Category Archives: Buddhism

A Technique for Developing Enlightened Consciousness by the Tibetan Saint Tangtong Gyalbo

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  • Even a 15 minute daily meditation will be very beneficial.
  • The mouth is closed but relaxed, with the top of the tongue lightly touching the roof of the mouth.
  • In visualization meditations, sustained concentration is very important.
  • Realizing the self-made nature of all thinking, allow the mind to return to the meditation.
  • It is important to note that one should always avoid abruptly ending the meditation.
  • The important point is that one’s expectations should be humble at first.
  • Mantras are vocal expressions of an enlightened state of consciousness. They are both concise and symbolic, and are usually in a form of Sanskrit. Although mantras also have a literal meaning which can be translated into English, their primary function is to transmit to the practitioner a particular type of consciousness through the mere sound of the syllables.
  • Thus, one should integrate the realizations one gained while meditating into one’s daily life as much as possible. This means that one avoids dualistic thinking and attachment to material objects. Instead one should develop compassion, friendliness and helpfulness towards all beings, at the same time always remembering the illusory nature of all phenomena.
  • In general, compassion should not encourage the egotistical drives of others, or help them to become further embroiled in emotional upheaval.
  • One might simply try to become more generally friendly, and not forget kindness to animals, avoiding the killing even of bugs. As one slowly becomes more in control of one’s own emotions and problems, and less attached to oneself, the situation and needs of others will be perceived more clearly.

Anger by Thich Nhat Hanh

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Introduction

The Practice of Happiness

  • True happiness must come from inside of us.
  • The most basic condition for happiness is freedom from the mental formations of anger, despair, jealousy, and delusion.

 

Making Change For the Better

  • Compassionate listening relieves suffering. To understand & transform anger, learn the practice of compassionate listening & using loving speech.
  • Kuan Yin (or Avalokitesvara): bodhisattva of great compassion.
  • Listen with only one purpose to allow the other person to express himself & find relief from his suffering. Keep compassion alive during the whole time of listening. You listen, not to judge or to blame, just because you want the other person to suffer less.

 

A Bomb Ready to Explode

 

Defusing the Bomb

 

Right Teaching, Right Practice

  • If, after several months, the practice has not brought about any transformation & healing, change your approach & learn more.
  • If you practice very seriously, if you make the practice a matter of life and death, you can change everything.

 

Making Happiness Possible

 

Consuming Anger

  • Anger is not strictly a psychological reality.
  • Body and mind are not separate.
  • Namarupa: body-mind formation; psyche-soma: the mind-body as one entity.
  • We have to take good care of our body to master anger: the way we eat & consume

 

We Are What We Eat

  • Our food may “contain” anger.
  • Egg or chicken can contain anger. We eat anger; we express anger.
  • Drink organic milk.
  • We can learn to eat less.

 

Consuming Anger through Other Senses

  • Magazines & TV can be toxic. It can also contain anger & frustration.
  • In one hour of conversation, the other person’s words may poison you with a lot of toxins.

 

Eating Well, Eating Less

  • Overeating creates difficulties for the digestive system, contributing to the rising of the anger. Also, can produce too much energy. If you do now know how to handle this energy, it can become the energy of anger, sex, and the violence.
  • We need only half the amount of food that we eat everyday.
  • We should chew our foods 50 times before we swallow.
  • Eating is a deep practice.
  • Practice mindfulness of eating.
  • Be aware of each movement of your mouth.
  • When we eat mindfully, we are not eating or chewing our anger, our anxiety, or our projects.
  • Eat less: You need only half the amount that your eyes tell you to take. “Our eyes are bigger than our stomach.”

 

5th Mindfulness Training

  • Look deeply at the way we consume.
  • Intake of alcohol causes disease to the body & the mind, & death on the road.

 

Putting Out the Fire of Anger

Saving Your House

  • When someone makes you suffer, go back, and take care of your suffering.
  • Whatever you say or do in a state of anger may cause more damage in your relationship.
  • Running after the arsonist while everything goes up in flames is not wise.

 

Tools for Cooling the Flames

  • The method of mindful breathing
  • The method of mindful walking
  • The method of embracing our anger
  • The method of looking deeply into the nature of our perceptions
  • The method of looking deeply into the other person to realize that she also suffers a lot and needs help
  • Be aware of the contact of your feet with the earth; be aware of the contact of the air as it enters your body
  • As you breathe in, you can say: “In;” as you breathe out, you can say: “Out.”

 

What Do We Look Like When We Are Angry

  • When you’re angry, you’re not very beautiful, presentable.
  • Anger makes tense your muscles, but when you know how to smile, you begin to relax, and your anger will decrease.
  • When you see yourself in moments of anger, you’re motivated to do something to change.
  • Carry a mirror with you, and look at it to see what state you’re in.

 

Embracing Anger with a Sunshine of Mindfulness

  • Anything embraced by the energy of mindfulness will undergo transformation.
  • After 10 ~ 15 minutes of following your breathing or mindful walking, your anger will open herself to you, & you’ll see the nature of your anger.

 

Cooking Anger

  • Embrace your anger with tenderness. Your anger is not your enemy; your anger is your baby.

 

Turning Garbage into Flowers

  • Love can be transformed into hate.
  • “I recognize there’s garbage in me. I’m going to transform this garbage into nourishing compost that can make love reappear.”
  • You accept your anger because you know you can take care of it. You can transform it into a positive energy.

 

Caring For Your Baby, Anger

  • Abandon everything that you’re doing when anger surfaces

 

Holding Your Baby

 

Discovering the True Nature of Your Anger

  • The seed of anger in you is the main cause of your suffering.

 

Helping, Not Punishing

  • Your suffering / happiness is NOT an individual matter.
  • The practice of mindfulness needs the concentration and insight.

 

Stopping the Cycle of Anger

  • “He saw that his reaction, anger is a kind of habit energy that is transmitted to him by his father. He has become exactly like his father, the continuation of his father.”
  • “His father was a victim of transmission of anger as well. His father might not have wanted to treat him like that, but he has done so because the habit energy in him was too strong.”

 

A Good Gardener

 

Taking Care of Yourself, Taking Care of the Other

  • “I suffer, am angry. I want you to know it:” expresses faithfulness to your commitment
  • “I’m doing my best. I’m taking good care of my anger for me & for you also. I don’t want to explode to destroy myself and to destroy you. I’m doing my best. I’m putting into practice what I’ve learned from my teacher:” inspires respect & confidence in the other party.
  • “I need your help.”
  • Self-love is the foundation for your capacity to love the other person.

 

Healing the Wounded Child Within

 

Becoming a Free Person

  • Tea meditation
  • When you drink tea mindfully, your body & your mind are united.
  • Train yourself to drink your tea mindfully, to become a free person while drinking tea. Any moment of the day is an opportunity to train yourself in mindfulness, & to generate this energy.

 

Daring, I Know You’re There, And I Am Very Happy.

  • You have the capacity to cherish to appreciate what is happening in the present moment. What is happening in the present moment is life.
  • Mindfulness is the energy of Buddha, the energy of enlightenment.

 

The Language of True Love

A Peace Talk

 

Reestablishing Communication

 

Peace Begins With You

  • No matter how much the other person can do, you have to do all that you’re capable of doing yourself.
  • Peace, reconciliation, & happiness begin with you. There are always ways to create more joy, peace, harmony, and you have access to them.

 

Peace Treaty

  • We are primarily responsible for our anger, but we believe very naively that if we can say something, or do something to punish the other person, we will suffer less. This kind of belief should be uprooted because whatever you do or say in the state of anger will only cause more damage in the relationship. Instead, we should try not to do anything or say anything when we are angry.
  • Punishing the other person is self-punishment. Punishing the other is not an intelligent strategy.

 

Embracing Anger

  • Just like our organs, our anger is a part of us. Embrace and take good care of our anger. Recognize it as it is, embrace it, & smile.
  • Happiness is not an individual matter.
  • You have to let the other person know that you’re angry, & that you suffer. Don’t pretend that you are not angry. Don’t pretend you don’t suffer. In true love, there is no pride. This kind of denial is based on pride.

 

Step 1: Darling, I’m Angry. I Suffer.

  • You have to let the other person know when you suffer.
  • Say it peacefully. Don’t say something to punish or blame.
  • Even if you think your anger was created by him/her, tell him/her calmly, use loving speech.
  • You should not keep your anger, your suffering to yourself for more than 24 hours.
  • The deadline comes close, & you’re not yet calm, write down a peace note, & deliver the letter to her.

 

Step 2: I’m Doing My Best

  • You may be the victim of a wrong perception.
  • Your anger is born from ignorance and wrong perceptions.
  • “I’m trying not to blame anyone else including you.”

 

Step 3: Please Help Me

  • When you’re capable of writing these sentences, you’re capable of true love.

 

Transforming Anger Together

  • You got angry because you misunderstood the situation.

 

The Special Guest

  • If respect for the other person is no longer there, true love cannot continue for long.

 

Pebble in Your Pocket

  • Write down these three sentences on a paper the size of a credit card, & slip in your wallet. Revere that piece of paper as something that can save you.

 

Transformation

Zones of Energy

  • To say something, to do something while you’re angry is not wise.
  • Anger is a suffering baby that we have to take care of.
  • When you know anger is present in us, refrain from reacting: speaking or doing anything.
  • Mindfulness is you, and anger is also you. Do not believe that mindfulness is good & correct while anger is evil & wrong. Only recognize anger is a negative energy, and the mindfulness is a positive one. Use the positive energy in order to take care of the negative one.

 

Organic Feelings

  • Both our negative and positive feelings are organic, and belong to the same reality.
  • In the Buddhist tradition, meditation does not mean you transform yourself into a battlefield with the good fighting the evil.
  • If you don’t have garbage, you have nothing to use in order to make compost. Without compost, you have nothing to nourish the flower in you. You need the suffering and the afflictions in you.

 

The Insight of Inter-Being

  • The insight of non-duality, of inter-being: Everything is interconnected, and nothing can exist by itself alone.
  • Doing violence to others is doing violence to yourself. Without the insight of non-duality, you’ll still be violent. Once you’ve penetrated the realty of non-duality, you’ll embrace both flower & garbage in you.
  • You won’t regard anyone as enemy when you’ve penetrated the reality of inter-being.
  • The foundation of our practice is the insight of non-duality, non-violence.

 

Expressing Anger Wisely

  • Not to do anything out of anger
  • Tell the other person you are angry, you suffer.
  • A monk has the right to be angry, but not for more than one night.

 

An Appointment for Friday Evening

  • The practice is to avoid watering the negative seeds, and to identify and water the positive seeds everyday.

 

Selective Watering

  • Someone who suffers a lot always makes people around him/her suffer.

 

Flower Watering

  • You need the Sangha. You need a brother, sister or friend to remind you of what you already know.
  • You’re partly responsible for your suffering.

 

Going Back To Help

  • The moment you’re motivated by the desire to return to the other & help, you know all the energy of anger has been transformed into the energy of compassion.
  • Most of the time, anger is born from a wrong perception. Somehow you believe he wanted to destroy you.

 

Are You Sure You’re Right?

  • We should not be sure of any perception we have.
  • The image of the sun that you see is the image of the sun from 8 minutes ago.
  • We have made hell for ourselves & our beloved ones because of our perceptions.
  • When you’re angry and you suffer, go back & inspect the content, nature of your perceptions. If you’re capable of removing the wrong perceptions, peace & happiness will be restored within you, and you’ll be able to love the other person again.

 

Looking Into Anger Together

  • Nothing can heal anger other than compassion.
  • If you try to correct her, you may cut her off, preventing her from speaking out, & fully expressing herself.
  • If you ought to correct her wrong perception, you have to wait until the moment is right.
  • Use loving speech when you correct her.

 

Sharing Everything Even When It Is Difficult

  • The other person has a right to know everything.
  • You must use calm & loving speech.
  • Listen with compassion, and be there with your whole being to give the other person relief.

 

Patience Is the Mark of True Love

  • Anger is a living thing. It comes up, and it needs time to go back down.
  • Anger needs time to die down. Cf. a fan
  • If you’re not patient, you cannot help the other person.
  • You must also be patient with yourself. The practice of embracing your anger takes time. Give yourself as much time you need.

 

Gaining a Victory

  • While you practice walking or breathing to take care of your anger, don’t do anything else. Just do one thing.
  • Every mental formation, anger, jealousy, despair, etc. is sensitive to mindfulness the way all vegetation is sensitive to sunshine.

 

Compassionate Communication

The Sunshine behind the Clouds

 

Training Ourselves to Listen Deeply

  • Communicating is a practice. Goodwill is not enough.
  • Listening with empathy means you listen in such way that the other feels that you’re really listening with your heart.

 

Listening To Give Relief

  • Listen with compassion.
  • Compassion is the antidote for anger & bitterness. If you keep compassion alive in you while listing, anger & irritation cannot arise.
  • Mindful breathing generates the energy of mindfulness.
  • With compassion kept alive in you, through the practice of mindful breathing, you’re protected from his words full of bitterness, condemnation, & judgment.
  • With compassion & understanding kept alive, you are safe. What the other person says will not make you suffer.

 

Nourishing Ourselves

  • If we are not in contact in pain, we cannot know what real happiness is. Touching suffering is our practice.
  • If we listen too much to the suffering, the anger of other people, you’ll be affected.
  • To know our limits is our practice.

 

You Are Your Children

  • Your child is your continuation.

 

Starting a Dialogue

  • Whenever you suffer, your child also suffers.
  • Happiness and wellbeing are not individual matter.

 

Love Letters

 

Watering the Seeds of Happiness

 

Small Miracles

  • Loving speech, compassionate listening will rescue us.

 

Your Heart Sutra

Moment of Gratitude, Moment of Enlightenment

  • Heart Sutra: the essence of Buddhist teachings on wisdom
  • You have to be alone in order to fully appreciate the other person’s presence.

 

Leave the Shore Of Anger

  • You have the right to be happy. You have the right to be compassionate, to be loving.

 

Give a Gift When You’re Angry

 

The Relief of Understanding

  • Compassion is an antidote for anger.
  • Most of our suffering is born from out lack of understanding & insight that there is no separate self. The other person is you; you are the other person.
  • When you get angry with someone, practice breathing in & out mindfully. Look deeply into the situation to see the true nature of your own and the other person’s suffering.

 

Dangers of Venting

  • The side effects of venting are very harmful. They’ll make you suffer much more.
  • By expressing anger, you’re strengthening the roots of anger in yourself.
  • While pounding the pillow, you’re rehearsing the anger.
  • Venting your anger is a practice based on ignorance.
  • When mindfulness is there, you’re safe.

 

You Are the Object of Your Anger

  • If you’re getting anger with your son, you’re getting angry with yourself.
  • You are your mother’s continuation as a descendent.

 

Insight Stops Anger

  • Happiness & suffering are not individual matters.
  • Your child, your partner is you.
  • You and the other person are one.
  • Helping yourself is the first condition for helping the other.

 

No Enemies

Begin With Yourself

  • Communicate with yourself first.
  • If you don’t love yourself, you cannot love someone else. If you cannot accept yourself, if you cannot treat yourself with kindness, you cannot do this for another person.
  • When you do not accept your father, you do not accept yourself. You are a continuation of your father.
  • When someone insults you and behaves violently toward you, the other suffers from his own violence and anger. We tend to think that we are the only one that suffers, and the other person is the oppressor. Anger arises, and our desire to punish strengthens. When we see that our suffering & anger are no different from their suffering & anger, we’ll behave more compassionately.
  • We should not fight our anger because anger is ourselves, a part of ourselves. Anger is of an organic nature like love. It’s possible to transform it into another organic entity. Don’t despise, fight, and suppress your anger. Learn the tender way of taking care of your anger, and transform it into the energy of understanding & compassion.

 

Compassion Is Intelligence

  • Being compassionate doesn’t mean suffering unnecessarily or losing your common sense.

 

Building a Compassionate Police Force

  • Act out of non-fear.

 

We Cannot Take Sides

 

A Dialogue to End Anger & Violence

 

Bombing Ourselves

  • If someone commits a crime, and makes others suffer, it is because he does not know what he is doing.
  • When you drop bombs on your enemy, you drop the same bombs on yourself, on your own country. Cf. Vietnam War

 

Stopping Wars Before They Happen

 

Collective Insight

  • You have to do your best to make your insight a collective one.
  • Insight is not an idea.

 

Helping Love to Reappear

  • Love is always in you
  • Give love a chance to manifest while the other person is still alive.
  • Anger always goes together with confusion & ignorance.

 

Going Past Judgment

  • Parents are full of ignorance, violence, anger, and that is why their child suffers. Have compassion towards the parents.

 

Serving Our Country

 

David & Angelina: The Habit Energy of Anger

 

Offering the Incense of the Heart

 

Keeping Angelina in Our Life

  • Consume in moderation; stop smoking & drinking; use loving speech; listen deeply; associate with good people, not with those who water negative seeds in you

 

Beginning Anew

 

Protecting My Angelinas

  • True wisdom & compassion are born from touching real suffering.

 

Embracing Anger with Mindfulness

The Knots of Anger

  • Samyojana (to crystallize): In consciousness, there are blocks of pain, anger, and frustration called internal formations, knots that tie us up, and obstruct our freedom.
  • Love can also be an internal knot.
  • Pleasant or unpleasant, both kinds of knots take away our liberty.
  • Drugs, alcohol, & tobacco can create internal formations in our body, and anger, craving, jealousy, & despair can create internal formations in our mind.

 

Training in Aggression

  • People who use venting technique like hitting a pillow, or shouting are actually rehearsing anger. Instead, we generate the energy of mindfulness, & embrace anger every time it manifests.

Treating Anger with Tenderness

  • Cold air is embraced by hot air, and becomes warm.
  • Our anger is us, and our compassion is also us. To meditate does not mean to fight. In Buddhism, the practice of meditation should be the practice of embracing & transforming, not a fighting.

 

Using Anger, Using Suffering

  • Practitioners of meditation do not discriminate again or reject their internal formations.
  • When anger comes up in us, begin to practice mindful breathing right away.
  • Tenderly embrace the energy of anger within you.

 

Giving & Receiving Mindfulness Energy

  • Support others with our mindfulness when they are in difficulty.

 

Recognizing, Embracing, Relieving the Suffering of Anger

  • If you know how to embrace your anger, something will change.

 

Keeping Mindfulness Alive

  • The energy of mindfulness contains the energy of concentration as well as the energy of insight. If you know how to keep concentration alive, insight will also come.

 

The Basement & the Living Room

  • Internal formations like anger rest in the store consciousness, in the basement in the form of a seed until you hear, see, read, or think of something to touch your seed of anger. Then, it comes up, & manifests on the level of mind consciousness, your living room.
  • The mind needs good circulation, too.

 

Occupying the Living Room

  • All mental formations need to circulate, but we don’t want them to come up because we don’t want to feel the pain. We want them to stay locked away. We fill up the living room with guests like TV, books, mags, conversations in order to keep these internal formations from surfacing. Continued, it creates bad circulation in our psyche.
  • Headache, allergy can also be a symptom of mental illness.

 

Making Your Unwanted Guests Feel At Home

  • You have to learn how to embrace this pain.
  • All of us have the seed of fear, but most of us suppress it, and keep it locked in the dark.

 

5 Remembrances

  1. I’m of the nature to grow-old. I cannot escape old age.
  2. I’m of the nature to have ill health. I cannot escape ill health.
  3. I’m of the nature to die. I cannot escape dying.
  4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escaping separated from them. I cannot keep anything. I come here empty-handed, and I go empty-handed.
  5. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.

 

  • Fear gives life to anger. You don’t have peace when fear is there. So, it becomes the soil on which anger can grow. Fear is based on ignorance, and this lack of understanding is also a primary cause of anger.
  • Your practice is to give your anger, despair, fear a bath of mindfulness everyday.

 

Mindful Breathing

Breathe To Take Care of Anger

  • First, in order to take good of our emotions, take good care of your body.

 

Deep Relaxation for Embracing & Healing Anger

1)   Lie down

2)   Focus on a part of your body such as heart.

3)   Breathe in; aware of your heart: Breathe out; smile towards it

Or

Breathe in; “I calm my whole body:” Breathe out; “I calm my whole body.”

 

You Can Make It through the Storm

 

Belly Breathing

  • Bring our attention down to the level of navel.
  • This storm will go away, so don’t be afraid.

 

Recognizing & Embracing Mental Formations

  • Breathe in; “I calm my mental formations:” Breathe out; “I calm my mental formations.”

 

Seeds of Anger, Seeds of Compassion

  • As long as our joy or anger is buried in the soil, and no one touches it, we call it the seed, but when it manifests in our mind consciousness, we call it a mental formation. We have to recognize anger in both its forms as a seed in our store consciousness, and as a mental formation, & active zone of energy that comes up in our mind consciousness. We have to realize even when anger does not manifest, it is still there.
  • Anger is always there in your store consciousness.
  • A good practitioner is not someone who no longer has any anger or suffering. This is not possible. A good practitioner is someone who knows how to take good care of her anger & suffering as soon as they arise.

 

Habit Energy & Mindful Breathing

  • Through mindful breathing, recognize & take care of your habit energy as soon as it manifests.
  • Recognize your habit energy, embrace it mindfully, & transform it.

 

Restoring the Pure Land

Making Happiness a Priority

 

Writing a Book on Yourself

 

Nectar of Compassion

  • Compassion is born from understanding, understanding that the other person also suffers.

 

Leaving the Prison of Notions

  • Ideas are not nourishing. In fact, ideas & notions very often become obstacles.

 

A Crucial Letter

  • Practice writing a letter
  • Even if you have the best of intentions, if your practice is not solid enough, you may become irritated when you speak and react in an unskillful way.
  • “If my perception is not right, please correct me.”
  • Use loving speech when you write.

 

Restoring the Pure Land

 

Writing Your Letter All Day Long

 

Live Each Moment Beautifully

  • If you don’t live in concentration & mindfulness, if you don’t live every moment of daily life deeply, you can’t produce anything valuable to offer to others.
  • Although you are not thinking about the letter you write to your beloved one, the letter is being written deep down in your consciousness.
  • Put 100% of yourself into the act of cooking, watering the vegetable garden, or dishwashing.
  • Enlightenment is not separate from washing dishes or growing lettuce. To learn how to live each moment of our daily life in deep mindfulness & concentration is the practice.
  • The time when you begin to write down the music or the poems is only the time of delivering the baby. The baby has to be already in you in order for you to deliver it.

 

The Gift of Transformation

  • The time you take to write the letter may be your whole life.

 

Appendix A

Peace Treaty

 

Appendix B

The 5 Mindfulness Trainings

Reverence for Life

 

Generosity

 

Sexual Responsibility

  • I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love & a long term commitment.

 

Deep Listening & Loving Speech

 

Mindful Consumption

  • Property diet is crucial for my self transformation & for the transformation of the society.

 

Appendix C

Guided Meditations for Looking Deeply & Releasing Anger

  • Avoid saying the words mechanically. Instead, experience & feel them concretely.

 

Looking Deeply At Anger

 

Releasing Anger & Healing Relations with Our Parents

 

Appendix D

Deep Relaxation