This is in part an addition to my thread about what makes you whole http://www.treeleaf.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3645 and also in part a response to shouting at the students thread http://www.treeleaf.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3657

First of all, I am not a shouter. I learned as a kid, somewhat wrongly, that anger is wrong and unproductive, and so I have held anger in for most of my life. Shouting out of anger never worked for me, so I shut it down. My anger exists, however, or at least it shows up from time to time, even as shouting, but I have found it to not be in any way productive, so my general pattern has been to deny it or bury it or in some way not express it. BUT, as I just said, my anger really does exist, and I think we all get angry at stuff, so my practice of denying it (in whatever form that took) for most of my life has not been good practice. And that brings me to my point...

I am a secular teacher and I got really mad at my students yesterday, but I never shouted, and I think I totally drove home my anger at them anyway. I will leave out the distracting details on what got me so mad because I ended up being (I think, as the results are not all in yet) a very effective teacher. Context is everything, and the context of my anger was that over the whole semester I conveyed to them how much I cared, how passionate I was about the subject. In that context I believe my anger was acceptable, that it was ok. Maybe zen teachers do the same, though undoubtedly people will have exceptions, which is fine....

Here's my point: Given the context, anger might be okay. But don't hold on to it. People really do fuck up sometimes, especially students. Think about it... we've all done it to one degree or another. I fully believe it's okay to expect a lot from students, and it's also fully okay to hold them accountable, and I also believe that teachers invest a whole lot in their students, and so when all that doesn't work out us human teachers get mad, sometimes.

And That's Okay
Getting mad fits in with that human part of the Path
And eliminating that human part is not the Middle Way
Living with it and then letting it go is...

Go on, Piss me off... I dare you :twisted: