Anger

by Thich Nhat Hanh

This kind of language, this kind of communication will inspire respect, and motivate the other person to look back and to practice like you. He or she will see that you respect yourself. You demonstrate that when you are angry, you know how to take care of your anger.

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Remember that you have to tell him or her within twenty-four hours. The Buddha said that a monk has the right to be angry, but not for more than one night. It’s not healthy to keep your anger inside for too long.

If you are not calm enough to express your anger and the deadline is drawing close, then you have to write the three sentences down on a piece of paper and deliver it to him or her.

The moment you tell him or deliver the note to him, you will already feel some relief.

you practice mindful breathing and looking deeply to understand the roots of your anger. Whether you are driving, walking, cooking, or washing, you continue to embrace your anger with mindfulness.

Anger is in us in the form of a seed. The seeds of love and compassion are also there. In our consciousness, there are many negative seeds and also many positive seeds. The practice is to avoid watering the negative seeds, and to identify and water the positive seeds every day. This is the practice of love.

“Darling, if you really care for me, if you really love me, please do not water the negative seeds in me every day. If you do, I’ll be very unhappy, and if I’m unhappy, I’ll make you unhappy. So please, please don’t water the seeds of anger, intolerance, irritation, or despair in me. And I promise not to water these seeds in you.

If you get angry very easily, it is because your seed of anger has been watered frequently over many years. You have allowed it to be watered.

You have not practiced protecting yourself. If you don’t protect yourself, you don’t protect those you love.

The first insight may be that the seed of anger in us has grown a little too big, and it is the main cause of our misery.

If we continue to look deeply, we see that the other person suffers a great deal. Someone who suffers a lot always makes the people around him or her suffer.

So you are partly responsible for your suffering.

practice looking deeply in order to identify your part in the conflict. Don’t blame everything on the other person. Recognize first that the main cause of your suffering is the seed of anger in you, and that the other person is only a secondary cause.

You know you are also partly responsible for the way he or she is now because you have not practiced, you have not taken care of your flower.

The other person may be someone very dear to you. If you don’t help, who will?

We have made ourselves suffer, we made a hell for ourselves and our beloved ones because of our perceptions. Are you sure of your perception?

“What have I done? What have I said to make him suffer that much?”

You should tell him everything that is in your heart, with only one condition—you must use calm and loving speech.

You tend to believe that you are the only one who suffers, and that the other person is enjoying your suffering. You will say and do mean and cruel things when you believe that you are the only one who suffers and that the other person does not suffer at all.

If you want to help correct her wrong perception, you have to wait until the moment is right. While listening, your only aim is to give her a chance to speak out and share what is in her heart. You don’t say anything.

Use loving speech when you correct her.

Patience Is the Mark of True Love

Don’t expect the other person to stop being angry right away. That’s not realistic. You have to allow anger to die down slowly. So don’t rush. Patience is the mark of true love.

You must also be patient with yourself. The practice of embracing your anger takes time. But just five minutes of mindful breathing, mindful walking, and embracing your anger can be effective.

Give yourself as much time as you need. The practices of mindful breathing and mindful walking outdoors are wonderful ways to embrace your anger.

Although you lived in the same house, you might have felt that your father or mother was very distant.

When it is raining, we think that there is no sunshine. But if we fly high in an airplane and go through the clouds, we rediscover the sunshine again. We see that the sunshine is always there.

You have to believe this. We are more than our anger, we are more than our suffering. We must recognize that we do have within us the capacity to love, to understand, to be compassionate.

Maybe the other person has spoken so often with bitterness, always condemning and blaming, that you have had enough. You cannot listen anymore.

The only solution is to train yourself to be able to communicate again. Deep listening is the way.

“Look how beautiful the sky is this morning. It is foggy, but it’s really beautiful. Paradise is right here. Why don’t you come back to the present and witness this beauty?”

Loving speech will rescue us. Compassionate listening will rescue us.

If you are always together, then you may begin to take him for granted, forgetting to enjoy his beauty and goodness.

Take time away from him in order to be able to appreciate him more. Although you are far away from him, he is more real to you, more substantial than when you are constantly together.

Why do you have to spend several hours, one evening, or even days suffering in anger?

When we’re angry with someone, we want to hurt them. Giving them a present changes that into wanting to make them happy.

Looking deeply is the medicine most recommended for anger.

Anger is an energy, and if that energy is overwhelming, you can be a victim of it.

Your suffering is the suffering of your beloved ones. Their happiness is your happiness. When you know this, you will not be tempted by the idea of punishing or of blaming.

You deserve peace, you deserve happiness. That is why you have to sit down with him, with her, and design a strategy for living together.

Helping yourself is the first condition for helping the other.

Love is the same. If you don’t love yourself, you cannot love someone else.

When we get angry, we suffer. If you really understand that, you also will be able to understand that when the other person is angry, it means that she is suffering.

Everything must begin with you.

Human beings are not our enemy. Our enemy is not the other person. Our enemy is the violence, ignorance, and injustice in us and in the other person.

To be kind does not mean to be passive.

Violence can never bring about peace and understanding.

If other people do not have the same insight, you have to do your best to make your insight a collective one. Yet you cannot force your insight on others.

Just because anger or hate is present does not mean that the capacity to love and accept is not there.