I dont’ know about you but I’m not a great fan of anger.
Not sure why - think it might be that it’s destructive rather than constructive - for both yourself and ‘the other’ (the ‘target’) - anger on a personal level…
Personally I was ‘lucky’ in some ways - didn’t really ’see’ anger until I was in my mid 30’s - the luck in this is there’s a real comparison for me - kind of the pre-anger and post-anger view of my world…
Anger, of course, is a valid (albeit not very positive) human emotion - we all ‘get into’ the anger experience, at some time, in my estimation. What I’m interested in is pressing reason, or intellect, against emotion in exploring where anger ‘fits’ (or not, as the case may be)…
Anger is a thing entrenched in the ‘me’ version of the world I think. A nice counter to that is the self-less version of the world… which is trickier to understand in my experience but more interesting, much happier, and certainly more fun!
Roughly:
- You’re really entrenched in the ‘me’ view - see it operate when someone stamps on your foot, or really offends your sensibilities. You ‘have to react’, often in anger, to protect ‘you’. You’re really self-trained to think you are ‘it’ - ‘you against the world’ type of thing - gotta defend ‘me’…
I, me, me ,mine :-)
I’m a solid ‘thing’ which exists… In all likelihood you’ve been brought up this way and much of western culture reinforces that outlook.
- What about you don’t actually ‘exist’ at all (in a non-relational way) ? The ‘test’ for this is to try and break down the component parts of yourself and define where the ‘me’ is - you are your hand? or your liver? or generally the cells that make up your body? You are your ‘mind’? Where is your ‘mind’? Is your ‘mind’ the the cells that make up your brain? Tricky…
- So you are nothing…? If you don’t ‘exist’ you are nothing, yes? By logic, not very likely - nothing comes from nothing? And returns to nothing? I don’t think so - it defies logic - matter can come from energy and vice-versa - the little we know ‘in science’ tells us this. Nothing doesn’t come from nothing, and things don’t ‘go to nothing’ - ‘things’ don’t ‘disappear’ - transform, yes, but they don’t just disappear. But you are probably not the ‘bits’ which make up the physical you…
- If you accept that your body was ’something’ (loosely, in simplicity, ‘matter’) before you were born and returns to that ’something’ (again ‘matter’ and/or energy) after you die then it’s not a great leap to consider that your awareness (mind, or consciousness, or soul, or whatever - let’s not get hung up on the terminology) could be much the same.
- So you were ’something’ before your physical/mind manifestation existed? And ‘they’ will still be ’something’ after you are ‘gone’? Seems completely reasonable given this flow of logic. ‘Matter’ arises and decays - a big sea of matter is out there - science tells us that - it constantly re-assembles, re-arranges, transforms…
- Given it’s likely that most would agree awareness/conciousness is not simply ‘matter’ but something different, then I don’t think it’s too greater leap to consider a parallel ’sea of awareness’ - which likewise arises, decays, re-assembles, re-arranges and transforms. It likewise also probably doesn’t, however, ‘come from nothing’ or ‘go to nothing’. This is, though, I grant you, pretty non-intuitive. If you suspend dis-belief for a moment and think through the likely truth of this flow of thought though it is possible - and, in fact, it seems quite plausible…
- The conclusion in this flow of argument is that there is some sort of continuum of awareness - and a parallel, or integrated, continuum of matter.
- (and it gets really interesting if you’re able to articulate imagining this as my brother Kurt can…read and test every word - find one that doesn’t fit - isn’t necessary… this is the definition of articulate succinct creative communication)
- Extrapolated thought would suggest you are a relational part of this continuum…. and the most interesting part, your awareness/conciousness, is just ‘in’ that sea of awareness - and that is the ‘real’ you. It existed before you were born and will still be there after you are dead… not as ‘you’ in the (fill in you with yourname) you today sense, but it will still be there… And,of course, everyone else is in that ’sea of reality’ too..
- You are not real as ‘me’ in the current limited view of the ‘physio you’ sense - but your core reality, and truth, is that you are a real part of the infinitely inter-connected continuum of awareness…
- The next step is a little tricky (well is for me anyway) - In the ‘we are all an inter-connected continuum of awareness’ - “bliss, void, indivisable” - the things which naturally arise are Love, compassion and empathy - transcendence of self to selflessness - human-ness - creativity - sharing - ‘the human spirit’ - the ’soul’ of conciousness…
This is my amateur attempt at an incomplete summary (and due to my limited understanding probably quite inadequate) of this little chain of Buddhist philosophy. An important aside is that Buddhist philosophy is truly self-referential - in that, only you can understand your understanding of it - my limited understanding or explanations, or any doctrine, or any dogma, are not your understanding - the key is you must find the path to truth and reality (your understanding).
One of the neat things about all of this is - in my somewhat, as yet, ignorant view - it seems to accord reasonably well with most theologies. I grant you, you have to dispense with a lot of tradition, inane detail, doctrine, and other dogmatic crap to arrive at that view… But it’s difficult to find a spiritual tradition which doesnt contain the core components of the infinite, a continuum, Love and compassion as core, and subsequently moral ethics and seeking fundamental (self-understood) truth as central themes…
‘Rabbiting on’…
I imagined I hear you say “yeah, yeah Shaun…”, with a little sigh, “and is there a point to all of this… stuff?”
Hmmm… thinking…
“Oh yes!” he says confidently, buying time to catch the thought train back to the original station…
In anger, it seems to me, one is reinforcing a very narrow view, that “me is against the world” view (even if in the emotion you are only doing the minutely personal view of ‘me is against so and so’).
If you explore the intellectual, reality, & perspective options and find some truth in a continuum of awareness, a shared space, it becomes relatively easy (he says with the same level of confidence as a train returning to the ‘original thought station’) to put yourself in the other “person’s shoes”… the exchange of self and other…
When you can do that, I would suggest, it’s difficult to be angry with them - they, after all, are here in reality just like you - well maybe not ‘just like you’ :) - but in this ’shared space’ - a truth of shared essence - of Love, compassion, empathy - a human mind in infinite conciousness - in the ‘pool’ - experiencing the human condition.
At that point it’s difficult to ‘accuse them’ of anything - e.g. falling into the trap of ‘delusion’, ’self-pride’, or whatever other slightly bent emotion they are projecting at you that you happen to be reacting (in anger) to…
Didn’t you experience just such an emotion last week!?
Did you manage not to project it at someone else?
Phew! Now even I’m not sure whether there’s a main point to all of this - think I’ll leave that to you to work out for yourself :-P
with thanks:
to Paco CT and Bob.Fornal for photos;
friends who fed back on a very
‘drafty’ early bit of these scribblings; and
again, to Bob, for my understanding
(yet incomplete, of course, but that’s my problem)
of Buddhist philosophy.
Celebrate!
