Social & Communal Harmony (3 of 5) Anger; Guided Meditation: Compassion

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Meditation: Compassion; Social & Communal Harmony (3 of 5) Anger. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Kodo Conlin at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on July 19, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Compassion

A good day. Good morning if you're here on the West Coast, hoping you're well. So again, my name is Kodo, and we'll continue today with this theme of the Buddha's teachings on social and communal harmony.

The first day in the meditation, we just grounded ourselves, sort of stilling, inviting a sense of ease and samādhi^[1], and settledness. Yesterday in the meditation, we moved to mettā^[2], loving-kindness practice. And today, we'll turn to compassion.

So we'll start in much the same way: settling, collecting. And then a few minutes into the meditation, there will be a shift, and we'll move to arousing compassion.

So let's find our postures, whether you're seated, or reclining, or standing, or walking. How can you invite some alignment into the bones? Balance on the muscles. And letting the breath reveal where there may be places of tension or holding. Letting the breath help us relax.

Bringing just a touch of energy into the physical body. Maybe that means lengthening the spine just a little. Balancing ease and energy.

Breathing, breathing through this whole body. For now, centering the attention on the sensations of breathing.

Now, within the meditation, without too much inner movement, the shift. The shift to arousing compassion, which we'll try this way.

As in the sitting yesterday, we'll first arouse mettā, goodwill, loving-kindness for ourselves, in whatever way feels natural for you. Intending our own well-being. That feeling in the whole body and mind, feeling the wish, "May I be happy."

May I be happy.

With just the beginnings of mettā, when mettā meets suffering, the response is compassion. We can turn this wish for well-being towards someone who's suffering. It could be us, someone we know. You can draw this person up in mind. Sense what it's like to be with them. In the same movement of the heart, offering the wish, "May you be happy. May you be free from suffering. May you be freed from harm and affliction."

As we offer this wish, our center of gravity stays in the wish for well-being: "May you be happy. May you be free from suffering. May you be safe from harm and affliction."

Gently, this compassion. Inviting it to well up in the heart with the wish, "May you be free from suffering."

And welling up, compassion can be like that amber light at sunset, shining from within us. Now we can offer this compassion to all beings. To all beings experiencing suffering. First in the direction in front of us. As if there were a curtain in front of us shielding the light of compassion from shining forth, gently but swiftly draw back the curtain and let this light of compassion shine on all beings to the forward direction: "May all of you be free of suffering."

Now all beings in the quarter to the right. Throwing back the curtain swiftly, and letting the amber light of compassion shine on all beings: "May you be free from harm and affliction."

Now in the third direction, behind. Uncovering the light of compassion, swiftly drawing back the curtain: "May all beings behind be free from suffering."

Quarter to the left. Drawing back the curtain and letting the light of compassion shine: "May you be safe from harm."

And above. To the right, behind, to the left, above, and below. All beings in all directions: "May you be free from suffering."

Relaxing back into ease. Relaxing any effort in the method, to register any goodness that's come. May we and all beings be equally nourished by this goodness.

Social & Communal Harmony (3 of 5) Anger

Hello again. Just having a moment to transition. It may be in the transition to say thank you so much for your practice; it's no small thing.

So, social and communal harmony in the Buddha's teachings. To recap a bit where we've been: what we're talking about is that the practice of social and communal harmony in the Buddha's teachings begins with Right View. It's this understanding of the efficacy of our action. And then yesterday we discussed how the Right View is made real by our effort, by our endeavor in personal training. We talked about Rahula's^[3] repeated reflection.

And then for many of us, sooner or later, we'll encounter a state that challenges us in some important ways. And I think it is especially relevant when we're considering social and communal harmony—how to live and act in a harmonious way with others—and that state, that emotion, is anger.

Let's start with this short story from the suttas. It features someone named Sakka^[4]. The texts say that Sakka was the ruler of the Heavens of the Thirty-Three, and it's likened kind of more to a regional ruler than a monarch. Interestingly characterized as imperfect, but someone of great faith and devotion.

So Sakka approached the Buddha in the usual approach, paid his respects, stood to one side, and then he said this:

"Having slain what, does one sleep soundly? Having slain what, does one not sorrow? What is the one thing, O Gotama, whose killing you approve?"

The Buddha responds: "Having slain anger, one sleeps soundly. Having slain anger, one does not sorrow. The killing of anger, O Sakka, with its poisoned root and honey tip—this is the killing the noble ones praise. For having slain that, one does not sorrow."

It's a rather provocative turn of conversation. I never hear the Buddha talking of killing. I think this was for rhetorical effect, and we'll add some qualifications first about anger. And the first thing is that, in the way Gil^[5] translates or distinguishes this, he makes a clear line between anger and hostility.

In anger, we can take that as just good information. That's good information from our system, something that may be saying, "Oh, this is important to me," or "I have a boundary here that needs respecting." So anger can be good information for us. It's useful, not to be slain.

And so Gil will translate the word here that Bhikkhu Bodhi^[6] was translating as anger, as hostility, which has something of the edge of the impulse to harm or cruelty—the opposite of this compassion practice we were just doing. All sorts of anger, of course, stay for longer or shorter times. One that's particularly sticky, I think, for many of us, a form of anger, a form of hostility that can linger, is resentment.

And there's an interesting sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya^[7] where the Buddha talks about nine variations on how resentment is conditioned by our thinking. And in that teaching, more or less, it's ways that we rehearse, and re-rehearse, and re-rehearse: "This other person did harm to me or my loved ones, or they're supporting my foes." There's this really great expression in English, "nursing a grudge," but we're feeding a hostility.

I think there's a clue to how hostility is harmful to us in the teachings that state that hostility is what an enemy would wish for us. And I have to wonder, after our first couple of days of teaching, is Rahula's repeated reflection even possible when we're heavily under the sway of hostility? Do we have the presence of mind to be able to reflect: "Is the action I'm about to take harmful? Is it helpful? Is it cause for affliction for myself, for others, or for both? Or is it for our well-being?" It's challenging to do this when we're under the sway of hostility. The poisoned root and honey tip has such an influence. We're encouraged to be circumspect, of course, in the interest of our own welfare and social and communal harmony.

So a story I'm about to tell, I think, without mentioning it, is pointing to what I think of as the missing piece when it comes to practicing with hostility, and that is our practice of mindfulness of emotions.

Now, when I was quite young, I learned how to drive on an old Volkswagen Bug. Just a tan Volkswagen from the 1970s. And young me, I was sort of amazed at the power of the clutch. Up until then, I had thought there was this direct relationship: you press the gas and the car goes. So just one-to-one, anytime there's gas, the car is going to move if the engine is running. So it was fascinating for me to realize that if I press the clutch down while the engine is moving, I could rev, rev, rev, rev, rev the engine, and no matter how much gas it got, however loud it got, the wheels didn't turn. It didn't move; the car didn't move.

I think in just the same way, our mindfulness practice, when it comes to strong emotions like hostility and anger, our mindfulness practice can act as the clutch. The emotion, the information of anger, can rev up through the body, and with this practice of mindfulness, we can allow that. We can allow that revving, let's say, to come through as loud as it wants to get, and pass right through. And we don't move. We don't go into movement, we don't engage. If we let go of the clutch, something else might happen. But to feel our emotions through the body...

I think this might have been what was happening during this other story with the Buddha. There's a time that he's at the Squirrel Sanctuary, and someone comes to him named Bharadvaja the Rude^[8]. And it's said that Bharadvaja had found out that someone in his caste had gone forth—he'd become a monk, a student of the Buddha.

So Bharadvaja comes to the Buddha, and it says, "Angry and displeased, he went to the Buddha and abused and insulted him with rude, harsh words." And when he had spoken, rather than the Buddha taking the bait, returning insult with insult—which is amazing to me—he does this.

He says to Bharadvaja, "What do you think? Do friends and colleagues, and relatives and family members, do they come and visit you?" And Bharadvaja responds, "Yes, sometimes they do." "Do you then serve them fresh and cooked foods and savories?" he would ask. "Sometimes I do." "But if they don't accept it, who does that food belong to?" "In that case, it belongs to me," says Bharadvaja.

The Buddha says, "In the same way, when you abuse, harass, and attack us, who do not abuse, harass, and attack, we don't accept it. It still belongs to you. It still belongs to you."

He says, "Someone who, when abused, harassed, and attacked, abuses, harasses, and attacks in return, is said to eat the food and have a reaction to it. But we neither eat your food, nor do we have a reaction to it. It still belongs to you. It still belongs to you."

I don't know if you can imagine this, but someone coming forward with an insult, with hostility, and having the presence of mind... that reflection, that moment of pause, that push of the clutch that allows their strong energy to come to you, and then we have the moment of pause, and reflection, and choice to decide how to engage. It's not automatic that we meet insult with insult. And in this case, the Buddha is kindly, kindly explaining that those insults... he can keep them, they're not his.

So in the Buddha's sort of keen analysis in other places, he talks about various causes of anger, hostility, and resentment. Some of them are things like envy, stinginess. Some of them are linked to craving, and seeking, and attachment. And some of them are linked to views or strong holdings of opinions. But there are these wise ways that I think we start to encounter how to live with the very human impulse to anger, how to respond to it in others. And I think we can base what will become a full, rich, functioning practice in Rahula's repeated reflection: knowing before, during, and after, "Is this action I'm about to take helpful? Is it harmful?"

So in another teaching, again, Sakka says, "When I'm angry, I don't speak harshly, and I don't praise my virtues. I keep myself well-restrained. Out of regard for my own good, I keep myself well-restrained."

There are many other teachings on anger, and I want to mention something about some other practices. So we have Rahula's repeated reflection. We have our practice of mindfulness of emotions, of course. And then maybe a third set that I want to mention is something we did earlier, actually, the inspiration for the meditations this week. In a sutta on ways of removing resentment, three of them are three of the Brahma Viharas^[9]. We can take up the practice of loving-kindness, the practice of compassion, the practice of equanimity, and in a sort of way condition our affective responses so that we can live in a harmonious way as best we can.

I like to think of this inner cultivation, this training of our affect, as kind of like giving our heart and mind a number of options—well-practiced options—so that when we're under pressure, these things like kindness and compassion present themselves.

So to close for today, I'll just say, in exploring and dealing with anger, we can make an effort to get close to it through repeated reflection. And there are distinctions to be made that show us that anger isn't a lump. It too is made of conditions, it's varied, and our vision of it is such that it undermines anger's enchantment. As with the other aspects of the personal training, we interrogate anger's causes and effects through repeated reflection.

Hmm, so even with anger, hostility—very human aspects of our experience—we practice with these diligently, and we find ways to be with them. We discover for ourselves how to live with these in a way that's of benefit to ourselves, a benefit to others, and a benefit to everyone.

This is what practice is asking of us. Tomorrow we'll move on to good friendship and mutual benefit. May our practice together this morning nourish us, and may it be that our reflections, our meditation, our faith in the Buddhist path—may that be for the support of social and communal harmony in small ways and large. Please take very good care of yourselves.