Zen Heart (eBook)

From Chapter 12: Transforming Anger

Manypractitioners get discouraged when they realize how difficult it is tomaintain an awake state. Quite often, even after a good period ofmeditation or yoga first thing in the morning, where we feel somewhataware and awake, we may 'come to' later in the day with the realizationthat we've since spent hours in a state of waking sleep. The questionis, why is it so hard to awaken? In part, it's because the life force,or energy, necessary to awaken is constantly leaking away, from morningtill night.

Perhaps the most significant leak occurs through themanifestation of negative emotions, where energy is squandered in smalland sometimes huge doses throughout the day. The word negative,as used here, doesn't necessarily mean 'bad,' but simply something thatnegates or denies. It says no to life. Anger, for example, says, 'Idon't want this!' This does not apply only to loud outbursts of anger.We manifest negative emotions, in smaller doses, all day long: asirritability, judgments of self and others, impatience, passiveaggression, and so on.

Working with Anger

Oneimportant emphasis in practice is learning what closes these leaks.This is why we must pay attention to how to work with our negativeemotions, particularly the many forms of anger. An analogy might behelpful in understanding this process: we all know that food providesenergy for the body. But there's another kind of 'food' that feeds ourbeing, namely our impressions or experience. Every experience, muchlike the food we consume, can either nourish or deplete us, dependingon how much awareness is present and what our intention is. When wereact to an experience negatively, it's like eating bad food. Itdoesn't digest. In fact, it can even poison us. When that happens, weoften spew the poison back out into the world, usually at anotherperson.

The alternative to manifesting negative emotions is tobring physical awareness to the actual energy of the reaction.Normally, we fuel our reactions by believing and justifying thethoughts that accompany them. But when we disengage from this pattern,attention can instead be focused on the visceral experience of theemotion itself. This attention allows a different type of digestion totake place. For example, when we can stop the expression of anger andinstead experience its actual energy, that raw energy may actuallytransform into nourishment for Being Awareness.

I'm notsuggesting that emotions should not arise, nor that we should repressthem. The practice instruction is simply to refrain from expressingthem, either outwardly through words and actions or inwardly throughspinning and obsessive thoughts. It is only through the process of notexpressing negative emotions and instead actually experiencing theirenergy that we learn to live in accord with our true nature, ournatural Being Kindness.

If we could see our angry emotionalreactions clearly, it would become obvious how they deplete our energyand consequently narrow our life. We would also see how, when we'recaught in anger, we're cut off from the heart, from a sense of ourbasic connectedness. For example, when someone swerves in front of uson the freeway, anger arises instantly, and we may get caught in thestrong impulse to yell and gesture. We will certainly feel justified inbeing irate. But what happens if, instead of expressing the anger, wesimply stay with the visceral experience?

Practicing in this wayover time teaches us to connect more deeply with our experience, andfinally we are able to recognize the situation as it is: that anotherdriver simply cut...