Not Holding Onto Anger

One of my wonderful zen teachers, Chodo, delivers this talk on anger. One of the reasons I love Chodo is his total honesty about his own emotional experience. There’s no bullshit with him ever. No pretending he himself doesn’t deal with tidal waves of emotions at times. Anyone who claims to be in a permanent state of equanimity and perspective is lying to both themselves and you, and is likely to implode one day. Emotion is natural and healthy, and simply are a huge part of being a person. It’s how we deal with them that directly affects our quality of life. Anger for me is scary, having grown up in a family that was volatile, unpredictable, and extremely viciously reactive. Picture the proverbial drunk uncle throwing fists and furniture. I was terrified of my own mother’s anger. Emotions of any kind were never modeled in any sort of healthy and sane way, and any sign of anger had me ducking for literal cover. Through my time and study in a zen community, particularly my sangha of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, I have been exposed to healthy ways of dealing with emotions, ways that lead to repair and not more rupture. It has only been the past several months at most where I’m just beginning to trust that anger doesn’t mean I’m going to be destroyed, cast out, attacked, written off, or that I’m the biggest piece of shit to ever have lived. Anger, like all other emotions, can actually lead to increased safety and intimacy when handled skillfully. I did not know this was even within the realm of possibility. What a relief to learn another way, a way in which feelings can be honored, expressed, faced, and don’t have to be suppressed or dropped like an atomic bomb. There truly is a middle way of handling emotions, and it’s not stuffing them down your throat in some phony justifying excuse of “I’m being the bigger person”. Being taught to ignore or snuff out emotions is harmful to everyone. In Eastern medicine it’s known that each of the major organs is a storehouse for a certain emotion. Point being, we must learn ways to wring these painful, destructive emotions out of our bodies before they accumulate to the point of severe illness. One of the ways I do this is with yoga. Eastern activities such as Tai chi and Qi Gong do this as well. In fact, such exercises are specifically designed to free the body and mind of emotional sediment. In order to release anything, it first must be faced, looked at, and held. Vietnamese zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh compared anger to a screaming baby that needs to be picked up and soothed, not punished and shamed. I hope you find this talk helpful in any way. There are many Zen Care podcasts from both my teachers, Kōshin and Chodo, and they are full of wisdom and guidance towards a healthier way of being. I promise there are better answers out there. Seek and you shall find.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/66WVFqJug0LPRSrwqKakjI?si=AuA2x6MDTlyXsmUVWqqYsw