This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Non-Hostility

Hello and welcome to the beginning of this week's series of meditation and dharma talks.

I remember last Monday coming here after the retreat and not quite finding my words, or kind of feeling quiet inside. So to start this meditation, I'd like to ask you maybe a little unusual question for setting the stage for meditation. And that is, for each of you individually, what comes to mind as you hear this question? There are many possible answers, but what gets evoked in you as a response to this question? Or what does this question point to in you?

For you, what is the opposite of hostility?

Within you, your body, your heart, your mind, your emotions... what do you see at this moment as the opposite of hostility? It could be love, it could be generosity, it could be peace, peacefulness. It could be kindness, friendliness, it could be care, caring, compassion. It could be a calm, a stillness. It could be confidence, stability. There is a wide range of things that it might be.

And if you close your eyes, and if something came up as the opposite, either something specific or just a vague sense, is there any place in your body that that opposite lives? Any place in your body that you associate with that opposite?

It could be anywhere at all. And if there is such an association, such a place, you can maybe just choose a place to hold the opposite. Take a few long, slow breaths, breathing through that place. Almost like it's a balloon that you're blowing up on the inhale and letting it peacefully relax on the exhale. Or like a gentle wind that flows over the surface of it, refreshing it.

Taking deep breaths, and as you exhale, relax your body. And as you relax, relax into that place like you're settling into it. Letting your breathing return to normal and continue relaxing your body. But maybe it's possible to relax into the opposite, this opposite of hostility, to this place where that lives for you, even if it's not present now.

If there's a particular state that is for you the opposite of hostility, very quietly in your mind, for maybe three or four times, gently, slowly repeat the word for this state. Drop the word into your body and let it spread outward like ripples in a pond.

And then to let your thinking mind become a bit quieter. As if you're approaching this place of the opposite of hostility, you're approaching it with respect and care, attentiveness, to feel and sense, make room for it.

And then to continue now with a quiet meditation. Perhaps breathing with this opposite, or letting your mindfulness, your awareness, somehow be informed by this quality. Letting the opposite of hostility be what nourishes your practice during this meditation.

[Meditation Period]

And then, to bring this meditation to an end, to consider the opposite of hostility and to offer that sentiment out into the world. To consider how you could meet other people today with this opposite. Consider how that can be the attitude with which you think about people. Consider people, especially if you end up feeling hostile; remember this opposite.

And perhaps you can live the day with part of you oriented towards benefiting this world, leaving the world a little better place by the end of the day by the friendliness, the kindness, the smiles, the generosity that you offer.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings be free.

Dharmette: Respecting Anger (1 of 5) Practicing with Anger

Hello again on this Monday morning. For those of us in the United States, it's a holiday: Juneteenth. It's the first of the year of the two independence holidays here in the United States, and I gave a talk about this holiday yesterday.

Last week, I talked about emotions, offering five different perspectives on emotions for support and practicing with them. This week, I wanted to take some specific emotions, like case studies, and go through them. I decided that we would start with anger. And when I considered anger, I considered that there's actually a lot to say, and maybe it's more useful to spend the five days on this topic rather than just doing one day and being done with it. So that's what we'll do, and maybe the title of this week can be "Respecting Anger."

Anger, of course, is a very important emotion, attitude, and motivating force in our society, and a tremendous amount of harm gets caused through anger. I don't know if it's fair to say that any one particular harm of anger is worse than others, but what comes to mind in the moment is the tremendous influence it can have on young children if they grow up with anger, or if they grow up afraid of unexpected anger coming at them.

And also, anger is a protective device. Some people, motivated by anger, will protect other people, protect their children, protect society. Some people, with their anger, protect themselves and set up strong boundaries and a strong "no," and can be ferocious sometimes in that protective movement. Some people, by their anger, can put a tremendous amount of energy into a cause, a good cause, because the energy is forcing them. So anger has many different expressions in our society.

But it can be confusing because sometimes anger is treated as something that's wrong or bad, painful, and sometimes it's treated as something that's necessary, important, and justified. In Buddhism, whenever there's a discussion about anger in Buddhist English, the discussion implies that anger has hostility as part of it. So if that's how we see it, then we have to come up with another word for something like anger which has no hostility in it.

There might be a very strong expression of displeasure that will look like anger, but there's no hostility in it. There can be a very strong movement, ferocious movement of protection, of a strong "no," but there's no hostility. There's no desire to harm anyone; it's just setting up a very strong statement, asserting a certain ferocity of purpose, ferocity of negation of something.

And so, a very useful way of looking at our anger is to look and see: is there any hostility in it? And if there is, be careful. Hostility, I would like to suggest, is never necessary, never appropriate. Ferocious boundary setting, ferocious standing in front saying "stop," ferocious sense of displeasure that "this is not right"—that I think can be very healthy for ourselves and for others.

The first time I saw that was when I was working in the kitchen. I was a kitchen manager at a Zen monastery. I don't remember the details of what led up to this or what I did, but I was managing other people in the kitchen, and the kitchen was a bit of a pressure cooker. An older man who was in the kitchen—we were standing next to each other on the big table—he just stood up straight and turned to me, and with ferocity said, "Don't ever say that to me again."

It was quite ferocious, but what was amazing to me was the moment after he said it, he turned it off. He was then back to being clean and clear, just present doing his work. I was so surprised because I had only experienced before that people stayed angry. When people were upset, they would stay upset, and there'd be a kind of conflict and a fight.

But he had this clean anger. It was completely clean. It was just like, "Don't do this again," and he said what had to be said, and he wasn't carrying it. He wasn't continuing with it. It wasn't like I was forgiven, but I didn't need to be forgiven. It was just like I got the message, and he wasn't holding on to it. He wasn't carrying anything with it. He just said what had to be done. I was so amazed by this, that you can take care of yourself this way.

But regardless of whether anger is defined only as having hostility, or if it's anger that's a kind of ferocious boundary setting or displeasure, it's helpful to see anger always as a messenger. It is always something to study and get to know better. Anger is the tip of an iceberg of something deeper inside of us that would probably be useful to get to know well, to understand well.

Part of the challenge of any kind of anger is that it tends to be directed towards something. It's with such strength of directionality, even if it's towards something inside of ourselves, that we don't see the bigger picture. We don't see where the anger is coming from. It's directed outwards, and we don't look backwards to see what is happening there, what's going on there. And that's what the practice is about.

The Four Stages of Anger

Very broadly, in broad strokes, there are four stages that Buddhists can point to around anger.

One is unrestrained anger. You see it sometimes in a young child where they're just completely consumed by their anger. I've had it with my child. When he was a toddler and I was carrying him through the supermarket aisles, he was having a temper tantrum about something. I probably just assumed that people at the store thought that I was just a horrific father. I know that other parents have had this experience too, where the child has just unrepressed, pure volcanic anger at something. Maybe it was that they saw a toy that they wanted, but it wasn't really the time to buy them a toy in the store. So the first stage is unrestrained anger, where it's explosive, freely given, feeling like every anger is justified.

And then, very broadly, the next stage is holding anger in check. Sometimes repressing it, denying it, or hiding it because it's dangerous to express the anger. Some people learn this as they grow up. Sometimes they learn it through violence done to them; they express anger and they're hit or attacked. So they learn that they can't express any anger, and they bottle it up or turn it off somehow.

The third stage is what we do in this practice: we respect it, we attend to it, we study it, and we get to know it better. We get to know it without shame, without further anger towards the anger. We get to know it because it is an expression of our life force; it is an expression of what it means to be alive. And it arises out of something deeper. It's not just anger that's happening; it's something deeper and fuller about who we are that's in that anger. Our values, our emotions, our fears, our desires, our loves, our past sufferings, pains, and wounds—a whole constellation^[1] of things comes together. Some of it is part of our beauty and wonderfulness, and some of it is what we're trying to let go of in practice—to let go of conceit and self-centeredness. Intense self-centeredness is often a recipe for intense anger and hostility, and so that kind of anger we don't want to give free rein to, but we don't repress it either.

What we want to do is turn around and really look deeply at what's going on here. Meditation is one of the best places for this. In meditation, you're committed to being still, not moving your body. You're not going to punch anyone out or scream at anyone. So you might even try it: when you find yourself having anger, go sit down to meditate and let the anger be a volcano. Let the anger course through you and just feel it. Make room for it. Keep letting go of the thoughts and the stories, and let the body compost the anger. Let the body hold and process the anger, and sit there allowing it, being present for it, feeling it in the body, and see what happens. This is very respectful of anger. It allows it to be there, but we're not fueling it and feeding it with more and more activity and stories. This is a place to really get to know it.

And then the fourth stage of Buddhist practice, at least with anger, is that anger doesn't get triggered. This is partly because we've learned other ways of responding, other ways of boundary setting or protecting, or other motivations that get what needs to be done, done. And it's partly because the attachments that we have, the clinging, the conceits that are part of the triggers for anger, are no longer there. There might be strong displeasure, but no hostility at all.

Homework: Practicing with Others' Anger

So that's kind of an introduction for this week. We'll spend the week looking at anger. And as a little homework assignment for this next day or as you go forward here: see if you can learn to be comfortable, to be empty, or to be non-reactive to other people being angry at you.

It doesn't mean that they're justified in the anger, or they should be angry. Hopefully, it's a safe context for this to happen—don't do anything unsafe. But if you can learn to be present and stay relaxed and breathe when other people are angry, this will go a long way towards your ability to do that for yourself. So whether you're angry or you're a recipient of anger, see if you can practice mindfulness in the middle of it. It's invaluable.

So this is what we'll do this week. It's a difficult topic, and hopefully, I'll do it in a way that is respectful of all the different ways that people have experienced anger, been angry, or been harmed by anger. I hope that each of you will find some usefulness in what is said this week. Thank you.