Slipped (anger) foolishness

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Sage
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Slipped (anger) foolishness

Post by Sage »

Okay, I have been lurking this forum for ages but for some reason never made an account. I love coming here to absorb all the information and enjoy the life-stories I find. I'm not an angry person and meditation has made me more relaxed than ever but something simple took place tonight that has angered me. I am currently doing online classes and I went to check how I'm doing and saw claims I have not been doing my work. I am very devoted to the tasks that I complete and have taken great offense to this and I can feel anger fuming inside that is just "monkey-minding" my meditation efforts.

Of course we could say its attachment or maybe even pride and arrogance. I have already mapped out plans on how to handle it but I fear if it doesn't go as planned and I just get a "No, you're wrong and you have put no effort", I may lash out. This course is very work heavy and seeing good standing to a sudden -%40 shook me.

Reading this it all seems so simple and foolish but it is surely digging.

I came for advice but writing it out seemed to have helped a great deal. I thought such negative feelings in the depth of me were gone but I see they still exist. Although I feel better now my mind still seems a bit "fogged", Have you ever gone back a stage or perhaps if you're able to you were never where you thought you were?
What an introduction?
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Ayu
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Re: Slipped (anger) foolishness

Post by Ayu »

As long as we are no bodhisattvas on the higher level, maculation has to be somewhere in the mind. It is important that it comes out - otherwise you cannot watch it.
Three possibilities:

- Use the anger as a spiritual car. Sit down and look at "Who is angry", "Where is he/she" - go away from looking at WHAT makes you angry in the outside. These things differ and they are always the same. :smile:

- While sitting in meditation look at the anger-arousing event: what happend outside? What happened inside? How could i behave better next time? How to judge the situation better next time?
In this way it is possible to train such a situation without being involved. Like dry swimming. So the mind will be trained and the next time it will not be something new.

- Change the sides: imagine you would like to critisize a teacher and he becomes angry.
This technic is called "Equalizing and Exchanging One's Attitudes about Self and Others" and is better discribed here:
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/ar ... tudes.html

I wish the very best for you in this topic. Be well. :meditate:
lojong1
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Re: Slipped (anger) foolishness

Post by lojong1 »

That's great news Sage, well done!
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Konchog1
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Re: Slipped (anger) foolishness

Post by Konchog1 »

It's hard to see how dirty a cloth is until you start washing it.
Equanimity is the ground. Love is the moisture. Compassion is the seed. Bodhicitta is the result.

-Paraphrase of Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Tsephel citing the Guhyasamaja Tantra

"All memories and thoughts are the union of emptiness and knowing, the Mind.
Without attachment, self-liberating, like a snake in a knot.
Through the qualities of meditating in that way,
Mental obscurations are purified and the dharmakaya is attained."

-Ra Lotsawa, All-pervading Melodious Drumbeats
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Slipped (anger) foolishness

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Unlike you, I have a real history with anger. It's really improved since I made a commitment to daily practice, but there is one person...literally takes 20 seconds worth of conversation with them and I am enraged for hours, sometimes I feel horrible and it is so hard to stop being angry..only with this person now! Alot of the teachings say to try looking at someone/something like that as a kind of guru and transform the experience into the path. Jury's still out on that for me.

One thing I will say though, the more you beat yourself up for being angry, the angrier you will be..the more you start by unconditionally accepting your anger, the more you will able to accept everything else...personally I just try to relax about it. I don't wanna follow it of course, but i'm not gonna expend the energy trying to suppress or fight anger either - that has worked out terribly for me in the past. Don't try to make a false "spiritual" version of yourself that has no blemishes, work with what ya got.
akes some o
Only other thing I can think of..sometimes when I am really angry at someone, I imagine them in a position that i've been in when I really felt alone and terrible, if I can manage to see someone feeling something terrible that I know well myself..sometimes it takes some of the desire to lash out at them away.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

-Khunu Lama
LionelTeo
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Re: Slipped (anger) foolishness

Post by LionelTeo »

After mediation, my anger seems to have gone away.

But sometime ealier week I had a bad arguement with my mum, I wasn't feeling angry, but rather I felt to attach in trying to justify a point to her. It as then I notice beside mediation, conditioning of the body is somewhat important as well, I was sick and having headaches due to working night shift. So what I had learned is that between mediation and sleeping, I will choose to sleep. :zzz: Maybe that is just me. :tongue: I also find that if I am busy and not able to find time to mediatate, reading a book on buddism (on the public transport to work) is very useful to keep the mind in check. :thinking:

I have gotten in worse situation than my mum before and never retaliate with anger. My girlfriend scolds me on quite a fair bit yesterday'; and scolds me the whole of today. I didn't retalite with anger. :rolling:
DGA
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Re: Slipped (anger) foolishness

Post by DGA »

Sage wrote:Okay, I have been lurking this forum for ages but for some reason never made an account. I love coming here to absorb all the information and enjoy the life-stories I find. I'm not an angry person and meditation has made me more relaxed than ever but something simple took place tonight that has angered me. I am currently doing online classes and I went to check how I'm doing and saw claims I have not been doing my work. I am very devoted to the tasks that I complete and have taken great offense to this and I can feel anger fuming inside that is just "monkey-minding" my meditation efforts.

Of course we could say its attachment or maybe even pride and arrogance. I have already mapped out plans on how to handle it but I fear if it doesn't go as planned and I just get a "No, you're wrong and you have put no effort", I may lash out. This course is very work heavy and seeing good standing to a sudden -%40 shook me.

Reading this it all seems so simple and foolish but it is surely digging.

I came for advice but writing it out seemed to have helped a great deal. I thought such negative feelings in the depth of me were gone but I see they still exist. Although I feel better now my mind still seems a bit "fogged", Have you ever gone back a stage or perhaps if you're able to you were never where you thought you were?
What an introduction?
Hi Sage,

Welcome to DharmaWheel.

There's one other factor at work that may be behind the situation you are facing (I bring this up as someone who has taught online classes at two different universities): the software is often very confusing and not at all intuitive on the instructor's side, especially BlackBoard. It's entirely possible that the machine ate your homework, or that your instructor made a simple error. When this sort of thing happens, it's best to send a quick email or if possible to make a phone call to get it straightened out.

I know, not meditation advice, but hopefully helpful anyway. All the best to you in all your fields of learning.
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