Change, angry people, and other stuff

As I sit day to day, pay attention to how I am and my experience, things are beginning to change. Things that I thought were important before don't really seem so now. I've noticed states that I get into, ways that I focus attention. I've noticed the songs in my head and just let them go. I've noticed how I focus on thoughts and am learning to just let them go.

Angry people

Through my practice I've noticed how I become angry. What that is and how it comes about. When I see angry people or people arguing I just feel like "you don't have to do that". You don't have to be angry. I don't know. It's just that I know what that's like and it sucks. I can't just walk by someone who is angry and laugh it off. For example my friend got angry tonight when we were skateboarding. I just felt bad for him. I know that frame of mind. There were these awesome fireworks for an international meeting here in Dalian close to where we were skating. It was the best fireworks display I had ever seen. Amazing. I was really enjoying them. All the colors and movement. I noticed as I was enjoying the fireworks my friend's attitude started to change as well. But it didn't necessarily last. He went back to skateboarding very dilligently. Hurt himself and kept skateboarding, complaining and almost picked a fight. I laughed and I told him to relax. I don't know. You have to stop and smell the roses sometimes. Anyway, I just thought I'd right this down here. Seems like the best place to do so. Something that I noticed and was on my mind.

Gassho

Thanks, Will.

I showed up at the wrong place for a club bike ride this morning. It was a beautiful, almost perfect, morning for a bike ride.

But I rode blind for too long. :oops:

Will,

Great post. Your point about anger is so valid and powerful. No one needs to be angry like that, so many of us don't understand that we have a choice in that. I often see people become obsessed with anger, and carried away into the "drama" of life. I know a few people from work that are like this always angry, gossiping, always running from one conflict to the next, making fires and trying to put them out. For me this is an exhausting way to be, and my heart breaks for them. It's a strange thing because on one hand they are miserable, unhappy, and upset. . .but on another hand they are thriving on the chaos, almost as if they wouldn't be able to function without it. It's a hard lesson to learn, and sadly one that we must learn ourselves. . .I just try to do my job and be as helpful and calm as possible, maybe a good influence and example, but at best an attempt to live by embracing the principles of "non-harming" --- a revolutionary way of living and to some extent a rejection of the mainstream view of life and old conditioning.

I'm pretty much a coward. When people around me get angry, it makes me very nervous. I usually withdraw... sometimes I quite literally hide from the person.

I'm such a wimp!

I used to play video games - not compulsively or anything. But a couple of months ago, I couldn't defeat a boss, or finish a level, or something. I got so frustrated I threw the controller across the room. Then it occurred to me how silly I was being - no one's forcing me to play this game. So I just shut it off and let my sister have it.

Thank you, Will

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Originally Posted by will

As I sit day to day, pay attention to how I am and my experience, things are beginning to change. Things that I thought were important before don't really seem so now.

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Yes, I like to say that ours is a 'Proof is in the Pudding' Practice. You may think Zazen 'isn't doing anything', that it is a waste of time ... you may think about stopping. Then, you just begin to notice the small and great ways it is having effect on your life, how you approach things differently, see life and yourself differently. Then you see what it is about.

Anger is not practicing 'right', and oversteps the Precepts. So, when we are angry, we are not doing Zazen 'right', and we should make every effort to avoid anger, to let it burn out.

At the same time, we embrace our human condition beyond right or wrong, just the way it is, with all the pimples. We are not perfect, we sometimes do harmful human things.

So, our Practice is again trying to do things 'right' beyond 'wrong' or 'right'. We live on two levels not even one.

Gassho, Jundo

Thanks for the posts everyone.

Gassho

Hi Will,
I'm noticing a lot of changes, again, too. I say again because I saw many of them before I stopped practicing, then there were a lot of reversals. :lol:

The anger thing is a big one. Like you said, I see now where it comes from often, and can feel it bubbling up in my physiology before it manifests. Now that I can feel it again, I can stop it before it's out of control......usually.

Another big one for me is desire and lust. I used to say my biggest addiction was "more". Didn't really matter what, I just craved "more"! That's starting to change.

As a watch collector and having spent many years on watch forums, and having been a moderator on one of the big international ones, I also began to look at my motivations for posting on them. I still visit one, but only post periodically now when I think I've something to add. I've found some of my old tendencies coming up here as well. So, having recognized that, I think I'll not post too often and just sit zazen. :D
Cheers,
Bruce

Beloved Will and others,

I have done a lot of work on my anger issues, but one experience really taught me an incredible amount.

I was helping staff a three day meditation/communication intensive, and due to a misunderstanding (that was not my fault) one of the participants got very angry at me. At this time, I was sitting and was supposed to be silent. He was in a communication setting and was describing to his partner how angry and pissed off he was (at me) and how terrible the intensive was. I could hear him quite clearly from where I was sitting silently. It was a very difficult experience for me. At the time this was happening I was very present and open, and could only sit there and witness all that was going on inside and outside of me.

I felt trapped. I felt awful that something I had done had made another so upset even though I knew it was a misunderstanding and not my fault. I wanted to explain what had really happened and to try to make him feel better and also have him not be angry at me. At the same, time I felt anger well up inside me at the other who had actually created the situation by an error on their part. In a "normal" setting I would have gone to each person and explained what had happened and work everything out. But I was sitting and silent and all I could do was observe the situation and my reaction to it.

It was both terrible and wonderful. I have never been so present with both my anger and embarrassment. I watched sterotypical negative thouhgts well up in my mind. Those thoughts gave birth to other similar negative thoughts. Negative memories of similar past events jumped into my mind. I witnessed my body have physical reactions to these emotions. I sat with this for forty minutes.

I felt helpless and could not "do" anything, so I continued to sit and observe and breathe. It was a very surreal situation. "I" was having all these complicated upsetting emotional reactions, but at the same time "I" was just the observer watching as these events unfolded. It was exhausting and liberating at the same time.

Namaste...Peace...Light...Love...Gassho...

Urug

BRUCE S

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I've found some of my old tendencies coming up here as well. So, having recognized that, I think I'll not post too often and just sit zazen.

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I know what you mean. That's when informal practice comes in handy.

Gassho

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Originally Posted by Urug

I was helping staff a three day meditation/communication intensive, and due to a misunderstanding (that was not my fault) one of the participants got very angry at me. At this time, I was sitting and was supposed to be silent.

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Dear Urug,

Wonderful wonderful. I am going to remember this story. I would like to use it again when the subject comes up in our Precepts study.

Gassho, Jundo

Hi Urug,

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Originally Posted by Urug

I felt helpless and could not "do" anything, so I continued to sit and observe and breathe. It was a very surreal situation. "I" was having all these complicated upsetting emotional reactions, but at the same time "I" was just the observer watching as these events unfolded. It was exhausting and liberating at the same time.

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Ouch - I can imagine that that must have been quite an intense situation. What happened afterwards then? Just curious. Did you have an opportunity to clarify the situation and did your feelings change then? I often find it remarkable to observe how negative feelings can vanish in an instant.

Gassho
Kenneth

Urug,

Thank you. You've helped me deal with another conversation online. How freeing (and difficult) it is to just let an injustice pass by.

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Originally Posted by Kenneth

Ouch - I can imagine that that must have been quite an intense situation. What happened afterwards then? Just curious. Did you have an opportunity to clarify the situation and did your feelings change then? I often find it remarkable to observe how negative feelings can vanish in an instant.

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Kenneth,

When the morning practice was done and I could finally talk, I went first to the participant who was angry at me and explained what had actually happened. Then, later in the day when time allowed, I spoke with the other staff members. These were also very intense experiences as I was still maintaining a very open state.

It was interesting to first see the anger and righteous indignation of the participant slowly melt away. It did not happen all at once. He gradually processed what had happened, and I could see in his face the slow lessening of anger, then the slight blush of embarrassment as he realized how he had been attached to his anger.

Then it was my turn. Part of me had also been attached to my anger and righteous indignation at being put into this situation by the other staff. Although I had tried to be present with it and witness it, I had also definitely experienced those feelings as well. Perhaps even more so being so open to them. When I spoke to the other staff, they were truly sorry for the oversight that had occurred, and felt badly for me having had to go through that. As I spoke with them, slowly I could feel my anger and righteous indignation slowly melt away. Then I felt the warm flush of embarrassment as I realized how much I had still been caught up in my emotions and not as present and witnessing as I had thought.

By the end of the intensive, the whole episode had become a running joke that we were all laughing over. It was enlightening (pun intended) to see how something I and another had felt so strongly about turned into something that was later so funny and helped bring us together.

Namaste...Peace...Humility...Gassho...

Urug

Hi Urug,

A truly valuable experience - thanks for your reply.

Gassho
Kenneth