Defabricating Anger

The Buddha says that we suffer from our ignorance, and the first thing we’re ignorant of is the extent to which we fabricate the present moment. We take the raw material coming in from our past karma, and then we turn it into an actual experience of the present moment. We that with three activities called fabrication: bodily fabrication, the in-and-out breath; verbal fabrication, the way you talk to yourself; and then mental fabrication, the perceptions you hold in mind — the images or labels you place on things giving them meaning — along with feelings, feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. That’s what we’re doing right now. We’re trying to bring some knowledge to these processes, so that instead of causing suffering, these fabrications can be part of the path to the end of suffering.

You focus on the breath, and you talk to yourself about the breath. Ask yourself, “What kind of breathing would feel good right now?” You can experiment: long breathing, short breathing; fast, slow; heavy, light; or in long, out short; in short, out long; deep or shallow. Experiment for a bit and see what feels best.

Then, when you find something that feels good, how do you maintain it? That’s another thing you can talk to yourself about. And as you maintain it, how can you let it spread? Because you want that feeling of ease and well-being to spread through the whole body, so that the mind can have a really good place to stay here in the present moment.

So now you’re shaping the present moment with knowledge, and you’re getting a better understanding of how you do that.

Then there are the perceptions you hold in mind. When you breathe in, where does the breath come in? When we’re talking about “breath,” we’re not talking about the air so much as the movement of energy in the body, such as the movement that allows the air to come in, allows the air to go out. Without that movement in the body, the air couldn’t do anything. The breath is something that comes from within the body itself, but it brings energy from outside along with the air. So where does that energy flow? What image do you have in mind? And what image is the best one for allowing it to flow through the whole body? That’s something you can talk to yourself about as well.

See? We’re bringing these three kinds of fabrication together right here, right now, with knowledge. In that way, they form part of the path. And as you get used to them—realizing that you have choices in how you breathe, how you talk to yourself, what perceptions you hold in mind—then you can apply that same knowledge to other issues that arise as you go through the day.

One of the big issues, of course, is anger. We live in the human world. It’s not the case that everybody’s going to do what we want. So it’s very easy for anger to arise. We see this clearly with people who are in power, and they don’t want anyone to say anything critical of them. They don’t want anyone to do anything they don’t like. They spend all their time being angry. Which is not a good mind state to have. So one of the things you can learn is how you put together a feeling of anger, and it’s done in the same way, with the same three things: the way you breathe, the way you talk to yourself, the images and labels you hold in mind, and the feelings you focus on. When you see how the anger is put together, you see how you can take it apart. And you realize that if you can get past your anger, then if there’s something that really needs to be changed, you’re in a better position to change it. You’re going to see it more clearly.

One of the reasons why a lot of us resist trying to control our anger is our feeling that if we don’t get angry, nothing gets done, or we’re simply rolling over and letting people run over us. That’s not the case. The reason anger seems to get things done is because we tend to be kind of lazy, and only when we get stirred up do we do something about the situation around us. If you’re really wise, you can do things about the situation without having to get angry. When the mind is in a good shape, then you can see clearly what needs to be done and it’s in a better position to do it.

So you don’t need the anger. In fact, the anger gets in the way. It narrows your vision. When you have tunnel vision like that, some things seem to be the ideal thing to say, the ideal thing to do, because you don’t see how they’re connected with what’s going to happen afterwards. Only when the anger has passed and your vision begins to broaden again do you see the bad consequences of what you did.

So this is the first step in getting past anger: learning how to talk to yourself in a wise way about the anger. You also want to check the way you breathe, because sometimes the way you breathe aggravates the situation. You breathe in an uncomfortable way, and you feel like you’ve got something bottled up inside you and you’ve got to let it out. You feel that if you don’t let it out, you’re going to blow up, or your health will be affected. Again, this is an example of how you talk to yourself aggravates the anger. So breathe in a way that’s calming. There is another choice between letting the anger out and getting it bottled up. You can breathe through it.

Think of the anger as being like a knot of tension in the body. Wherever you feel that tension, think of the breath flowing through, flowing through, dissolving it away. Breathe in a calming way. And then remind yourself of the drawbacks of anger. As I said, you do things that you later regret. Oftentimes you harm yourself.

There’s a passage where the Buddha advises that you think about how people who are angry tend to act in ways that are really not in their own best interest. You don’t look good when you’re angry. You do things that are stupid. Sometimes you harm your own belongings. You harm your relationships with people around you. So you’ve got to remind yourself of those drawbacks.

You also have to look for the allure. What do you like about the anger? In some cases, it’s because you have a feeling of power, or you feel that nothing gets done unless you get angry. That doesn’t help at all. You have to learn to talk to yourself in new ways. There’s a lot more you can see when the anger has passed, and then you can look at the situation for what it really is and figure out what really would be the most effective thing to say or to do or to think.

As for the images you hold in mind, either you have an image that you’re being oppressed by something—a weight is being put on you, you’re being squeezed into a narrow little box—or else the person who’s made you angry is a monster. But look at that person. Are they really a monster? They’re a human being. Here’s where it’s good to think about the good they’ve done. The good they’ve done for you, the good they’ve done for people at large. You have to remind yourself that they’re not totally evil. And even if they are totally evil, you have to feel sorry for them: They’re digging themselves into a hole.

Then you look at yourself. Are you really oppressed? Part of you may be feeling like you’re forced to do something you don’t want to do. But there’s another part of you that can stand off to the side and watch and observe, and that part is not oppressed. That’s the part that pulls you out. You can look at the situation from a larger point of view. That changes the feeling of oppression inside.

So basically you look for the allure of the anger, and then you think of the drawbacks. This is how you talk to yourself, this is how you hold images in mind of what the actual situation is. You realize that you can change the way you breathe, change the way you talk to yourself, change the images you hold in mind, even change the feelings in your body. Then the anger is not so oppressive or so powerful. You can put it aside without bottling it up. Then you can see more clearly what needs to be done, whether something needs to be done right away or whether you have to wait—because now you’re in a position where you can see the larger picture.

So as we’re learning how to meditate, we’re not just running away from the world. We’re learning about the mind and how it can shape an experience in the present moment. Then you begin to realize this is how it shapes these experiences all the time, just that we’re not paying attention. We just go with the flow. As a result, we just get the same old results over and over and over again. Our problem is that we see the drawbacks of anger when we’re outside of the anger. You have to learn how to remind yourself while you’re in the anger that you want to get out. And whatever allure the anger may have, you have to remind yourself that it’s false. It’s lying to you.

So when anger comes up, check these three things: How are you breathing? Breathe in a calming way. How are you talking to yourself? Talk to yourself in a way that allows you to get past the anger. What images are you holding in mind? Can you change those images?

One image the Buddha has you adopt when someone has done something you really don’t like is this: Think of yourself as walking across the desert. You’re hot, tired, trembling with thirst. You come across a little bit of water in a cow’s footprint. You know you need the water, but if you try to scoop it up with your hand, it’ll get muddy. So you have to get down on all fours and slurp it up. Now, you wouldn’t want somebody to come along and take a picture of you at that point. It’s not very dignified. But you have to realize that dignity doesn’t matter in a case like that. Your survival matters. So you do what has to be done.

In the same way, there are times when someone has done something really bad, and you hear that the Buddha said, “Have goodwill for that person. Don’t focus on their bad side. Focus on their good side.” You say, “That’s beneath me. That’s an insult to my dignity.” But then if you maintain your dignity, what’s going to happen to your goodness? Your goodness is going to die. Your heedfulness is going to die. When that dies, you’re dead.

So you do what needs to be done to put the mind in the right mood, to look past the anger, not let it suck you inside. You can stand outside it. You can see it as something other. It may be happening in your mind, happening in your body, but you don’t have to identify with it. And you’ve got these tools to rearrange things inside.

So as we meditate, we’re learning how to use these tools in a proper way. Some people say, “I keep on meditating and I don’t see that my anger is going away.” That’s because you’re not using your tools. You get up from your meditation and you leave the tools right here. They’re useful in all situations, so you should carry them around with you because you never know when you’re going to need them.

And they’re light tools. They don’t weigh you down. It’s almost as if they’re floating behind you. You can turn around and reach for them whenever you need them. That’s when you get the most out of the meditation.