On Trying To Be Buddhist

Being Angry - Part 2

The metaphor that ended my last entry has continued to resonate - the idea of old anger being like an oil field that provides fuel to what otherwise might be just a brief spark or a small flare-up.  I do know I have unreleased anger - and not without reason.  However, it's a danger - it can create an intense conflagration out of every small flame.  Ruminating on this I really see what a simple and clean thing anger in itself might be - and how much of what I often feel is not actually related to the present process but has old roots, and, more important, is almost entirely mine.  

I suspect there's a sort of dull and nearly imperceptible pain arising from such a reservoir of feeling, and that's why when someone or something gets me angry, there is a secret pleasure in releasing it.  In turn, this hooks me into holding on to the anger; it gives me an incentive to avoid resolution of any sort.  I want to stay angry.  I want to continue finding grounds for it.  It makes me want to blame others, and not let anyone off the hook.   

What do I do to get rid of this? 

Being Angry

I was up late last night and was watching TV in a rather disinterested way.  Then I came upon a Discovery Channel documentary on climbing Everest.  It was part of a second series, the first having covered a group of climbers the previous year.  There were several men who had climbed both years, and one of them was pretty spectacularly unintelligent.  In the previous series he'd gotten a lot of 'screen time' both because he'd been slightly injured, and so there was the drama of whether or not he could make the next stage, the summit, etc, and also because he tended to ignore the climb leader's instructions, putting both himself and others at severe risk.  So here he was again - and here was the same pig-headed behavior.  It was easy to be angry at his disregard for everyone's safety.  And I kept watching - held, I began to see, by the pleasure of my anger.  I really wanted to see him get what he deserved.  What reservoir of ill-feeling do I have stored up that pushes in this way for release?  A sort of emotional fossil-fuel that is available to power all sorts of self-righteousness.