by Ngawang Tenzin

How to control your anger

Anger is defined anger as a strong feeling of displeasure and hostility. The great Buddhist master, Shantideva, said that there is no greater evil than anger. Even a moment of anger has a potential to eliminate the merit and noble things we did. Anger is like a fire which can extinguish even a forest.

When we hear and feel something unpleasant words or acts, we show reaction of anger, because we want to hear and feel only pleasant things. Stoked by anger, we say and act displeasing things, and disrupt our healthy relationship with our partner, family and friends. On top of that, anger generates a sore in the mind. We could heal the sore on our body, but it is difficult to heal the mental sore. We ought to remain in alert not to generate sore in the hearts of others. This is for our own happiness and benefit.

Each time when anger appear, we must press it down, lets not activate. One day it prove to be difficult for anger to appear, on the ground that we have been pressing down for long enough.
In Bodhisattva’s way of life, Shatideva said:

How can we find the leather
To cover the whole earth?
It’s like covering the earth
if the sole of our shoes is leather.

The anger produces lot of enemies, and we may want to eliminate them. But as long as the anger is concerned, all human beings are our enemies. There is no possibility to defect all human beings on the earth. If we overcome our anger, it is like we have defected all our enemies. There is, then, no more enemy in our life. We must understand that it is our anger that makes enemy. For example, you argue with your best pal, and led to verbal fight. It distances your friendship. Later you regret to have verbal fight with your best pal, which rocked your mutual friendship. At the moment of anger, we turn into a state of madness and unhappy; it also explodes the calm atmosphere maintained by the surrounding guys.

First, keep our anger under control. Second we turn it into patience. If we want to scold, we must scold our anger.

A short-tempered Jampa, he lived next to my room. He was teased and mocked by his classmates. They knew he was short tempered and wanted to stir his anger. He took no pain in reacting like fire. One day we found that he shows patience instead of anger. Probably he was worn-out of anger. My friend Tashi was known as a quick-tempered, and he now says, "Why should I make myself unhappy by anger?”

In anger, we use the unpleasant words or take up unpleasant acts. These words and acts not only boil your blood, but also hurt the feeling of others. When anger is about to arise, it signal you that a destructive and dreaded feeling is rising up. The driver hit on brake when a passerby suddenly appears in front of you. If you do not hit the brake, you will hit the man, probably killing or injuring. When anger is about to rise, you stop the tragedy of the anger, by hitting the brake of patience. You think it is ok, and it doesn't matter.

Our mind is more familiar to anger, and less strange to patience. Therefore, anger comes faster than patience. So it is time to make familiar our mind to patience now. We all know that anger brings out only discomfort and harming to others and ourselves. So let's keep calm when someone annoys you, and think that it doesn't matter. It will help you to stop the anger from rising. When you are angry, you neither speak well, nor could think well.

For example, you saw your child broke a cup, and anger sprang up. You scold the child. In asmuch as you pointed his mistake directly, you dislike that. The scolding caused by your anger doesn't prevent the child from further breaking. Instead, when a child break a cup, you help gather the broken cup, and say, “Didn’t you hurt? You be careful in the future.”

A teacher punished a student for the unfair reason he thought. The teacher kept his punishing belt under his bed. When he left, the student cut it into pieces and threw away. If the teacher fined what he did, he would face the same fate. However, no one likes displeasing words and actions, no matter what wrong they did.

Never annoy others. How do we feel when we are annoyed? Our anger has potential to destroy our position, reputation, relationship, and happy life, of which things we cherish lot.
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We are interdependent each other from our birth to the end of life. In our daily life, we need help and support to each other, no matter who we are. We might think when we are in good position: “I don’t care if he gets anger”. This is a narrowed thought, which often obstruct to gain big profit and victory. How difficult it is to build a good friendship and healthy relationship? How regretful it is to destroy the good friendship and healthy relationship of many years—by moments of our anger?

We need each other, we help each other, and we work each other.
When you are in bad situation, here comes a person to whom you have no expectation. It is often case that those to whom we have expectation disappoint us.
You will be angry when it did not happen what you expected. Do what you have to do, and let it happen. Never expect. We have a saying that if you don’t make yourself happy, other might give you sufferings.
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How to develop Patience

The patience is a mind which is not disturbed by harm doer and suffering. In other words, patience is a mind that is able bears any kind of sufferings and harm. With patience we can accept any pain inflicted upon us.

The patience of not retaliating and the patience of enduring suffering are very important in our daily life. Mark call you as a liar, brainless, or whatever, but you feel no anger towards him. It is a sign that you have patience. And patience is the opponent to anger. Without patience we remain vulnerable to anger, anxiety, frustration and so forth.

In bodhisattva’s way of life,
Obstinate beings are as vast as sky,
All of them can’t be controlled.
If you control your mind of anger,
It is like controlling all of them.

Thus, we require patience to crush our anger. I know that it is hard for us develop patience immediately, since we are too much obsessed with anger. But more we acquaint with patience, quicker the patience come.

Most of our anger has slightest reasons. Through the roughly analysis we will conclude that trivial things stir anger. As a result of having no patience, we are not able to endure the disturbing words and acts, and think of retaliate him. If we retaliate to someone, how long can we retaliate? If we take revenge to him, he would response because his pride and anger would not keep quite. Although we could not retaliate at the moment, we grasp antipathy, and hunt for an appropriate opportunity.

It goes on until you got tire or withdraw.

A great master said that if a ball drops, it would bounce up. Remember, the revenge gives us only loss and suffering. So must be patience. If you think what happened in the past in detail, then you have to take vengeance throughout your life.

By and large, we cause stir anger in people, because we do not let people stay where they are. We often act like monkey. Let's check what we say and what we do, instead of checking others.

We better to accept lose above bigger benefit. The wise person radiates patience. Those who have patience easily deal with diversity of culture, religion, and ethnics, and have healthy relationship of family, friends, etc.

On other hand, when a doctor is attacked by madman, the doctor would not counter attacks him, because he know the man is mad, and would try to heal his madness. Like a madman, the person, who shows anger, has no freedom over anger. He could not control his anger. As a result of anger, when something goes wrong, he would feel regret, wishing that he would not have done so. It shows that he has no control over his anger, and it is his anger that makes him angry. So you must stop the reaction of anger to the person, and act patience to his words and acts, considering him like a madman. It is good excuse not to start the engine of your anger.
A student was beating a thief, and his teacher intervened, but in vain. The teacher pointed at his nose with his finger, saying Patience, Patience. The student then remembered to develop patience. But he has already busted into anger, and it doesn’t work to be patience then. When anger is about to occur in mind, take a long breath and say to yourself: I must stop it.
There was a hermit meditating on patience in a cave. A man accidentally broke a water pot set up outside his cave. While in meditation, the hermit heard the broken sound of the pot. He came out and angrily shouted, "How dare you broke my pot?" The man replied I wanted to test your patience, and ran away. Sometimes it is more helpful to practice patience with persons than merely meditating on it. We have a saying that if there’s no one to provoke anger, with whom does one practices patience?

If we lack of patience it is not only difficult to remain in cheerful, but also to maintain peaceful relationship with our family, friends and associates. Without patience, we will have no calm mind.
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Your mind is the source of happiness and suffering.

Lord Buddha said: You yourself are protector. You yourself are enemy. In other words, it is in your hand to be good or bad. Your mind creates both happiness and suffering, and so it is the source of happiness and suffering.

In the morning, you look cheerful, and engage in sweet talk. In the afternoon, you look bloomy, and keep in mum. Your mind like is summer weather. In summer, when it rain, suddenly it stop and shine, and verse versa. Your mood gets changed many times in one day. It is a reason that the mind follows the external conditions and atmosphere.

Although the mind is source of happiness and suffering, we mostly produce sufferings. We believe that only money, wealth, fame, sex give us happiness, and strive to achieve them. The happiness derived from these things does not last long.

On other hand, our mind is as wild as elephant. We need to tame the wild mind. There was a king who ruled his subjects with affectionate love and compassion. The subjects abide by the king’s degree like a garland of golden flower. A man called Kundudrol captured a large elephant in a forest. He took the elephant to the palace, and shouted, “Please take a look at the elephant which is worthy for the great king’s ride.” The king and his retinues came out and looked at the elephant. The king was pleased to see the elephant. He ordered Kundudrol to train the elephant and offer it to him. He trained the elephant—so much so that it became calm, lovely and powerful. Kundudrol offered the elephant with a hook, saying that the elephant was properly trained. Delighted, the king rode on the elephant, accompanied by Kundudrol. They passed through villages, and eventually arrived at a forest.

The elephant being smelled of a female elephant, he ran faster. Terrified, the king scolded to Kundudrol: “You said the elephant was well trained. What happened now?” Kundudrol said with folded hands, I am skilful in training the body of elephant. To train the mind, only Lamas are skilful. Even the wild animal like a tiger, its body can be trained, not its mind.”
Although the elephant was trained, but not his mind, we can't take granted that she would not kill people. So we must train our mind. Then we can believe ourselves, and we will know what we do.

There is another example. Mind is boss and we are his slaves. We serve what our mind thinks and want. We have no freedom, and we simply perform the order of our mind. Today we praise him, and next day we criticize him. We like something now and dislike it next time. We think to give up something, and, at the same time, keep doing it. It is that our mind is boss and we are his slaves. So we must train

We cherish much about our body to display beauty and pride. We cherish less to our mind, which display of who we are. As the creator of happiness and suffering, the mind is more important than the body. From now on, let's cherish our mind. How to cherish our mind? Focus on what you think right now. Suppose you meet a stranger now. How you greet to him?

We must train our mind to serve what we think and want.
Our mood in entertainment is much more fresh than in the class. We do not give discipline to our mind, and it become like a spoiled boy, to whom parents give whatever he wants, and never stop him doing bad.

By controlling our mind, we can stop anger, attachment, hatred, jealousy, un-virtuous pride, frustration, anxiety, disappointment, etc. We spend huge money on our body, and take care of it every day. But we do not take care of our mind lot. Also, we wash our body clean and leave the dirt inside. Therefore, we should care of our mind much more.

How to control our wild mind? We must consider about what our normal thoughts and actions. Think about our unruly and volatile mind, the mind which easily produce happy and unhappy, anger and patience, weeping and laughing, friendly and unfriendly, etc. Then we come to know what wrong our mind is doing. We must stop these wrongs, and begin to do right things. Patience is important to train our mind, as the patience make our mind undisturbed and calm. Always ready for patience. We must decide to show patience. Develop patience when people try to stir your anger. To train our mind, we need compassion and love. To develop them, we need to acquaint with them. When we see a poor man, and think what we feel when we are in such poor condition, and we develop compassion. It makes our mind calm. When we could press our mind down, it means we have trained mind.

When we are among others, we should examine our speech, and when we are alone, we must examine our mind. If we contemplate on this word, and apply it daily, it will be helpful to control our mind. Everything depends on mind. To produce healthy, cheerful, and peaceful atmosphere to oneself and others it is indispensable to train our mind.

The little Desire

According to Buddhism, the world we live in is called the desire realm, because the human beings have high desire on the ground that their desire multiple. Many saints left the worldly affairs and sought spiritualism. They know that desire in the world is unlimited, and as long as there is desire, there is suffering. So they kept cloths

In other words, we are not satisfied with those we have and those we got, and still want more. More we fulfill your desire, more the desire increase. Why it is so, although we got what we desired? The reason is that our desire is so high that we need everything, which is appealing to us, except it is impossible. When we see a beautiful car, we wish to have it; when we see an impressive house, we wish to have it too. Generally speaking, we toil to fulfill our goals, almost throughout our life. By the time we achieve our goal, we enjoy satisfaction, but this gradually disappear. Then we draw to new desire, and engage to fulfill it. To meet our desire, we might take illegitimate and negative ways, which end in jail.

However, we would devote our entire life toward fulfilling our desire, and still we are not satisfied. So it is clear that our desire has no end. Since we got up in the morning till going to bed, we do merely to satisfy our desire. More desire give rise to more suffering. Before we go out for work, we need to consider:

“So far I have been fulfilling my desire. Even though I accomplished my desire, the satisfaction I got is unstable and impermanence. The desires I follow give me more suffering than satisfaction. So I will develop little desire toward the worldly affairs.”

If we consider carefully and analytically the nature and function of our desire, we will come to aware of its effects - It will inspires us how to deal with our desire. For few minutes we focus our attention on the nature and function of our desire before going to bed.

Although it’s difficult to abandon the desire promptly, we can reduce the extent and intense of our desire. Just as a vehicle requires break for its stopping, so as our desire needs a break for its control.


Satisfaction

The satisfaction is a fundamental requirement for human beings. For satisfaction, we plan, visualize, dream, labor, etc. Most people are busy during the day for the satisfaction. Their vehicles collude, plan crush, sustain hardships, when they are on the way to satisfaction.

We are not able to satisfy what we are and what we do. Also, we need everything being best, or at least good. We seldom think that it’s fine what we are, what we do, and what we got. If we have sense of satisfaction, we feel fit to what we are, what we do and what we got. We are also fine if we don’t have things we want and others have. If there is no satisfaction, we will not be happy no matter what we are, what we do, and what we got. We are satisfied once we fulfilled our desire. This very satisfaction remains with us shortly, and disappear. We then toil to fulfill another satisfaction. On other words, we have no satisfaction.

It is important to develop satisfaction, if you want to live happily. How to develop satisfaction? We should consider:

" I am fine what I am and what I have. It is also fine if I don't have things
that I want and others have."

We must make our mind use to that. Motivated by such thought in the morning, our speech, body and mind will be influenced effectively and healthily during the day. We will turn into positive today from we were in negative yesterday. On top of that, it is vital to reflect on the saying that 'we are what we think'.

It is not necessary to spend money to make oneself happy. Just change our present way of thinking into satisfaction.

For some it is enough to live in a small room, and have sufficient cloths and food. For some everything should be luxury, plus new brand. Buddha said everything depend on ones mind. So if our mind thinks ok, then it is ok, and if our mind think it is not fine, then it is not fine.
On the whole, we ourselves create both happiness and suffering. By developing little desire and satisfaction, we will enjoy happy life, whereas big desire and un-satisfaction plunged our life into miserable. To develop satisfaction it is not necessary to chuck out our entire possessions, and cease to hunt for materials.