Meditation On Recognizing When We're Angry

32:13

32:13

Meditation On Recognizing When We're Angry

by Sravasti Abbey Monastics

Rated

5

Type

guided

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

25

Ven. Thubten Semkye offers this meditation on recognizing when we're angry, including contemplating: (1) what distractions take your attention away during meditation; (2) checking your thoughts for an emotional tone - is there anger under the surface; (3) what prompts bad moods for you; and (4) what physical sensations you have when anger arises. Conclude that by recognizing when anger begins to arise, we can reduce and transform it through antidotes like fortitude.

Anger Management Meditation Emotional Awareness Physical Awareness Breath Awareness Mindfulness Intention Setting Posture Guidance Analytical Meditation Emotional Check In Physical Sensation Awareness

Meet your Teacher

Sravasti Abbey Monastics

Newport, Washington, USA

Meet your Teacher

Sravasti Abbey Monastics

Newport, Washington, USA

Transcript

We are on Chapter 5 of this wonderful book called Working With Anger, Written by our teacher Venerable Chidren. The chapter is called Recognizing Anger and Its Causes. So first let's just kind of get into a position that you're going to be comfortable in. The body does have a very, Very close relationship to the mind, So how it sits and how it holds the space is very important on how open the mind and receptive the mind can be. So we want to make sure that our spine is straight but not tight, Imagining a thread coming out the top of the head and somebody's gently pulling on that so that the discs are elongated, But you don't feel like you're tight. If you can sit at the edge of your seat so you don't have the back of the chair supporting you that would be even better for the spine. We have our hands in our laps below our bellies with the right palm on the left palm with the thumbs touching right below the belly. Our shoulders are level, So they're not hunched or sticking out. Our chin is a little tucked, Not so much that we're going to doze off, But if our chins are up high our minds tend to be a little excited, Where if the chin is a little tucked the mind gets a little more settled down. Now it's best to keep the eyes slightly open, Not looking at anything in particular on the floor in front of you. It just helps to let some light in without your eyes being totally open, Which can be a distraction or totally closed where we could nod off. So see if that works for you. And then the tongue should be up on against the upper top teeth. If you say the word, Mind, That's where the tongue just naturally lands. It helps as far as the buildup of saliva. So see if you can get the tongue on the upper palate. So there should be a level of ease in the body, But not like a lethargy, Not a heaviness. So make any slight, You know, Adaptations you need or accommodations to really feel like you're embodied in this space where you're sitting. And then before we begin any practices or activities at the Abba, We try to set a motivation or an intention. And so this morning what's really alive for me is I've been pretty, I don't know, Maybe inspired at some level at the whole space experience of Artemis II going farther than any human beings have ever traveled before in that little capsule. Due to unbelievable technology, Science, Genius, Collaboration, Physics, Whatever makes that possible to rejoice that the human mind has that capacity to do that, And for the courageous men and women who, You know, Took that trip, It's kind of always adds a sort of an inspiration to our minds. What's so ironic about that is currently we have between 40 and 50 armed conflicts on this little blue planet of ours. So on one hand we're inspired by the capacity of the human mind and the human beings who collaborate and work together, And at the same time we're fighting each other. And so one of the things that I continually come back to is that there is not just this incredible world outside of ourselves and in the universe, The galaxies and beyond, But from the Buddha's point of view there is a whole different landscape, A whole different universe inside ourselves that we are sometimes more apathetic or complacent or not as interested to explore as we are the limits of space, Where in fact there is a potential for a vastness and a clarity in that mind and heart of ours that is beyond, Beyond any type of universe or galaxy. But because we don't spend a lot of time exploring that inner landscape, Things start to happen in there because we don't understand our own minds and hearts, We don't understand how we think and why we think what we do, So we get really, Really confused. And as a result, Sometimes we end up having these wars inside of ourselves with our anger, Our greed, Our jealousy, Our pride, And then it kind of spills out into the world and we get ourselves into a lot of trouble with the rest of the living beings on this planet. So today as we really look into this very dangerous mental state called anger, Which is the cause of, If not all the conflicts in the world, A lot of them, Is to come to this day with curiosity and a willingness to explore, Well how do I actually think? How does anger arise? What are its causes? To be able to look into our minds and hearts like we're exploring this vast internal world, Maybe more deeply than we have in a while. Because as that universe is explored and we open up our possibilities of what we can actually do with that mind of ours, Cultivate these beautiful qualities that just enhance the clarity and the capacity of our human experience, And that we have the guidance of the Buddha's teachings to be able to figure out what are the causes for happiness and what are the causes that bring suffering? Why do I get anger? What's the story I'm telling myself? And so today may we do that together in harmony to be able to understand our own minds and hearts, Which then connects us even more with all the other living beings who just like us want to be happy and not suffer, And to really grow our good qualities to be able to reduce and eventually eliminate all those warring factions inside of our own minds and hearts, So that we can also be able to promote and to bring peace to the world, Not only to ourselves but to all living beings. So let's set that as our intention today. And then for the next few minutes we're going to just use the breath as our object of meditation, Something we all have, Something we do thousands and thousands of times a day, But to really pay attention and to watch it come into the body, Turn and go out of the body without getting distracted is quite a profound practice. So you want to either put your attention at your belly, The rising and falling of your belly, Or a little bit more of a subtle place to track is right below your nostrils, Above your upper lip. And what we're trying to attempt here, Using it as the object of meditation, Is to watch the breath go in and how the body responds to that with an inhalation, Gently turns and goes out. And everybody has, When they're at ease, They have their own particular breathing pattern. It should be quiet, At ease, Relaxed, But clear. It shouldn't send you into sleep. It should send you into just a sense of ease. So the whole point of trying to use the breath as an object is you're going to find right away that within a few seconds your mind's going to either be wandering to the past, Wandering to the future, Something that you might hear or something you might smell. So what we need to do is gently become aware of that and bring our attention back to the breath. So the mind's a little bit like a puppy that we're trying to paper train. And when it wanders off the newspaper, We don't beat it and yell at it. We just gently pick it up and put it back on the paper. And so the mind is like that in relationship to the breath. And what we're trying to do is get the mind to be stable with some clarity. So when we do the analytical meditation on the topic this morning, The mind will be bright and willing to listen. So let's just take a few minutes to follow the breath. So without disturbing the body posture or disturbing whatever settledness in the mind that you've attained in the past few minutes, We're going to gently segue to what we call an analytical meditation or checking meditation where we get to use the mind's intelligence to investigate some points about the teachings. And so for this Chapter 5, Recognizing Anger and Its Causes, It begins with the Venerable asking the question, Well, How do we know when we're angry? And that there are some helpful ways to identify anger as it's arising or maybe it's so that it doesn't become like the point of no return and that we're then under its control. For many of us, It's very obvious when we're angry. We yell, We scream, We stop, We slam doors, We withdraw into some cold silence. But what we're trying to do here with this exploration is to see if we can catch it before it gets too big. And the body and the mind have a way to give us some clues, Some indicators that say we're heading in that direction. So just think about as I share these points, Just think, How can I use this? Is that true for me? I haven't noted that before, Maybe that's interesting. Just to respond to these questions and points. So the first one, Venerable says, When you're trying to meditate, Like just the way we did just right now, Doing a breathing meditation or some kind of meditation, What kind of distraction takes your attention away? Is the mind going to the past or the future? Is there a story that begins to run about that past or future? Try and recall a common distraction in your practice that you would identify as a form of agitation or irritation, Something unsettling. What pulls you away from your meditation? The second thing that Venerable Chodron asks us to look at is to check our thoughts. Is there an emotional tone, Or she uses the word flavor of the mind, That many times has anger beneath the surface? Anger comes in a lot of different forms, Everything from irritation to anger. Irritation to hatred to jealousy, Resentment, Belligerence. Identifying the flavor of our mind can give us some information on what is going on in it that we may not immediately recognize. So just like right now, Check the flavor of your mind when you get angry or frustrated or resentful, What's the flavor or the tone of your mind? And then she asks, What prompts bad moods for you? Maybe you didn't get what you wanted or you got something you didn't want, Or someone was doing something that you didn't approve of, Or even just looking at the news. She says, Just investigate the pattern of our moods. Sometimes they are around familiar situations or people trigger very familiar moods or behaviors. So think of one or two situations where you find yourself more tender, More vulnerable to the mood changing because of who you're with or what's going on. And then not only does the mind give us clues that anger may be arising, But so does our body. It gives us information that we may be getting angry. Our heart rate increases, Our body gets hot, Our jaw gets clenched, We get red in the face, Our stomach gets tight. Can you recognize any particular physical sensations when you get angry? Or when it's beginning to arise, What happens to the body for you? And so the conclusion is just to recognize that we get to note when anger begins to arise in our minds. That information will help us to perhaps be able to cut it off at the pass, Reduce it, Mitigate it in some way, And eventually transform it through the practice of a very powerful antidote to anger, Which is fortitude. But being able to really know our minds well enough to be able to know when anger is beginning to arise will be one of the most beneficial practices to be able to avoid the painful results that come when we get angry. This is a really compassionate practice to do for ourselves, Not just for others, So they're not the objects of our anger, But just the suffering and the pain that anger generally causes us internally. So this is an extremely compassionate practice to find a way to mitigate and reduce our anger. And so at the end of any type of meditation or practice or offering service or anything that we do here at the Abbey, We have the two bookends to our life here. We have the motivation on the front end, And then we dedicate on the back end, Sort of protecting whatever virtue and wisdom, Kindness, Clarity that we've attained to be able to be part of the causes for our ultimate happiness and to be able to be of the greatest benefit to others.