Checking Anger
Filed Under Buddhadharma | Posted on March 17, 2008
I need a break from violence and politics.
One should give up anger, renounce pride, and overcome all fetters. Suffering never befalls him who clings not to mind and body and is detached.
He who checks rising anger as a charioteer checks a rolling chariot, him I call a true charioteer. Others only hold the reins.
Overcome the angry by non-anger; overcome the wicked by goodness; overcome the miser by generosity; overcome the liar by truth.
Speak the truth; yield not to anger; when asked, give even if you only have a little. By these three means can one reach the presence of the gods.
Those sages who are inoffensive and ever restrained in body, go to the Deathless State, where, having gone, they grieve no more.
Santideva’s Bodhicaryavatara
Chapter VI: The Perfection of Patience
Anger destroys all the good conduct, such as generosity and worshipping the Sugatas, which has been acquired over thousands of eons.
There is no vice like hatred, and there is no austerity like patience. Therefore, one should earnestly cultivate patience in various ways.
The mind does not find peace, nor does it enjoy pleasure and joy, nor does it find sleep or fortitude when the thorn of hatred dwells in the heart.
Even dependents whom one rewards with wealth and honors wish to harm the master who is repugnant due to his anger.Even friends fear him. He saddens his friends. He attracts with generosity but is not served. In brief, there is nothing that can make an angry person happy.
One who recognized hatred as the enemy, knowing that it creates sufferings such as these, and persistently overcomes it, becomes happy in this world and in the other.
Finding its fuel in discontent originating from an undesired event and from an impediment to desired events, anger becomes inflamed and destroys me.
Therefore, I shall remove the fuel of that enemy, for that foe has no function other than to harm me.
Even if I fall into extreme adversity, I should not disrupt my happiness. When there is frustration, nothing is agreeable, and virtue is forsaken.
If there is a remedy, then what is the use of frustration? If there is no remedy, then what is the use of frustration?
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