This Sunday I will be putting all of my mindfulness and compassion training to the test. Since I began regularly practicing mindfulness meditation and attending a Unitarian Universalist Church in the last 7 years I have had limited exposure to a relationship which has been quite painful for me. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve been face to face yet within the last ten years (and 3 of them were funerals!). But this weekend, I am choosing to go to an event where our paths will cross again, and this time it is not a funeral.
I have struggled with the decision of whether or not to go because of this disordered relationship. Not because I feel obligated. I gave up obligatory actions a while ago- life’s too short for that. Instead, I wanted to reflect deeply to see if I had changed in the last several years in any way that would make my experience of the encounter different.
I was recently reading through the 26 Principles of Buddhist Psychology outlined by Jack Kornfield in his book The Wise Heart. If you are not familiar with them, I hadn’t been, I included them at the end of this post. Two principles in particular that caught my eye though, as I contemplated the suffering associated with this past relationship, were numbers: 14.) If we cling to anger or hatred, we will suffer. It is possible to respond strongly, wisely, and compassionately, without hatred. And 16.) Pain is inevitable. Suffering is not. Suffering arises from grasping. Release grasping and be free of suffering.
Anger has always been a tricky emotion for me, or more accurately, outrage. I can get really righteous and up on my soap box- spoken like a true blogger, right?! This tends to not be very effective. But what is also not effective, and additionally harmful, is how stuck I can get with the outrage when I do not feel justice has been done. I mean really, painfully, stuck.
I used to condemn myself for this; believing that there was something deficient or impaired in me that I struggled so much with this outrage. I have taken compassionate steps however to move away from this judgmental position.
I was reminded of this when I was reading an article online called “Unmasking Anger” in Yoga Journal by Alan Reder from Aug 28, 2007 who said: “Gandhi found no problem with feeling anger, only with how it was expressed. That is a crucial distinction that many spiritual practitioners miss. Many people believe anger is ‘unspiritual,’ a damaging misconception that leads them to stuff the emotion, trapping it inside themselves, says Cope [Stephen Cope, Kripalu Resident Scholar]. Sylvia Boorstein [Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist] says that those who think their own spiritual practice will erase anger are terribly mistaken: ‘I’m continually telling people, we don’t get to be different people—we have the same neurology and physiology and, actually, the same neuroses all of our lives—but we do get to be wiser about how we put them out in the world.” So that’s the trick to Buddhist Psychology Principle #14 right? To acknowledge, accept and be patient with my anger, and at the same time be conscious about how it manifests in myself and in my day to day life.
One piece of my spiritual practice over these last several years has included an intention to allow my whole self to show up wherever I go. To put an end to my compartmentalizing compulsion. Well, my whole self would include waves of anger that ebb and flow like the tides. The only place where I get in to trouble with anger brings me to Principle #16: Suffering arises from grasping. Release grasping and be free of suffering.
In the example of my relationship, I thought I was practicing letting go exercises to avoid clinging to my outrage. But I now realize, each time I was trying to figure out “the why” of the transgression in my relationship, I was engaged in a thought pattern that kept me hooked on my anger. The thought pattern would not allow my heart to catch up with my head in order to radically accept the past as a means to move forward; to feel emotional pain when it arises on its own, but be free from suffering.
I would love to hear from any of you who have found strategies for dialectically accepting your anger and releasing it too.
Principles of Buddhist Psychology
1. See the inner nobility and beauty of all human beings.
2. Compassion is our deepest nature. It arises from our interconnection with all things.
3. When we shift attention from experience to the spacious consciousness that knows, wisdom arises.
4. Recognize the mental states that fill consciousness. Shift from unhealthy states to healthy ones.
5. Our ideas of self are created by identification. The less we cling to ideas of self, the freer and happier we will be.
6. Our life has universal and personal nature. Both dimensions must be respected if we are to be happy and free.
7. Mindful attention to any experience is liberating. Mindfulness brings perspective, balance, and freedom.
8. Mindfulness of the body allows us to live fully. It brings healing, wisdom, and freedom.
9. Wisdom knows what feelings are present without being lost in them.
10. Thoughts are often one-sided and untrue. Learn to be mindful of thought instead of being lost in it.
11. There is a personal and a universal unconscious. Turning awareness to the unconscious brings understanding and freedom.
12. The unhealthy patterns of our personality can be recognized and transformed into a healthy expression of our natural temperament.
13. There are both healthy desires and unhealthy desires. Know the difference. Then find freedom in their midst.
14. If we cling to anger or hatred, we will suffer. It is possible to respond strongly, wisely, and compassionately, without hatred.
15. Delusion misunderstands the world and forgets who we are. Delusion gives rise to all unhealthy states. Free yourself from delusion and see with wisdom.
16. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is not. Suffering arises from grasping. Release grasping and be free of suffering.
17. Be mindful of intention. Intention is the seed that creates our future.
18. What we repeatedly visualize changes our body and consciousness. Visualize freedom and compassion.
19. What we repeatedly think shapes our world. Out of compassion, substitute healthy thoughts for unhealthy ones.
20. The power of concentration can be developed through inner training. Concentration opens consciousness to profound dimensions of healing and understanding.
21. Virtue and integrity are necessary for genuine happiness. Guard your integrity with care.
22. Forgiveness is both necessary and possible. It is never too late to find forgiveness and start again.
23. There is no separation between inner and outer, self and other. Tending ourselves, we tend the world. Tending the world, we tend ourselves.
24. The middle way is found between all opposites. Rest in the middle and find well-being wherever you are.
25. Release opinions, free yourself from views. Be open to mystery.
26. A peaceful heart gives birth to love. When love meets suffering, it turns to compassion. When love meets happiness, it turns to joy
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