Originally published in Dharma Life Magasine
This summer the trees in our retreat centre in France were turning brown by early August. When the wind blew, sucked up by soaring thermals in the searing heat, leaves scattered across the field in a whirling mass. Temperatures rose steadily till they peaked at 42 degrees in the shade and stayed there for two weeks. Everywhere the landscape was shrivelled and bleached. Trees stood, branches bare. The drought had lasted all spring and the countryside was feeling its effects.
Watching the slow decay of woodlands and hedgerows in the surrounding countryside, the reality of climate change hit me in a way it hadn't before. If this weather pattern were to continue, great swathes of forest would simply die. Agriculture would struggle and in many cases fail. The countryside as we knew it would change beyond recognition. As I looked up into the blue sky, criss-crossed by plane tracks, and knew the interconnectedness of increasing fossil fuel consumption and environmental change, I felt…. What did I feel? Was it anger? Was it despair? Was it grief? A sensation in my chest, tears pressing into my eyes, thoughts circling, my reaction was visceral and poignant. Thoughts tore at me. This had to stop. Someone had to listen now. Images of heaping the embassy steps of those countries most guilty of over-consumption with dying vegetation flashed into my mind.
Anger has a bad press – at least in Buddhist circles. Yet, if I look at my responses to the drought I am left with two questions. Firstly I see the need to look more closely at what we mean when we say we are angry. It would be all too easy for me to say I looked at those trees and felt anger, yet the emotion I felt was much more complex. Secondly, if this response was fired by anger, was it potentially useful anger? Certainly, in my reaction there was energy to do something. Indeed not to act felt a betrayal. I was fired up. Such energy could blame and punish, but energy could be used to seek change.
The word "anger" has become a powerful icon in our time. Anger is the emotion everyone is talking about. Whether they are for its free expression or against it, the subject itself evokes strong responses. The preoccupation with expressing "anger" probably has its roots in the rise of interest in psychology that has taken place over the past hundred and fifty years, and became particularly strong in the human potential movement of the late twentieth century. Working, as I do, in a field where emotions are frequently articulated, I am all too aware of the prevailing assumption in some "personal development" circles that all emotions, especially if they are negative, need to be expressed, and of the paramount position anger holds. Repression is out, bad for your health and definitely rooted in past attitudes.
Thankfully there has been some questioning recently of the catch-all assumption that "getting your anger out" and bashing cushions is a good thing. Nevertheless I still encounter people who seem to feel it not only their right, but also their duty, to express their anger, often regardless of the effect on the recipient. Yet such a need to express often feels quite driven. It seems to go beyond simply being an attempt to gain relief and healing, and to become an end in itself.
Anger is a powerful emotion, but so too can be the attachment to expressing it. For those wedded to the expressive model, a level of passion often accompanies the belief that anger should be expressed. This suggests that there may be more going on for the person than is immediately apparent. Attachment to beliefs often has more to do with individual and group self-definition than to the subject of the belief itself. This is just as much the case with beliefs about anger as with anything else.
Buddhist teaching suggests that we build identity or self-structures as a way of defending against uncomfortable or threatening experiences. Initially we retreat from such experiences by getting hooked by a variety of distractions or attachments. This can happen positively or negatively, and is what is referred to as greed, hate and delusion. When we have used the same distractions many times, a pattern of habitual behaviour is created and it is our identification with this pattern of response that gives us a sense of self. The attachment to beliefs is one such pattern through which we build self. For a person who is attached to the view that the expression of anger is a good thing, this attachment to beliefs become part of a creed that sustains the person's habit formations and identity structure. Thus the concept of anger becomes a lakshana or indicator of self.
Since self-formation is basically a defensive position we can hypothesise that such processes are driven by fear, and, indeed, one contributory factor behind this belief system often seems to be a fear that not expressing anger will lead to repression, sickness and even premature death. There is a considerable literature that attributes cancer, heart disease and other afflictions to repressed negative emotions and that advocates emotional expression as the cure. Thus anger and identity can be enmeshed and together represent the avoidance of reality.
Few in the Buddhist world share such views on the desirability of expressing anger, yet here too there is a danger that anger becomes an icon or lakshana. Identifying oneself as a not-angry person can be just as fixed in processes of self-creation and self-definition as identifying with anger can. Self-definition may be arrived at in contradistinction to the concept of anger just as easily as by identifying with it. Being Buddhist can also be an identity. A Buddhist is a "not-angry" person. Adopting the view that anger is not to be expressed can be very reassuring. We are calm, peaceful people, not like those others who get angry. The pitfall of identity that is created on the basis of such self-righteousness is beautifully illustrated in the sutra which tells the story of a virtuous woman and the maid who tested her until her veil of piety was shattered by an outburst of fury. (MN21)
Here there is a further pitfall. If our avoidance of anger is driven by identity formation and the need for certainty, we can be pretty sure that here too existential fear is operating not far from the surface. In the uncertain world we inhabit today, the fear of war, environmental disaster, and the many other threats that hang over us evoke strong reactions. We can react to these realities with anger, but we can also react with denial and withdrawal. The person who has invested in non-anger may withdraw into quietism. If I am a not-angry person and need to maintain that identity, I may not only work on getting rid of my anger, I may also avoid situations that give rise to it in order to maintain my sense of spiritual progress. I may not read the newspapers, avoid meeting people who talk about disturbing events, and probably bury myself in a remote rural spot where my calm will not be challenged.
On the other hand, not all Buddhists are so strongly identified with the quietistic position. Recently there has been increasing interest in engaged practice, in which Buddhists take part in humanitarian or campaigning activity as an active expression of the Boddhisattva spirit. This is a model that the Amida Order, the tradition I follow, practices. In engaged approaches, whilst there is less likelihood of falling into quietism, understanding and working with reactivity becomes even more important. The person who has invested in anger may be sucked into vociferous or even violent pressure groups. Finding an alternative that expresses a compassionate message in an active way, but without aggression is the challenge of engaged practice.
The engaged practitioner's aim is not to eradicate emotion, but to hold the energy of their reaction, harnessing it for the needs of the situation. Letting go of fixed positions, we need to be willing to face our frailty and impulses as part of the reality of the setting we are operating in. Such reactions are functions of the human context. We are not so special or separate that we are not touched, nor would it be good to be so.
At a recent meeting of the Network of Buddhist Organisations. Ken Jones, long time campaigner and writer on social issues, talked of the importance of living with complexity. The roots of anger and hostility lie in our individual and collective attachment to identity, and with it our attachment to certainty. Although real situations are never as simple as they are portrayed, there is always temptation to create heroes and enemies and to define ourselves in relation to my country or my side because this gives us a sense of certainty. We may have a sneaky feeling things are not so straight forward, but there is a relief in putting this aside and shouting slogans. It is uncomfortable to know that there are no easy answers. Delusion is more comfortable than authenticity. The temptation to seek quiet spaces away from the problems of the world becomes attractive.
Yet we cannot avoid being involved. As humans we are cast into the world with its many conflicts and troubles. Simply withdrawing can be a retreat from reality into delusion. It can be another way of holding onto our personal world at the expense of seeing the one that others are forced to inhabit. This is not to deny the importance of contemplation and quiet, but the practitioner who seeks these needs to do so with conscious awareness of the choice being made, and not pursue them from a need to flee from disturbing factors. For engaged practitioners, Buddhist practice is a matter of bringing awareness and non-attachment into the place where turmoil is unfolding. In such situations we often have no choice but to act. In doing so we take responsibility for the karmic consequences of our actions whilst still inhabiting this place of uncertainty. This demands great personal courage.
Anger is a complex emotion. The elevation of anger to its current iconic position has tended to prevent us looking at what we really mean when we say we are angry. Whether positively or negatively framed, anger is a powerful object in maintaining the self, and as such it limits and distorts our perception of both our own responses and the situation that evokes them. We feel the first flash of negativity and assume it to be anger. Then, having labelled it, we dismiss it as something to be avoided. Yet, stopping and looking into the response, other layers of the process become clearer. In doing this we neither give way to the impulsiveness nor suppress it. This stepping back from the reaction creates the possibility of separating the energy behind it from the potentially harmful outcomes that would come from outbursts of fury. The angry reaction is a process in which our energy rises in response to an encounter with the world, but then forms hate or greed attachments out of which the delusion of self is built. Its initial impetus need not necessarily be the condition for harm.
So does right anger exist? Engaged Buddhist practice is a middle way. In recent demonstrations against the arms fair at the Excel centre in London, Buddhists were actively and visibly present, offering witness to the gross immorality of such commerce. The presence of people of faith, recognisable by their robes and signs, is welcomed by many involved in these actions as a source of calm among groups of people who might otherwise become angry and even violent. Being able to hold back from reacting aggressively in highly charged situations is a vital aspect of training. Yet the energy that arises when a person is confronted by the harm and wrong in the world is vital to the practitioner's practice too. It brings the kind of presence that speaks to others.
The impact that the engaged practitioner creates comes out of the passions: the person's ability to be moved. The deeper we look at a subject, the more we are moved. Last year, with members of our sangha, I attended part of the enquiry into the setting up of a laboratory in Cambridge that would use primates to research various degenerative diseases. We were deeply affected by the films and descriptions of experimentation which were shown at this event, and, following it, staged a procession through the city carrying replica coffins for the animals that would die if the project went ahead. The powerful image of a line of robed figures in procession was both moving for us and affecting for many who witnessed.
Engaged practice is not just about campaigning. Involvement with those who are disadvantaged may take the form of offering direct humanitarian help. Here too we have had to work with our reactions. The feelings that arise when one is confronted with people living in extreme conditions or mental distress can either be a hindrance to the work or a source of motivation.
Such reactions can fuel our work both in directly offering compassionate support and in looking more widely at the conditions that give rise to suffering. When we became involved in supporting a health project in rural Zambia, there were opportunities for direct support to those who were sick, but this contact also brought a greater awareness of the global context in which such poverty is allowed to exist. In many ways, it was such increasing awareness that led us to become involved in some of the campaigning work that has occupied us in recent times.
Faced with issues of social disadvantage, the terrible treatment of laboratory animals, the run up to global conflict or environmental disaster, reaction is inevitable and appropriate. It is part of being fully alive, and the fruit of a practice that moves us out of our small personal concerns.
The engaged path is not smooth. It does not have the tranquillity of the remote mountain retreat. Sometimes the rising passion tips over into rough responses. Other times they lead people to act with great courage in the face of a great deal of global mess. The unease of uncertainty is always close. But there is gain as well as cost in the unsettled world of campaigning and demonstrating. Our reactions to these events can provide a wake-up call, alerting us to the process of self-building that our mind is constantly trying to run. We see the impulse to blame, to distort, to duck out of situations. More than this, though, we see how again and again we fail to handle the reactions quite as well as we would like. Real life situations have a way of puncturing self-satisfaction.
September rolls on, and still the sky is blue and the sun hot. Now back in England, we start to see the effects of drought on vegetation here. Still cars tear up and down the motorway within earshot, belching green house gases into the autumnal air. Change touches all. The rural retreat is far from immune. What will it take to call an end to this particular madness? Our practice may make us more skilled in avoiding destructive outbursts of anger, but let is not lose the passion that fires us to create a better world.
Caroline Brazier is a psychotherapist and member of the Amida Order. She is author of "Buddhist Psychology" (Robinson 2003)
P.C.J. Brazier
2003