desire. 

Incorrect Consideration of How the Object Exists

We saw that although longing desire can occur with sense cognition, such as seeing something, listening to music, eating, or feeling physical sensations like of sex – and, of course, it can occur with conceptual thought, with mental cognition (dreaming, which is not necessarily conceptual when we’re just seeing various objects or feeling sensations in dreams) – nevertheless, it has to be preceded by a conceptual moment in which we have an incorrect consideration and interpolate something onto the object that’s not there. 

So, beforehand, we could conceptually regard the object as having more good qualities than it actually has and ignore the negative qualities of it; so, then we think that it’s by nature attractive and, therefore, want to get it. Or we could consider something that is by nature dirty to be clean. I think a good example would be the saliva in our lover’s mouth when we want to kiss them with our tongue in their mouth. If they were to just spit into a cup and we were invited to drink it, it would not be terribly tempting; we wouldn’t consider it clean. Nevertheless, in kissing, you consider it clean and perfectly fine. So, this, I think, is a very good example. We could consider something that is impermanent to be permanent. So, we are attracted to and attached to our youth, for example, or to our good looks. That, of course, is an incorrect consideration. 

We also saw that there’s a variant here in which, instead of wanting to possess something ourselves, that we want to be possessed by somebody else, like a lover, a group, a profession or whatever. So, there’s this inverse form of it as well. 

Incorrect Consideration of How “Me” Exists – Doctrinally Based and Automatically Arising Wrong Views of the Self

But all of this comes from a much deeper level, which is an incorrect consideration of our “self” (so, not just of the object) – namely, an incorrect consideration of how we exist (though that can also be with respect to the object that we find so attractive). So, we think that the “self” is something that we ourselves are. To put it in very simple terminology, we think that it’s some sort of solid, self-established thing – a “me.” 

This could be based on some sort of doctrinal thing that we’ve learned. Traditionally, this is presented as being from one of the Hindu or other non-Buddhist Indian systems – that the self exists as something that never changes, that it is totally separate from body and mind, that it is partless, whether it’s the size of the universe or is some tiny little monad, and that, from lifetime to lifetime, it goes into a new body and mind, inhabiting it, using it, or possessing it. This type of thing.  

We could also have an automatically arising false view of “me,” which is that there’s a “me” that can be known independently of any basis for it. For instance, “I know you: I know Andreas.” Well, how can I know Andreas? Well, I see Andreas; I see a body. And based on seeing a body, I see an Andreas that’s labeled on the body. But I can’t see Andreas without also seeing a body. The same thing with “I want to know myself” – as if there were a “me” separate from everything. What are you going to know about yourself? You have to know in terms of your body, your personality, your emotions, and so on. You can’t just know “myself” like that. “I don’t feel myself today,” or “I wasn’t myself yesterday“ – it automatically arises that we think that way. Or “I want somebody to love me for me, not for my wealth or my body or my knowledge or whatever, but just love me,” as if there were a “me” that existed separately from all of these things and can be known and loved on its own. 

The Solid “Me” Is Insecure Because It Is Not Based on Reality

We’ll go into these things in more depth later on, but based on any of these ways of thinking, which I summarize as thinking in terms of a solid “me” or a solid “you,” we have attachment – that “I need this, I…” Because this false concept of a solid “me” is something that is not based on reality, it is insecure. We feel that “me” – consciously or unconsciously – in terms of insecurity. That’s the whole feeling, or emotional level, of this grasping for a solid “me.” And because we feel insecure, we feel, “Well, if I could just get this object or this person or I could just belong to this group, somehow that will make me secure.” And of course, that doesn’t work because there’s nothing there to be made secure. How can you make it secure? You’re trying to make secure something that doesn’t exist – this solid “me.” Conventionally, of course, I exist, and conventionally, I need food, and I need affection and so on, but not in terms of this desperate “me” – that getting this or that is going to somehow confirm my existence and make me secure. “I have to get more food and more food” or whatever. Or I have to not lose this – what I have. We get very attached. That’s what underlies longing desire, greed or attachment. 

So, let’s think about that for a few minutes in terms of what we have longing desire for, whether it’s a person, an object or something more abstract like fame or attention, love – whether we have it or don’t have it, or whether we want more or feel that we don’t have enough… whatever it is. And try to recognize that underlying it is, first, this incorrect consideration – that we think that this is the most important thing in the world, for example, when it obviously isn’t and that it is somehow going to make me secure (so, grasping for a solid “me”). Try to recognize this in terms of what it is that we, ourselves, are attached to or long for or are greedy for. 

[meditation]

And somehow, we think that if we have it or don’t lose it, we will be ultimately happy. 

[meditation]

OK. Any comments? What about if we are attached to pleasing others? Is that based on strong grasping for a solid “me”? Yes, it is.  

Participant: Recognition.

Dr. Berzin: Recognition. Right. We want others not only to recognize us but to like us and to appreciate us, to accept us. So, we want to be accepted by them, which is another form of being possessed by them, of belonging to them, in a sense. So, that’s another insecurity about “me,” isn’t it?

Participant: There is also like a very strong awareness that the “me” needs to be complete and that it’s only complete if it’s accepted by this group

Dr. Berzin:  Right. It’s a feeling that this “me” will only be complete if it’s accepted. So, this is why I say that it establishes the existence of “me" – that I somehow don’t exist as a solid thing unless I’m accepted by you. So, this is why I always emphasize in translation of this technical term: it’s to establish true existence – that being accepted by you somehow establishes that I’m worthwhile and, then deeper, that I actually exist. 

So, people who are attached to… what are they called? What is the word for these dangerous sports like bungee jumping and so forth that get your adrenaline really pumping? “Extreme sports.” So, people who are attached to extreme sports or who are attached to painful tattoos or piercings in very sensitive parts of their bodies… somehow, when they experience that adrenaline or experience that pain, it confirms and establishes that they – that “I” – exist. Or people who cut themselves and so on because they feel, “My life is so meaningless. I don’t matter, and I’m really a nothing” – it’s a nihilistic extreme. Therefore, they need to make up a more absolutist extreme to prove that “I really do exist.” Normally, they don’t feel anything, so if they feel this extreme pain or adrenaline rush or whatever, it means that they exist; it establishes that “I exist.” But obviously, it doesn’t, so they have to do it again and again. They haven’t proved anything. If it really proved that they existed, they wouldn’t have to do it again. 

Or it could be that I have to see myself in the mirror, or I have to touch things (there are people who always have to touch). Or I always have to hold your hand. “If I can feel your hand, that means that I exist.” Think about that. That’s an interesting thing. There are people have to have the television on or constantly listen to music or have the radio on all the time. Somehow it confirms that they exist because “I see these other people. I hear these things. If it were silent,” [makes startled sound] maybe I don’t exist at all.” 

Do you think that’s so? Think about it.  

Participant: I was thinking about this feeling of security. I think it is a sort of fundamental human thing to need a certain security. Otherwise, you get sick.

Dr. Berzin: Right. She said it’s a basic, fundamental need (not only in humans but, I think, in animals as well). You need a certain sense of security because if things are too insecure, you’re too nervous, and it’s unhealthy.

Participant: Yeah. So, I wanted to know how one can judge when this healthier feeling of security gets unhealthy.

Dr. Berzin: What’s the border between a healthy and an unhealthy search for security? I think that one has to realize that security is relative. There is no security in face of death: you can die at any time. And you can’t feel secure in a world in which there are so many things happening that we have absolutely no control over. So, there’s no way to feel secure. So, it’s just relative what secure means. And if we understand how we exist – that we exist dependent on, labeled on, what we experience and on the body, thoughts and stuff like that – then the whole issue of security/insecurity becomes irrelevant. If we’re not at that stage, which, of course, most of us are not, then I think it’s just a matter of… I don’t know. I mean, we’re never going to feel secure. This is the problem. So, it’s just how calm we feel, how relaxed we feel because if we really think about it, there is no security: stock market could crash, whatever. 

What comes to my mind is Shantideva’s advice: if there’s something we can do to alleviate a problem, why worry? Just do it – like, for instance, get health insurance in case we get sick and so on. So, there is something that we can do: we can go to the doctor, although there’s no guarantee that if we have an annual checkup, we’re not going to die the day after the checkup. Anyway, we can do something, so do it. And if there’s nothing we can do, then why worry? It’s not going to help. I think that’s about all that one can do. 

But in a relationship, how do you feel secure?  

Participant: When you’re married, then you’re secure.

Dr. Berzin: When you’re married, you’re secure? Well, no, not quite. (That was facetious, I believe.)  

Participant: Then the problems start! 

Dr. Berzin: Then problems start. 

So how do you feel secure? How do you feel secure in a job?  Even if you have tenure as a university professor and supposedly can’t be fired, you could be forced to take early retirement. Or the university goes bankrupt… which has happened in America. I know one friend who was teaching at such a university. So, where is there security? The main issue is to not worry about it and to take whatever measures one can to try to be secure, but then not worry about it.  

Participant: “Don’t worry; be happy.”

Dr. Berzin: Right. But you do what you can, like get health insurance or make a will – these sorts of things.

Participant: And try to live with the insecurity.

Dr. Berzin: And try to live with the insecurity. And don’t fall prey to the media and political propaganda, which try to instill fear and insecurity with heightened threats of terrorism and stuff like that. Sure, there is terrorism, but to use it as a political means to control the population or to get elected is obviously an abuse of power… using the psychological mechanism of fear to get people to do what you want them to do. So, try not to fall prey to that. Understand what’s going on. 

A wonderful example was that of bomb shelters during the Cold War, the early Cold War, in America. We were all taught to build our bomb shelters in case there was a nuclear attack. And what? You’re going to have water for a month? What are you going to do in your bomb shelter… or in school? I was in school at that time. We had air raid drills that the nuclear bombs are coming. And what do you do to protect yourself? You go underneath your desk, and somehow that is going to save you from the nuclear bomb. It was absolutely ridiculous. But it scared the dickens out of us as kids – if one took it seriously. Most of us didn’t, of course; it was a game. But if you took it seriously… I mean it’s ludicrous.

Participant: Then you felt secure.

Dr. Berzin: Then you felt secure under the desk [laughs].

Participant: Hide under the bed.

Dr. Berzin: Right, or I’ll hide under the bed. Then I won’t get killed. 

Refuting the False “Me,” Not the Conventional “Me”

So, the security issue is a very difficult one, but really, that’s what we have to work on. And if you get more and more understanding of the voidness of “me” – which doesn’t deny the conventional “me” but refutes the so-called false “me,” which is like an inflated ego, which is our attitude toward and identification with this false “me” (this is what we have to really work on) – we don’t feel insecure. We’re not insecure in front of audiences, talking in front of big audiences; otherwise… “Me! They’re looking at me!” – this type of thing. And then we freak out.

Participant: That’s the fear.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Well, the fear gets us into the second disturbing emotion, which is what I’d like to speak about – so, thank you very much – and that is anger, anger and repulsion. 

Let’s look at the definition of anger. It is aimed at another limited being – so, it could be a person, an animal; our own suffering – my sickness, my unhappiness, and so on; or situations entailing suffering that might arise from either of the two – “I have a problem with my partner,” “I have a problem with my children,” “I have a problem with at work,” and stuff like that. Or it may simply be situations in which the suffering occurs, like the world situation in which there are so many problem. The definition doesn’t specify that anger can be aimed at objects, but I think it can also be aimed at objects. You can be quite angry at your car when it doesn’t work or your computer when it crashes – this type of thing. That’s not mentioned, but I think that could be included. 

So, this is what it’s aimed at: the actual state of suffering or the being or thing that’s causing us suffering. And it’s impatient with it (it’s the opposite of patience: can’t tolerate it), and it wishes to get rid of it, to make it end, such as by damaging or hurting it or striking out against it.

So, there’s a little bit of a sense of violence. It’s not simply that you don’t want it but that you really want to push it away (so, repulsion) and probably damage it as well if you could. Like you kick your car you’re so angry with it or bang the television… things like that). 

It’s based on regarding its object as unattractive or repulsive by its very nature, and it functions to bring us suffering (nobody’s happy when they are angry or repulsed). 

Fear Is a Subcategory of Anger

Fear is like a subcategory of this – you really strongly want to get it away from you. Often, fear and anger are mixed together. “I’m angry with you…” Well, it’s interesting to see. Would you have them separately? They are fairly similar. 

Participant: If there’s no fear, you have no anger.

Dr. Berzin: With no fear, you would have no anger? What about, “I’m afraid that I won’t be able to complete my work, but I’m angry with the computer for crashing.” In that example the anger and fear are aimed at different things. What about, “You broke a glass in the kitchen. You dropped it, and it broke, and I’m angry with you.” Is there fear there? I don’t think so.

Participant: But you could be angry with the computer…

Dr. Berzin:  But are you afraid of the computer? “I’m really angry that the bus is late because I’m afraid that I won’t get to my appointment on time.” There it’s clear that our fear is not aimed at the bus. But are you ever angry with an object that you are afraid of?  

Participant: Not with an object

Dr. Berzin: That gets complicated. This is why anger isn’t necessarily the best translation here. You have to think of a whole syndrome. 

Let’s say you don’t like spiders. You exaggerate their negative aspects and project something negative: “It’s just the way it looks.” As one of my teachers said, from the spider’s point of view, you look like a monster. That’s quite true! A spider thinks it’s perfectly normal to look like a spider. So, who’s right? [Laughs] Anyway, you project that ugliness onto it (when it’s just neutral, it’s just a form), and then you are afraid of it. When you’re afraid of something, there’s a big grasping for a solid “me”: “I’m afraid it’s going to hurt me.” And then you are repulsed by it; you want to get it away. 

Now, when you want to get it away or want to run away from it, that falls into the definition here of what we’re translating as anger, but you wouldn’t really say in our Western languages that you’re “angry” with it. “I’m angry with you, Mr. Spider, because you invaded my space and frightened me!” If you were going to hit it and smack it, there would be some anger there, wouldn’t there? Hostility, certainly. I translate it as hostility. There is a subdivision of anger, which is that when it’s directed at a limited being, it’s hostility. There are degrees of this. You know, you’re not hostile toward the computer (that’s why I chose the word “hostile”), but your hostile toward somebody. And then there’s anger (fear is part of this). There can be hatred. There can be holding a grudge. These are subcategories.  

Participant: One is the movement of wanting to flee; and the other is wanting to push it away.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Either you want to push it away, or you want to push yourself away (so, the inverse). Or “I don’t want to be associated with this” – with what somebody did or whatever. It could take the form of rejecting a person. It could take the form of rejecting a group. Because of fear of being rejected by a person or group, we could get angry with ourselves: “I am afraid that I’m not going to be accepted by you, so I’m angry that I’m not good enough. I’m insecure. I’m not good enough to be accepted by you or by this work.” Sometimes we can be very hostile and feel very aggressive without even knowing why and without that hostility being directed at something in particular. Desire can be like that as well: “I want something; I don’t know what I want, but I want something.” Did you ever have that? 

These are very interesting things to analyze when they arise – “What’s going on here? Am I exaggerating some negative quality or projecting a negative quality? Am I totally ignoring any positive quality?” – and then to go even deeper to discover this grasping for a solid “me”: “I don’t want it near me. It’s going to somehow make me dirty.” For instance, “I don’t want to get my hands dirty. I don’t want to get involved in your dirty mess of your life” – so we reject; we want to run away. 

Let’s think of examples from our own experiences, from our own lives, and try to look a little bit more deeply into what’s going on when we have anger. We could be angry at a situation: “It’s not fair!” – this type of attitude. We read about what’s going on in the news – “It’s not fair; it’s not right – what’s going on!” – and we get angry. So, it’s a rejection. We want to push it away; we don’t want it to be there. 

[meditation] 

There Are Instinctive and Biological Bases for Anger

OK. What I wanted to mention here, something that came to my mind, was that there is a certain instinctive, biological aspect that’s going on here. One, is just survival – that we run away from danger. We have to protect ourselves from danger; otherwise, we wouldn’t survive. Likewise, there’s the drive to take care of our young, to preserve the species, and so on, which is a basic biological drive. We have to have food, shelter and so on. These are, perhaps, in the category of attraction and repulsion, but they don’t have to be accompanied by this exaggeration. 

You see, that’s the problem here. We project onto the object either more good qualities or more bad qualities than it actually has and regard it in an incorrect way. And then “I have to have it!” This type of thing. “I’ve got to survive!” and so on. So, we’re all upset and nervous and so on. There’s insecurity there. That doesn’t mean that we just let ourselves be hit by the car, that we don’t move out of the way of the car. Of course, we do. But we’re calm, and without any grasping for a solid “me.” Just naturally, we take care of ourselves. We have to. 

This is why it’s so important to make the differentiation between the conventional “me”… which, obviously, we take care of, but not as though there’s a “me” separate from the conventional “me” and “I have to take care of my self,” as if there were two people here. That’s alienation or what, in Buddhist jargon, is called “dualism.” That’s obviously a faulty way of looking at ourselves. Even saying that, “looking at our selves,” sounds dualistic, doesn’t it? But we have to differentiate the conventional “me” as the basis for leading our lives in a healthy way and the false “me” that we regard with an inflated sense of me – “I have to do this,” “I have to get rid of this,” and so on. 

That’s one thing I wanted to mention. 

Renunciation Motivated by Anger Is Unstable

The other thing that came to my mind was looking at anger in the context of renunciation. Renunciation is the determination to be free (Entsagung, in German). So, we’re determined to be free, and we see that there’s a way out (we’ve discussed renunciation before). We look at our suffering and at our situations (these are the stages that lead up to renunciation). And what happens is that we get angry with ourselves. This is why I was mentioning getting angry at difficult situations. Getting angry with yourself is a form of this anger that is associated with renunciation. “I’m angry with myself that I’m continuing to suffer, I’m angry with the fact that samsara is terrible. I’m just angry about the whole situation. Life isn’t fair. Nothing is fair.” There’s anger there, isn’t there? And we can direct that anger toward ourselves – “I’m angry with myself that I’m so stupid and that I keep on getting into trouble. I keep on getting angry or getting upset or getting attached or whatever.” That is not the state of mind that will bring about true renunciation. When you do it out of anger, renunciation is very unstable. 

This is why I always say that you have to work through that stage. Everybody goes through it, it seems. If you’re working on developing renunciation, you go through that phase of being angry with yourself – so, based on anger, thinking, “I’m going to do it! This is so stupid. I’m disgusted.” But that’s a disturbed state of mind, so it’s unstable. That’s why I say that you have to get bored. You have to go through that and then get bored. “This is just so boring. It just repeats over and over again. Enough already. I’ve had enough.” Then you lose interest.  

You have to lose interest in samsara. Which is an interesting way of looking at it, I think – to lose interest. I’ve lost interest in trying to find the perfect partner, in trying to find… Now, that doesn’t mean that you just become an apathetic blob that doesn’t care about anything because you do have interest in liberation. And if you’re working toward enlightenment, you do have interest in working on yourself and reaching the enlightened state of a Buddha so that you can help others. It’s just this other stuff that you’re not interested in. So, it is described as being a little bit like growing up – that you’re no longer interested in the toys that you played with when you were a little kid. You’re just bored with it.  

So, anger can occur in many, many different situations. There are many different forms and varieties of this repulsion, hostility. It can be directed at somebody else. It can be directed at yourself, though it doesn’t state that in the definition. But it’s interesting. His Holiness the Dalai Lama was quite surprised when a group of psychologists (I was there) expressed that people in the West were angry with themselves, that they don’t like themselves. His Holiness found that very strange because it is not quite the way it’s described in the teachings, which is that everybody’s attached to themselves, that they are self-cherishing, selfish, thinking only of themselves. But it’s an inversion of that, of thinking only of oneself and “I don’t like it.” Still totally self-centered. So, we have that as well. 

Are there any comments, anything you’d like to discuss in this whole area of anger and repulsion?

What about Unaimed Anger?

How would you analyze the case of feeling hostility and anger but not knowing why and not having your anger directed at a specific object? Instead, it’s unaimed, and anything that comes within your field of perception, you direct your anger at. What is that based on?

Participant:  Hormones.

Dr. Berzin: Hormones? Yes, there can be hormonal, biological aspects, certainly in terms of desire – the sexual hormones and so on. That could be there. Anger can come…

Participant: Or irritation. 

Dr. Berzin: Being irritated, sure… that you don’t feel well. Or it can be a hormonal thing. Menopause certainly causes all sorts of emotional things. Pregnancy causes all sorts of emotional things as well because of hormones. You can be frustrated that you can’t get what you want, and so you get filled with anger and hostility. It’s not directed… it’s not caused by the other person necessarily. 

It’s very interesting with Alzheimer’s disease (my mother had that). My mother was always a very, very gentle person, and she, like most people who have had Alzheimer’s, go through a certain period when they become very aggressive and even hit others and so on. My mother couldn’t put more than two words together that made sense, so she had no ability to communicate. I think that it is possible that that aggression was based on tremendous frustration. Tremendous frustration. So, you get angry and aggressive and just hit out. It’s based on this concept of a solid “me” – “I can’t do what I want.” Rather than just accepting, “I’m angry that I’m getting old, and I can’t do what I used to be able to do.” You get angry, don’t you? 

What is the solution to that?

Participant: No me, no problem.

Dr. Berzin: No me, no problem. But I do exist.

Participant: In a way, yes.

Expanding the Basis for Labeling “Me”

Dr. Berzin: I do exist. I’m me labeled on this experiencing of getting older and so on. Just don’t have this idea of “me” being something that is solid, permanent, never changing, never affected by anything.

Participant: And don’t cling to it.

Dr. Berzin: And don’t cling to it. Don’t project, believe in and then cling to this image of what you think you’re supposed to be – let’s say, a twenty-year old youth, which obviously, you no longer are when you’re much older than that.  

Participant: [Inaudible]

Dr. Berzin: Right. Or we think that we should be as attractive to others as we might have been when we were twenty, and we’re not. That makes us very angry. So, it’s not accepting reality.  

Participant: So, would it be a solution, when one feels irritated, to recognize it as a passing state?

Dr. Berzin: Well, there are many, many methods. That is one of the methods. There are many, many methods for dealing with disturbing emotions.  

Participant: It already takes an edge off of it.

Dr. Berzin: Right. “I’m in a bad mood. I’m angry, and so forth. But it will pass. It’s just a wave on the surface of the ocean of the mind, and that will pass. It doesn’t disturb the tranquility of the ocean in its depth.”

Participant: And also when one recognizes that, for instance, it’s a hormonal thing.

Dr. Berzin: Right, or you recognize that this is a hormonal thing. Or “I’m really tired…” you know, when the little kid is overtired and gets cranky and then is very angry? Sometimes it’s very good to recognize when we are like that, and then just put the baby to bed. “I’m in a bad mood. I’m really cranky like an overtired child and just… enough,” and go to sleep. Put the baby to sleep, to bed – very good strategy – rather than continuing to stay up and say and do something that you’ll regret later. 

So, there are these things of dealing with the nature of the mind – that it’s going to pass; it’s hormonal –  looking at all the causes and deconstructing what you are angry with, and “I’m angry with you.” It’s like you ask the two year old to bring you a cup of tea and they spill it. Well, what do you expect? He’s two years old. Of course, two-year-olds don’t have steady hands and so on. There are many factors that will cause somebody to act in a way that you might find disturbing. 

Then there are all the meditations on patience. For instance, I asked you to do something, and you didn’t do it correctly. Whose fault is it? It’s my fault for being so lazy that I didn’t do it myself and asked you to do it. If you want to have it done correctly, do it yourself. Then if it’s incorrect, you can only get angry with yourself. Even then, you shouldn’t get angry with yourself. “Well, I tried. I made a mistake” – this type of thing. Shantideva has many, many methods for developing patience. 

The opposite of anger is love. Instead of wishing others harm, you wish them happiness. “You’re annoying me! Well, why are you annoying me? It’s because something must be disturbing you. So, that’s causing you to be annoyed and to act in a very nasty way. So, I wish that that would go away so that you would be nice.” That’s love: “I want for you to be happy.” The opposite of anger is love, patience and love. So, this type of thing. 

Or we only focus on the negative qualities and label the thing that we’re angry with only on the negative qualities. Well, expand the basis for labeling; see the good qualities as well. Same thing with attachment: we only focus on and label the object that we’re attached to on the basis of its good qualities. See the whole thing. This is very important in a relationship. “You said something that really made me angry, that really made me upset.” Well, we lose sight of everything that’s involved in the whole relationship. Instead of labeling “you” and the relationship on the basis of everything that’s involved, we narrow in on one, little incident, and now “You’re terrible. You’re no good. You don’t love me anymore,” blah, blah, blah. All of that. So, widen the basis for labeling.

The Disturbing Emotions and Attitudes Are the Internal Enemies

So, there are many, many strategies that we can use, but what we are doing here in the lam-rim as a first step is to identify the disturbing emotions and to see that they are causes of suffering. That, I think, we haven’t emphasized so much. So, let’s go back in our last moments here and look at longing desire. attachment, anger, hostility. repulsion, and fear and really let it sink in that these cause us to feel very uncomfortable; they cause suffering. And they causes us to act and speak and think in ways that just make us unhappy and cause more problems.  

If we are very attached to somebody, we can act in all sorts of stupid ways that will jeopardize other aspects of our lives very much. “I want to be with you, so I will ignore my work; I will…” whatever. So, let’s think about that in our last moments for this evening.

 [meditation]  

These are really the troublemakers.  

[meditation]

OK. Any last things you want to mention or ask?

Participant: I also have the feeling that fear and anger are sometimes based on insecurity, including this diffuse anger that you don’t direct at anybody or anything.

Dr. Berzin: Definitely. These are some of the major strategies that we have… you know, grasping for this solid “me.” We project and then believe in the solid “me,” and then we grasp onto it. And how do we try to establish its existence and to make it secure? Either by getting things to us or by pushing things away – the two main mechanisms. The third one, we’ll see, is to put up walls, to shut out things that we feel are threatening (it’s like a subcategory of hostility). Rather than push it away, we just pretend that it doesn’t exist – denial and these sorts of things. So, sure, it’s based on insecurity. 

When we are, as you say, feeling insecure just in general, that feeling can manifest as “I want something. I don’t know what, but I just want something,” or as “I just feel in a bad mood, hostile.” Or it can make you very stiff and cause you to put up the walls and not feel anything. You somehow protect that “me” inside the walls. A lot of it is very unconscious. Very unconscious. And it has a physical manifestation in terms of our health, our bodies, posture – everything. You can tell in somebody’s face – whether the face is relaxed or is sort of scrunched up with anger or desire. Or they are very stiff. It shows in the muscle tension. So, it has many, many ramifications. These are the troublemakers. 

It’s why Shantideva says it’s not external enemies that are the problem: it’s the internal enemies. These are the ones. He talks to his disturbing emotions, although we shouldn’t take that too literally in terms of a dualism here. But he talks to them and says, “You have made a fool out of me long enough, and you’ve caused me trouble long enough. Now your days are over. I’m going to get rid of you and not let you rule me.” This type of thing. And that’s a good attitude to have… but without making it too concrete, of course, and not getting angry with yourself, as I said: “I’m so stupid. I lost my temper again.”   

But you need to… this is why you have these forceful deities in tantra, Yamantaka (Vajrabhairava). You direct that natural energy of repulsion toward your disturbing emotions. “I’m not going to act like that. I’m not going to be selfish, not going to be greedy, not going to be hostile and arrogant.” Then you use that very strong energy of rejection with the understanding of voidness (not making it into some solid thing) to harness that energy. But that gets us into the topic of tantra. And unless you really know what you’re doing and have a good understanding of voidness, tantra can just increase your disturbing emotions rather than help you to get rid of them. So, one has to be careful. But as we said before, there are many, many methods for dealing with these things.