Welcome, everybody. Is this OK? It's really nice to see old friends. And I hope I will have something to say that will be helpful during this time. a version of talk I've given before, with a lot of edits and additions. It's called Penetrating Anger as a Dharma Gate. So I really want to acknowledge the times we find ourselves in, the many thoughts and emotions that are coming up, many of them unwholesome, And these, as we know, these social and political issues can't be and shouldn't be really avoided.

[01:17]

Because if we avoid it, we're really saying, we're using our practice to basically have spiritual bypass. to really live through these times, we need to be present and we need to be centered. We need to remember our vows to be compassionate and follow the ethical precepts. Right view, right thinking, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort. right mindfulness and right communication. We're going to need all of them. And the more skillful that we can be, the better. I remember going to Sojin on a number of occasions, wet end times that felt like these, and saying, oh, the sky is falling.

[02:26]

I don't know. How are we going to help? And so you would say, well, what did you expect? The world has always been this way. There are always causes and conditions that are rising and ceasing without end. So don't get knocked off your seat. We will never have certainty. The certainty for impermanence. So as we navigate these waves, at least these waves of dependent co-arising, each of us has to really focus on our equality and the most wholesome, skillful means that are consistent with our vows. The vows and the dharva will guide us through these tumultuous times. And it's especially difficult when chaos around us causes fear.

[03:32]

And it's very, very easy for that fear to turn into anger. And it's because of my own experience with that that I'm going back to what I thought I knew. But it's been a little hard to stay sit right here on my cushion, to be right here in the moment. The Dalai Lama spent a lot of time writing about anger. In a book of his teachings, which I found actually on the step on the side of the community room a couple years ago, he has quite a long book called Destructive Emotions, which was written in 2003. And he talks about He discusses a lot of differences between how Western society looks at anger and takes a Buddhist lens.

[04:36]

Most of you know, he always had a cadre of scientists around him, and there was always dialogue whether they were physicists, psychologists, neurologists. He wanted to see the Dharma but also see how rich the Dharma was, that it has implications in every single sphere and every kind of science. So he talks and he tries to also talk about the difference between Western psychology and Buddhist psychology and try to integrate or harmonize with that. The main thing that he talks about is that anger as an issue in Western society is full of emotion, screaming and whatever, hating actively, but physically and mentally getting caught in it.

[05:59]

He said, but anger can be much more subtle than that. We may not realize that we are internally blind to anger, that there's perceptions that we have that are coming at us, and we either push them aside or show them in our storehouse consciousness. But we have to realize that the power of something like anger actually causes us to be delusional. We don't see clearly. It actually reduces a gap between the kind of right brain activity of emotions and left brain of

[07:00]

cognition and concepts and values and ethics, so we can lose ourselves. And it's important to realize that it's not that anger is some kind of thing to get rid of, but we can learn by seeing what it does in ourselves, by recognizing if we're caught, so that we can be free to move ahead. but in an effective way. And it's interesting that in this book he actually talks about the three poisons along with anger. Anger feels the most powerful because it has the most energy. It has the most ability to to result in our destructive thoughts and maybe our destructive actions.

[08:07]

So that is the poison to concentrate on in these days of turmoil. At one point, he was discussing with psychologists the concept of constructive anger. all anger destructive is all anger a poison and one of the scientists said something like well what about you know if you're really frustrated and you have something really important to do it's very important you get this kind of sort of frustrated energy that you're not finishing and you have to muster yourself and that [...] you learn persistence through anger. The Dalai Lama doesn't really agree with that.

[09:09]

It's interesting because he says it's poison, period. There's no good anger, no justifiable anger, because anger is hatred, and hatred is poisonous to us. But what interesting thing that the scientists came up with, observing people's brains while they were in different states and talking about different states. And it turns out that this anger that we call destructive is totally right brain, right? In our field, part of our brain, the right frontal lobe and the amygdala, and there are all kinds of studies showing that disorders in the brain in a certain area can produce incredibly harmful behavior and sickness. Someone talking about frustration and getting work done actually has an illumination of their left brain, their way to think logically and conceptually.

[10:23]

So the challenge is working with anger the source of the anger and the energy of the anger that can be powerful and good, but include the other part. And that's, of course, what we do in our practice, and that's what our practice is all about. I guess I wanted to just read what he said because He has immense words about anger. Anger is the greatest stumbling block of anger who is aspiring to enhance their bodhicitta, their altruistic aspiration and good heart to awaken. When anger and hatred are generated, they have the capacity to destroy one's virtue and calmness in mind. It is due to these reasons that hatred is considered to be the greatest evil.

[11:30]

Somehow that surprised me. I'm not sure exactly why. You know, thinking of it as the greatest evil. And he's saying it's the first poison. That's the major poison. The other poison, delusion and attachment, those are workable. People seem to be able to get to their logical self and work. with some of those, although certainly attachments fueled by dopamine reactions are difficult to deal with. We can see them and how they work, but we don't see the poison of hatred. We read an article and it's very hard to not feel anger. How does that work? The other person I go to for this kind of discussion is Thich Nhat Hanh.

[12:38]

And he has a book called Anger, and he has a section called The Wisdom for Cooling the Floor. And he says, again, he teaches that the most basic condition for happiness is freedom from the three poisons. And he tells us, as long as these afflictive states are in our minds, happiness cannot... He says, what happens when we have an angry exchange with someone else? When you're angry, you suffer as they are being burned by the fires of hell. When you feel great despair or jealousy, you are dwelling in hell. And these are strong words. And yet... As the Dalai Lama says, the poisonousness of negative emotions, the poisonous of directing, especially when you're directed personally at another individual, there's no way.

[13:47]

You feel your body tighten up, your mind doesn't work so well, you say things that you might not, you regret later. But this power of this, and he describes, of course, in his book, He calls it knots of pain. Anger, frustration, jealousy, he calls knots to obstruct our freedom. These knots are created by our consciousness when we encounter particular causes and conditions in our life experience. Example would be when someone insults us or does something unkind to us, an internal formation is created. If we don't know how to undo the internal knot and transform it, the knot will stay there for a long time. And the next time someone comes and does something similar, the internal formation, if you don't see it, if you don't see it, if you don't recognize it, oh, if you have a, oh, here I come, here it comes again, my reactivity, that's when our practice comes in.

[15:00]

But you can get triggered without... It is so because you can get triggered. You say, I have that person. That's where the knot is. The knot is in the internal formation. Something about that person usually triggers some old experience. I remember something embarrassing when I was being a... It kind of was when... When we were young, yes. When we were coming up, some of us, women, we were in the women's movement and we were angry about everything. And he was shouting. It was a lot of action that I later regretted. But I noticed that I was judging strong women who expressed their opinions you know, wanted to right the wrongs, and how could they, they're just showing off or something, and then I felt, then I said, and one retreat here, oh, that might be me.

[16:12]

And it was really an awakening moment. It was like I was seeing something about other people that I didn't necessarily like in myself, and I didn't want to see it, I didn't want them around me, and then, aha, This is good information. Luckily, I wasn't blindly angry with them. I just felt, I noticed the negative. It's a subtle thing. I noticed that angry hate part come up. And I got to, it freed me to have some nice friendships with women who were like me. So, obviously, not all of our internal formations are knots, right? Some of them are really good. So this is not to say that anger is, you know, that these knots, these formations are all negative.

[17:25]

It's just they can be, and to recognize the ones Thich Nhat Hanh often uses the metaphor of seeds being planted in our storehouse consciousness and states that we can choose to water them or not. Once we understand the causes of our anger, we can cultivate the tranquility that allows us to actually redirect our minds towards wholesomeness. We can recognize the unwholesome thoughts and the unwholesome urges. This doesn't mean, and it's really important for both of these people, this doesn't mean that we push our anger away or deny it. In fact, in one chapter in his book on anger, he says, embrace anger with mindfulness. To cook anger, he says, to care for the anger as if it were our baby, our wounded child. In another chapter, he says, in fact,

[18:28]

provides us with instructions or the skillful means to transform craving, anger, and confusion. He advises us to use these practices, breath breathing, walking, meditation, looking deeply into perception, penetrating, and explore our anger, take it apart to its little pieces. What does it look like? What does it feel like? There's a granularity of these emotions. They're all tangled. They can be tangled. So it's our job to untangle. And then we give our minds some room. So the other thing that Technohan talks about is, which I found very interesting as well, I read it again.

[19:34]

We sometimes think, at least in the society, and certainly maybe in the early 2000s, there were things like rage rooms in New York City, where you could just go, you paid your money, and you could just scream and yell. He says, be cautious not to indulge our anger. He says, so going into the woods to swear loudly in order to relieve the feeling of anger is venting. And people who use venting techniques like hitting a pillow or drafting angry e-mails, that's mine, are actually rehearsing anger. They're watering the seed. Which was really interesting to me. I mean, it was written again, because as I say, I've talked about this a while, but It's really, you know, it is interesting about that.

[20:34]

How we water the seeds, how we create it, and then untangling that creation. So here's a chapter. It's interesting. He has a chapter in his book, No Enemies. And the first section, he says, begin with yourself. He says, without communication, real understanding is not possible. So make sure that you can communicate with yourself. So if you don't love yourself, you can't love anyone else. And if you can't accept yourself, you cannot accept others. If the reality is that you are like your father, oh, this is mine. If you like your father, but for me, it's my mother. If you like your father, or you don't like your father, You have to learn to, you have to accept your father. You love yourself and you love your father because you know that your father has the same internal formations, has the same conditioning, and why not?

[21:45]

If you can express anger, then they can express it. So loving yourself kind of spreads out. So rather than using your anger or your hatred or your criticisms, on others. I hope you're getting this. You see it here. If you don't see it, and almost always you see it here, right? If you look at some behavior and you really step back, did I ever do something like that? Did I ever say anything like that? A lot of times, yes. So I can't really judge that other person. That other person is doing what I might. I can have that person stop if that's a harm, if it's something that wholesome is happening, if some harm is being done. That's different. You do have to stop the outcomes of the hatred and the bad behavior, whether it's you or other people.

[22:45]

But mostly it's done by . And he says, as I say, this section is called, there's another section called being calm. Being calm. Seeing. seeing what's really going on before any activity. It was interesting because we did, Judy and I, this year, and we picked the Martin Luther King sermon on love remedies. And it's interesting that Dr. King and Thich Nhat Hanh were actually friends. Martin Luther King nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Prize after he had gotten the Nobel Prize. But they didn't really see each other, but they saw each other's teachings. They heard each other. They read each other.

[23:47]

What does he say when saying, love your enemies? He said, well, the first thing is shine the light inward. Martin Luther King says that. So he absorbed, you know, he absorbed some of his Christian teaching, but he absorbed the teaching of first stop and look inside. He says, when you look inside, here's an example. Now I'm aware of the fact that some people will not like me. Not because of something I... but for some characteristic that triggers a strong emotion, just like I said. But after looking at these things, we must face the fact that an individual might dislike us because of something we've done deep down in the past, some personality attribute that we possess. Something that we've done, something deep, and we've forgotten about it.

[24:52]

But it was that something that aroused the hate response within the individual. So seeing the hate response, seeing how it comes to us. Same thing, isn't it, as Mark has taken that on, really. Then he says, the second thing you do is to find something good about the other person. Concentrate until you can find some good attribute. He said to discover the element of good in his enemy. And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls the image of God, you begin to love him. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention and you will have a new attitude. And that's interesting because we say we see Buddha nature.

[25:55]

Everyone has Buddha nature. Same in the face of God. very parallel. And then we have to love our enemies. And he said it's not necessary. We don't have to like our enemies. Because like and love are quite different. We don't have to like, we don't want to associate maybe. If we cannot let go of that, if we keep hate in it, he again says, as did the other teachers, that the hate is much more powerful in harming ourselves than others. And he says, and again, it's almost like echoing some of the other people.

[27:00]

It's just amazing. I've always thought that all really great spiritual leaders kind of come together and they see something. They see whatever that reality is beyond the superficial. And they all end up sounding the same. Some of us went to a vigil about a week and a half ago in San Francisco on the end of a Japanese internment. And there was a interfaith group that has 57 members of different kind of churches. And in front, there were some people from San Francisco Zen Center with robes. And there was a rabbi, old rabbi gear. And there was the evangelical Christian person from Oakland, and all sorts of people from Grace Cathedral.

[28:00]

What was interesting to me is there was when each of them got a chance to speak and nobody said anything. They said wonderful things. They said, is it wonderful that we all are gathered together and forming this group? And they said, fighting back. We're not about acting in a dualistic way in this time. They said that we all share ethical values and traditions and behavioral guidelines, and we have to use them. We have to speak out, we have to sit, we have to walk, whatever, but we don't ever do anything beyond peaceful and quiet. sitting and quiet being.

[29:02]

We can talk, but we talk about what's good, not what's bad. And that's like Martin Luther King's whole life, right, was about just being there, being there, saying something encouraging, always talking about loving and making things better, but not in a he seemed, you know, and these folks would be, I could see that they would become invigorated in their speech. You could see their whole demeanor change as they talked, they walked up there and talked about, you know, what it was in their church and why their church was here and why the church should be there. So it was very inspiring. And I thought, well, that's a way of, That's a way to turn, to turn the energy.

[30:06]

And we have lots, we have very, very many tools at our disposal to work with Anchor. I mean, we have, I was thinking about sitting here. Tell me what my time is. It's about 8 till 11. Okay. We sit here and or sirens. We sit here, and we have a barbecue going on with rock and roll music playing. We hear people yelling on the street. And as we sit, we all have to negotiate all of the feelings that come up. And we've been here for a long time. We kind of hear it, but we're so used to having it. But if we were, if we allow ourselves to be angry, why are they doing that? Why don't they go someplace quiet? You know, why are they outside?

[31:08]

This is a religious place. All these ideas that you could have. I remember when I first came here saying, why are they having a barbecue? I mean, they're having this great time and we're sitting. And then you think, well, you know, these are working people, right? And Saturday is their day off. Of course they're going to have a celebration, or invite people over, or whatever, and walk up and down the street, you know, drive the kids around, all this stuff. So we sit there, or we hear a siren we could go off on. Oh, you know, it's not much violence in Oakland. This is terrible, terrible community to live. You start doing that. You could do that. But if you're... But if you stay here, you have the support of everyone in the Sangha to practice together, to be focused, to let go, to open up, hear all that, and include it without any judgment.

[32:10]

Because otherwise, we'll get angry all the time. We're the person next to you who's moving around or snorting or whatever. We've learned how to be with people who are really different from us in this tight environment. Which really is a lesson, right? And over the years, you know, as we've practiced together, you know, you see all these wonderful things popping up. You also see things you might not like. But often, you get to see somebody that, well, maybe, I don't know, you weren't really drawn to or something. You all of a sudden discover this wonderful thing. And you say, well, who else am I missing? And it feels good rather than thinking about, why is that person dressed like that? Don't they know you're supposed to cover your midriff? You know, we've had all those things here. So we have that practice all the time here, right? And we have practice of mindfulness.

[33:13]

The practice of mindfulness of, okay, I have an opportunity here either to walk if I'm really activated and do walking meditation. The reason Thich Nhat Hanh, this is an aside, but the reason Thich Nhat Hanh stopped doing meditation was because he couldn't sit still, nor could his other followers. There's war, there's all this atrocities going on. They couldn't sit still to meditate, so they started walking meditation. And we did that too. We did that too. So that's another way with the energy of of something, of a strong emotion, of a strong, something bothering you. Going out and noticing, using mindfulness to look at all, look at the grass and the flowers and the people and the whatever. That opening of your eyes allows you to hold that feeling in a big, in a bigger space so that you might actually have a chance to really look at that feeling and that judgment and really make

[34:22]

you know, some different choices, or investigate it more. Like, instead of turning away, you don't feel attracted to or, I mean, I don't mean attracted, but... Affinity. Affinity, that's good. That's Sojin's one. Affinity for, you know, you have no idea where in the world did that come from. And sometimes it's totally off. And sometimes it's not. But you've at least understood a little bit more about someone else that you might not have understood before. So these are the kind of things we do as part of our practice. And so for me, the way I practice with it, and when I find it, I try to see it.

[35:23]

You have to know it, right? You have to know that tight feeling in your stomach. It can be subtle, but something's going on here that really draws me and calls attention. It should call. It could wake me up. Here might be an opportunity to wake up that I'm passing by by showing something unpleasant inside. So I think in these troubled times, a lot of walking meditation, but there are, looking for the positive and the constructive, and that's where the action comes. Sure, if we have to sit and protest, that's peaceful sitting with an affiliated group of people who are just sitting. And in the years past, many of us in other struggles have done that and hopefully we'll be able to navigate this time by our sangha and our

[36:54]

and our teaching, and the teachings, and reviewing the teachings. It was very helpful for me to go back to some of these teachings, because I hadn't read them again, and I thought I'd better really finish that great big book, Destructive Emotions. Because it's so rich, and there's so much I can still learn. So, thank you. Hi, is this okay? Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you, Gary. I'm glad to hear about the... what you said about Thich Nhat Hanh and his Sangha and walking meditation.

[37:58]

I did a few retreats with Thich Nhat Hanh and his Sangha and I remember one Dharma discussion group, there was a nun in his Sangha who shared that when she would get angry, she would run, not run away. and how important and useful it is to match your emotional energy with your physical energy. The way of processing and metabolizing that energy in a way that acknowledges it and doesn't try and control it or bypass it or whatever, but allows it to be recenter yourself. And she said her sisters would see her running around the Hamlet and know that she was processing something.

[39:05]

And I've done that myself when they were getting rage falls out. I would go outside and walk as briskly as I could and it would allow the emotion and bring me back to myself. And I think in this moment to find ways to deal with these emotions, because I think the energy is coming from somewhere, oftentimes. It may be part of a right response. and how to harness that energy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for the topic and for the breath with which you carried it.

[40:15]

Building on what Katie was talking about, As you were speaking, what came to my mind, I started grappling with the whole question of righteous anger. And I think that anger in and of itself doesn't have to be negative. It's when it has an object that it turns into hatred. So anger, as Katie's saying, can be an energy. And that energy can be... a motivating or an empowering meaning giving some energy to respond in some way. You're able to be quiet and open and unafraid of it enough to understand what's behind it. It may be a lot of ego and self-protection. That's one thing to deal with which we covered a lot today. It might be grief.

[41:17]

or despair or hopelessness in this time period, I think. And I also think that in sitting in this context without pointing it at someone or something, we tap into maybe what's underneath that in part, which was Martin Luther King's The Power of His Teaching, which is a deep care and a deep love. That place maybe is where righteous anger can be born. And I just, I'm turning this around in my head as we're talking and I'm wondering if you have something to say about that. I do. I think all of these people feel that there's a difference between anger, something that's happening. If killing is happening, You can be angry. You've got to be angry about that.

[42:18]

It's not angry, but you don't focus your anger on one person. When you start saying, you and you and you are anything to do and you're going to go away. Why doesn't somebody kill you? You know, that kind of stuff. If it's against a thing, something happening, something unwholesome, Martin Luther King does make that. He makes that distinction. Of course we have to get this energy. Go out there and march. But we're not going to go to sit at a place in a sit-in and condemn the guy who's working in a segregated soda place. It's not him. He's just part of a symptom of something. We have to keep our eyes on that. What's going on? What is actually happening with that anger? What is that? Because presumably, a lot of times, that anger, you're getting anger back and forth in these situations.

[43:23]

Or there is anger that goes back and forth. As long as it's not going to, you're not going to be able to address anger in a constructive way. Yeah, I think that's where being really grounded in the ethical behavior, like in precepts is really important to turn us back towards really being willing to sit with whatever's coming up in our own minds, allowing ourselves to see through that, which you talked about, that allows you the clarity to act at the situation and not on the individual. Yes, I think that's really important. We have a problem with this device. Is this okay? I have the same problem with that device.

[44:26]

This is a microphone. The poisons. When you said that Thich Nhat Hanh said, or is it the Dalai Lama said that anger is a poison, it's always poison. And then we've made the distinction that it's energy and that we can notice how to direct it in a wholesome way. It's a Dharma gate. Anger is a Dharma gate. They're all Dharma gates. We can sit back. About the energy, directing the energy, and when I'm not able to think clearly. You know, my daughter, when she was about six, used to say, quit screaming at us, Mom, and go swim.

[45:28]

That was a good idea. But it really applies now. What's the beneficial action that can occur where I'm feeling totally stuck and frustrated? Some people have said, you're titrated their news. Take care of ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. And look for what works that suits you. meets your personality and your tendencies. For some people, it is mine. Yeah. So, yeah. We just go sitting in the center in San Francisco on the grass. Yeah. And thank you for this talk. It's a really good time. Or going to San Quentin if they're doing a, you know, we used to do that, right? Many of us do those things. Thank you. Yeah. I see some people online. Mary Beth, are you there? Javier and somebody else that I don't know.

[46:44]

I guess it's me. Hi, Jerry. Hi. I've struggled or with anger. I inherited it from my father. And, my God, you know, feeling anger, it is so addictive. You feel so powerful. And you get people's attention, but it's a fire that burns everything inside and out. In Tibetan tradition, they say that, or the Buddha even said, destroys all eons of good karma. virtue that we have accumulated, just a minute of it. But I'm learning to make friends with it. It is a powerful force.

[47:44]

I think it's a tool that is easy. And right now we're dealing with a situation where our neighbor is continuing to vandalize our vehicles and recently he did something kind of poured oil all over our cars, and I'm about to go to a car wash and try to get this. And how do I not get angry at this guy? I mean, it's... I know something is, you know, starting to boil in me, but even my children, you know, and I keep telling them, you know, practice patient, have compassion for this man. We got the authorities involved. They really can't do anything, so... I need some words of wisdom before I go back to that car washing. Well, you know, you have to go back to Shantideva. I know he's one of your favorites. Yes. Shantideva in his book of, you know, about this.

[48:48]

Yes. And he says, patience. He says, I just happen to have this. I remembered that I had scribbled it over here. There is no evil greater than anger, no virtue greater than patience. Therefore, I should strive in various ways to become familiar with the practice. If I harbor painful thoughts of anger, I shall not experience mental peace. I shall find no happiness and shall be unsettled and unable to sleep. So I think maybe spend a little time with Shantideva. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you. I just remember one of his quotes, he says, if there's a solution to a problem, why worry about it? If there's no solution to a problem, then why worry about it? Yeah, definitely.

[49:51]

Thank you, Jerry. This was a perfect timing. Thank you. Thank you for your talk. I've been sitting here because thinking about how a lot of what you're saying applies to other strong emotions. Like, for me, anger not quite as bad an issue as fear. Like I read the news for going to bed at midnight after working late and didn't sleep well. And I actually was doing walking meditation this morning because I was so anxious. And I'm curious, I mean, I have not read this book about the poisons or something, but is fear, I'm curious how fear gets into this. Is it considered a poisons? Yes, it is.

[50:52]

It's not considered a separate poison, but the brain, the amygdala, which takes care of fear and creates it and throws your brain off, really, really with your way of seeing things clearly. Again, the bottom line is, can you really see reality? Can you discern know what's really going on here and if you're afraid you can't so it's a close cousin and a lot of people the fear turns into agriculture deal with the fear and it's easier to be angry right right okay thank you okay carry one more care i'll be quick um i don't know if people teacher named Rita Gross.

[51:53]

She's no longer living, but she wrote a couple of books on Buddhism, one of which was called Buddhism After Patriarchy. And she was a very outspoken

[52:04]

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