The Ordertaker - Moymoypalaboy

This one will not be everyone’s cup of tea and I normally do not appreciate heavy punk music or whatever it is called. But I love these guys: they put such heart into it and their expressions have me in stitches.

I was very angry this week and I have been watching this video and laughing as a kind of therapy. This is exactly how I would like to react sometimes....

Integrity

All my life I have been very sensitive of the concept of fairness. I think I have stated before in my posts on anger that I have a very revengeful nature. Certainly if I am wronged or treated unjustly I have a hard time dealing with my anger for that person. I will remember a wrong for years. I will cut out any person who has wronged me; I will ignore them from that time onwards. (I have a long way to go on the spiritual path of forgiveness).

However, if I have deserved a criticism, if I have acted badly, if I have wronged first, that is an entirely different matter. I may grumble, mostly in anger at myself, but I am not infused with the same anger or revenge for that person. Fair is fair.

People who lie, who bear false witness, are the lowest of the low in my eyes. I can’t abide dishonesty and falsehood. Some of you reading this who know me may know what (and who) I am talking about. Anyway, this weekend I had occasion to think about integrity and the malice of those who don’t have any. I looked up some quotes. The following ones are most in tune with my own thoughts at this moment. I will no doubt write more about integrity or the lack thereof in the future. I think it is an important subject.

O, what a tangled web we weave; When first we practice to deceive!  Sir Walter Scott

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions. Thomas Jefferson

There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious. Francis Bacon

If you have integrity, nothing else matters.  If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters.  Alan Simpson

He who indulges in falsehood will find the paths of paradise shut to him. Abu Bakir

It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance. Thomas Paine

If a man does not resent slight injustices, he will soon be called upon to face giant wrongs. Taoist tradition

'Tis better to suffer wrong than do it.  Thomas Fuller

Take care that no one hates you justly.  Publilius Syrus

If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows.  Jean-Baptiste Molière

Update: if we believe the author of this quote, then it would seem God agrees with me:

All malice has injustice at it`s end, an end achieved by violence or by fraud; while both are sins that earn the hate of heaven, since fraud belongs exclusively to man, God hates it more and, therefore, far below, the fraudulent are placed and suffer most. Dante Alighieri

I Ching, therefore I Pod - Hexagram 38. Opposition

In my post I Ching for I Pod I told you about a great I Pod application for the I Ching from Flat Earth Studios. And I recently used it to consult the I Ching about that nasty bit of untruthfulness that I encountered at work and that angered me enormously. As I told you before, I have never consulted the I Ching without it being spot on in the pertinence of its advice. But this time I was more amazed than ever, as the answer it gave me was Hexagram 38, Opposition. Here is the text from the translation I use in this app (one of many), A Guide to the I Ching, by Carol K. Anthony (italics are mine):

This hexagram is synonymous with misunderstanding. Opposition arises from misconceptions. Either we misunderstood the Sage, or Fate, or the meaning of life, or the cosmic order of values, or ourself or others. People go in opposition to the correct way because they misunderstand the great truths that would liberate them from their fear to follow it.

If we think, in pursuing our path, that everything is going against us, and we suspect that we are not getting the help we need, this hexagram tells us that we are mistaken; we are being helped, although we don’t realize it. We should not allow ourself to become isolated through mistrust.

Fire and water never mingle. It is the same with enlightenment and worry. We cannot see with clarity as long as we are subject to restless fears. Opposition (misunderstanding) occurs because of mistrust, doubt, fear, or anxiety. Events which appear evil may provide the only means by which matters may be clarified and corrected. Before clarity can be attained mistrust must be eliminated by refusing to listen to our arguing ego.

If we are in a situation of opposition to someone because of misunderstanding, we inwardly go in opposite directions. This cannot be rectified by frontal attacks or brusqueness, or by wooing them. Mistrust bars this. We must simply go on our own way in dignity, and depend on the power of truth to gently penetrate through.

Yiddish proverbs - the fool and the wise man

Here is the first of a series of posts featuring lists of Yiddish proverbs by subject. We start with the fool and the wise man. I think all cultures have such proverbs, certainly in English we do – fools rush in where brave men fear to tread etc. So it is a subject and a form that is well recognised and we eagerly soak up these new perspectives on an old subject.

As I was thinking of an intro I realized that there is really no such thing as a pure fool or a pure wise man. We are all fools on some subject or other and we are all relatively wise on some subjects. Not only that, we can be fools for short periods of time, for example when we are stuck (when we ‘do the same thing over and over expecting a different result’), when we are ‘dis-couraged’, or when we are angry. And even foolish people can take on the mantle of wisdom when they are fearless, when they speak the truth that others dare only to think, and when they are sincerely themselves.

So we all have something of a working relationship with stupidity and wisdom and I found that relationship very well put in this quote, which I just happened to fall upon today:

Every creative act is a sudden cessation of stupidity. Edwin Land

With that in mind, here are the collective insights of countless Yiddish generations on the fool and the wise man.

A fool can ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in a year.

A dead man is mourned seven days; a fool, his lifetime.

A fool is his own informer.

A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.

A fool who can keep silent is counted among the wise.

If you seek a reputation for wisdom, agree with everyone.

A fool grows without rain.

The complete fool is half prophet.

Not everyone who sits in the seat of honour is master.

Send a fool to close the shutters and he'll close them all over town.

Send a fool to the market and a fool he will return.

A schlemiel lands on his back, and bruises his nose.

We are all schlemiels.

Hope may give a man strength, but not sense.

If the head doesn't work it's bad news for the legs.

When the stomach is empty, so is the brain.

Some people are like new shoes - the cheaper they are, the louder they squeak!

One fool is an expert on the other.

The crow flies high and alights on a pig.

A snake deserves no pity.

A chip on the shoulder indicates wood higher up.

A dog without teeth will also attack a bone.

Show a dog a finger, and he wants the whole hand.

Many complain of their looks, but none of their brains.

A wise man hears one word and understands two.

A wise man knows what he says; a fool says what he knows.
All signs are misleading.

Better ask ten times than go astray once.

He that cannot ask cannot live.

When a wise man talks to a fool, two fools are talking.

Hell shared with a sage is better than paradise with a fool.
Talking comes by nature, silence by wisdom.

Talk is worth a shilling; silence is worth two.

Talk too much and you talk about yourself.

Protest long enough that you are right, and you will be wrong.

Silence is also speech.

Beware of still water, a still dog, and a still enemy.

The wise man, even when he holds his tongue, says more than the fool when he speaks.

Time and words can't be recalled, even if it was only yesterday.

One good forewit is worth two afterwits.

Words should be weighed, not counted.
Words show the wit of a man, but actions his meaning. 

Yiddish proverbs and sleepless nights

2h30 in the morning and I cannot sleep. I think of a wrong that has been done to me recently and anger wells up in me like a flood against the person responsible. I cannot reign in that rolling chariot of anger and sometimes I think that I don’t even want to. And for what? Words.

This afternoon, to take my mind off the anger, I sorted through some Yiddish proverbs that I have been planning to post on the blog. Regular readers will know that I often post quotations on the blog and in my travels I have come across a few Yiddish proverbs. I always found them very pithy, down to earth and jolting in their ability to make you see the truth. I discovered more reading Life’s Daily Blessings by Rabbi Kerry M. Orlitzky. This one for example:

If I would be like someone else, who would be like me?

I wish I had found that one when I was 15 years old and searching for my identity.

So this afternoon, as I sorted through my Yiddish proverbs, I began to think of the people who made these proverbs: all the generations of Jews who repeated these phrases to themselves and to their children so often that they became part of the Yiddish psyche. And I began to think how small my anger was. When compared to the possibilities of wrongs that one person can do to another, the wrong I had suffered was small. ‘Fleas are not lobsters.’ If you cannot sleep because of a few miserable words, what would you have done if you had lived through the Second World War for example, where wrongs done were counted in loved ones taken, imprisoned, killed?

I saw in these Yiddish proverbs, that wrongs have always been and will always be and that my wrongs are not something out of the ordinary at all. Every proverb is a witness of the experiences and wisdom of many people in times gone by. It took away some of the sting.

But still I won’t rest well until ‘the wheel turns round’ and truth comes out.

The entire world rests on the tip of the tongue.

Truth never dies, but lives a wretched life.

Truth is the safest lie.

When the light is crooked, the shadow is crooked.

Half an answer also says something.

A half-truth is a whole lie.

A word is like an arrow - both are in a hurry to strike.
A slap heals but a harsh word is remembered.

He who puts up with insult invites injury.

Acceptance - getting over it

As I was looking further into the virtue of acceptance, I discovered it was another great truth that nobody talks about, like humility, or gratitude. Acceptance has perhaps less of a bad reputation than humility, but only slightly. We are brainwashed by the consumer-driven society into believing it is our birthright to have it all, right now, all the time. Don’t accept mediocrity. Don’t settle for less. Don’t accept this, that or the other. But when we can’t afford to buy everything we are brainwashed into thinking we must have, or be everything they say we should be, we resist, we get mad, we wonder what is wrong with us. Acceptance, like humility or gratitude, is not part of our daily vocabulary, never mind reality. But there is nothing wrong with us:

Being unready and ill-equipped is what you have to expect in life. It is the universal predicament. It is your lot as a human being to lack what it takes. Circumstances are seldom right. You never have the capacities, the strength, the wisdom, the virtue you ought to have. You must always do with less than you need in a situation vastly different from what you would have chosen as appropriate for your special endowments. Charlton Ogburn

How true. Is there a better definition of the human condition?
I have made this connection with acceptance regarding my recent outburst of anger: the reason I get angry is because of a mistaken and unreasonable expectation that things should go my way, that this thing should not be happening to me, that this person should not do what they do. It sounds foolish to state something so obvious, but deep down, isn’t anger saying ‘I don’t accept?’

Apart from the extreme of anger, a lot of the general malaise we feel comes from not accepting ourselves as we are or the world as it is. Acceptance may only be the starting point for other realisations of what we need to change in our attitude or actions. But it certainly is the starting point.

Nobody has things just as he would like them. The thing to do is to make a success with what material I have. It is a sheer waste of time and soul-power to imagine what I would do if things were different. They are not different. Dr. Frank Crane

The happy and efficient people in this world are those who accept trouble as a normal detail of human life and resolve to capitalize it when it comes along. H. Bertram Lewis

It is a common observation that those who dwell continually upon their expectations are apt to become oblivious to the requirements of their actual situation. Charles Sanders Peirce

Make a virtue of necessity. Geoffrey Chaucer

Acceptance

My colleague Paul’s recent little speech to me about accepting my anger took me by surprise. I had told him how I had gone into the meeting determined to remain calm, determined to hold in those horses by the scruff of their manes. And the rolling chariot of anger had not only rolled but had become a rolling god-darn freight train of anger. I sat in his office with what must have been the guilty shaggy dog look. Paul is one of the few people who know me and who know I write this blog. So my inevitable lack of philosophical discipline is the subject of running jokes between us. Then I got the speech and I must say I felt a weight drop off my shoulders.
This is the power of philosophy. A different way of looking at something changes it.
What was the weight that dropped off my shoulders? That is what I have been trying to figure out. I think it had something to do with stopping beating myself up for being… myself.

‘The world is made up of all kinds of people. Some get angry, some keep their calm. Both have their uses. Both are always evolving. Your dissatisfaction with your angry reaction is noted and will be integrated into the next experience. Now move along, nothing to see here.’ Such was the feeling of the weight dropping off my shoulders.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. William James

The first step toward change is acceptance. Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That's all you have to do. Change is not something you do, it's something you allow. Will Garcia

Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery. Joanne Kathleen Rowling

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. C. G. Jung

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance. Nathaniel Branden

Acceptance does not necessarily mean ‘liking,’ ‘enjoying,’ or ‘condoning.’ I can accept what is – and be determined to evolve from there. It is not acceptance but denial that leaves me stuck. Nathaniel Branden

Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgement of the facts of a situation. Then deciding what you're going to do about it. Kathleen Casey Theisen

Acceptance of one's life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices. Paul Tournier

Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything, you are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets. Clark Moustakas

The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. C. G. Jung

Acceptance makes any event put on a new face. Henry S. Haskins

One completely overcomes only what one assimilates. André Gide

Some people confuse acceptance with apathy, but there's all the difference in the world. Apathy fails to distinguish between what can and what cannot be helped; acceptance makes that distinction. Apathy paralyzes the will-to-action; acceptance frees it by relieving it of impossible burdens. Arthur Gordon

The rolling chariot of anger

In the ongoing war with anger, I have lost another battle. I went into a ‘discussion’ fully aware that anger was a real possibility, fully aware that a positive outcome would depend on whether I got angry or whether I maintained control, and I failed quite miserably. As the other person spoke, a sense of outrage welled up in me. The powerful, wild horses of the rolling chariot of anger tossed their heads and charged, while the supposed driver did nothing to stop them. In time, the expression of my point of view and my anger was carried out, (along with the expression of certain views that I would have preferred not to express), and my anger abated enough to end the interview on a more conciliatory note. The rolling chariot came to a halt, more by the exhaustion of the horses than the strength of the driver. The dubious arguments of my counterpart seemed to gain validation by the force and defensiveness of my angry reaction. How much better it would have been to invalidate his arguments by an immutably calm, open, generous, understanding.

The next day I told a colleague how I felt and he replied he was glad I had ‘lost it’ because it showed I was human. You get angry sometimes, its one of your little weaknesses, why not just accept it. Try to improve it, work on it, but accept it.

I knew that.

He who holds back rising anger like a rolling chariot, him I call a real driver; other people are but holding the reins. The Dhammapada

The Way to Love (2) - The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello (part two)

In my post Love (lost) I told you that the love I knew was all in my head. It must be so otherwise everyone my love meets would fall in love with her. In fact, my friends would have varying reactions to her from ‘She’s bad news’ to ‘I don’t know what you see in her’ to ‘She’s kinda cute’. When things were going ‘well’ and I was sitting on top of the world, it was all in my head. And when things broke down and I was filled with negative emotions, they were all in my head too. Feelings of anger, betrayal, jealousy, revenge rose and fell in me like a stormy sea. But reading de Mello I found, if not immediate peace and calm, then at least the direction to and the sight of peace and calm. And that is a lot when you are emotionally cast adrift on that cruel sea.

Now keep looking at this unpleasant situation or person until you realize that it isn’t they who are causing the negative emotions. They are just going their way, being themselves, doing their thing whether right or wrong, good or bad. It is your computer that, thanks to your programming, insists on your reacting with negative emotions.

And the clinching argument:

You will see this better if you realize that someone with a different programming when faced with this same situation or person or event would react quite calmly, even happily… The way to be in charge of this situation is to be in charge of yourself, which you are not. How does one achieve this mastery? All you have to do is to understand there are people in the world who, if they were in your place, would not be negatively affected by this person. They would be in charge of the situation, above it, not subject to it as you are. Therefore your negative feelings are caused, not by this person, as you mistakenly think, but by your programming.

Yes, someone with better relationship skills, someone with more clarity, someone with better self-control, someone with better understanding, someone who loves from a position of independence and non-attachment, someone who loves truly – such a person would react very differently than I did.
Thus there are no excuses – the answer lies within. We must change the programming. Our pain is the light showing us the way we need to change. We must become that person who is master of himself and the situation. Then, one day, we will know the way to love.

More to come in part three

Do it your Wei

The idea of non-action that we have been looking at in my last posts is a central doctrine of Taoist philosophy and has a particular name: Wu Wei. You can read an excellent overview at Wikipedia here.

"Wu Wei" means natural action - as planets revolve around the sun, they "do" this revolving, but without "doing" it; or as trees grow, they "do", but without "doing"…
Wu may be translated as not have or without; Wei may be translated as do, act, serve as, govern or effort. The literal meaning of Wu Wei is "without action" and is often included in the paradox wei wu wei: "action without action" or "effortless doing".

In Non-action and the Great Harmony we saw how the more an action is selfish and self-seeking the less power it has and that an action that is spontaneous, unselfish and is done for its own sake without anticipating an interested result, such an action is more in accord with the Tao, the Universe, God and cooperates directly in the Great Harmony. In the Wikipedia overview this idea is expressed in this way:

Taoist philosophy recognizes that the Universe already works harmoniously according to its own ways; as a person exerts their will against or upon the world they disrupt the harmony that already exists. This is not to say that a person should not exert agency and will. Rather, it is how one acts in relation to the natural processes already extant. The how, the Tao of intention and motivation, that is key.

That is key indeed. It is easier said than done. But we can only try. Just trying is a big step in the right direction. And the very fact that you and I have now read about Wu Wei and are now consciously aware of it has set in motion forces that we do not understand and which will have ‘distant consequences’.
As I was scratching my head for an anecdote or story to illustrate the power of Wu Wei, I think I hit on a perfect one (spontaneously, you might say). It comes from ‘The Overlook Martial Arts Reader – Classic writings on philosophy and technique’ edited by Randy F. Nelson. The particular story is called … well I will tell you after, not to spoil the punch.

The author of the story, Terry Dobson, was on a train rattling through the suburbs of Tokyo. In the car were a few houswives with children, old folks going shopping. Suddenly the quiet was shattered by a big, drunken, dirty laborer getting on the train. The man was angry and violent and swung at a woman and her child who scrambled for safety. Dobson was young, fit and highly trained in Aikido. He relates how his teacher, Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido had told him many times: “Aikido is the art of reconciliation. Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection to the universe. If you try to dominate people, you are already defeated.” Dobson tried hard to follow the precepts. But here was a golden, legitimate opportunity to save the innocent by destroying the guilty. He stood up.

Seeing me stand up, the drunk recognized a chance to focus his rage. “Aha!” he roared. “A foreigner! You need a lesson in Japanese manners!”
I held on lightly to the commuter strap overhead and gave him a slow look of disgust and dismissal. I planned to take this turkey apart, but he had to make the first move. I wanted him mad, so I pursed my lips and blew him an insolent kiss.
“All right!” he hollered. “You’re gonna get a lesson.” He gathered himself for a rush at me.
A split second before he could move, sombody shouted “Hey!” It was earsplitting. I remember the strangely joyous, lilting quality of it – as though you and a friend had been searching diligently for something and he had suddenly stumbled upon it. “Hey!”
I wheeled to my left; the drunk spun to his right. We both stared down at a little Japanese. He must have been well into his seventies, this tiny gentleman, sitting there immaculate in his kimono. He took no notice of me, but beamed delightedly at the laborer, as though he had a most important, most welcome secret to share.
“C’mere,” the old man said in an easy vernacular, beckoning to the drunk. “C’mere and talk with me.” He waved his hand lightly.
The big man followed, as if on a string. He planted his feet belligerently in front of the old gentleman, and roared above the clacking wheels. “Why the hell should I talk to you?” The drunk now had his back to me. If his elbow moved so much as a millimeter, I’d drop him in his socks.
The old man continued to beam at the laborer. “Wat’cha been drinkin’?” he asked, his eyes sparkling with interest. “I’ve been drinking sake,” the laborer bellowed back, “and it’s none of your business!” Flecks of spittle spattered the old man.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” the old man said, “absolutely wonderful! You see, I love sake too. Every night me and my wife (she’s 76, you know), we warm up a little bottle of sake and take it out into the garden, and we sit on an old wooden bench. We watch the sun go down, and we look to see how our persimmon tree is doing. My great-grandfather planted that tree, and we worry about whether it will recover from those ice storms we had last winter. Our tree has done better than I expected, though, especially when you consider the poor quality of the soil. It is gratifying to watch when we take our sake and go out to enjoy the evening – even when it rains!” He looked up at the laborer, eyes twinkling.
As he struggled to follow the old man’s conversation, the drunk’s face began to soften. His fists slowly unclenched. “Yeah,” he said. “I love persimmons too….” His voice trailed off.
“Yes, “ said the old man, smiling, “and I’m sure you have a wonderful wife.”
“No,” replied the laborer. “My wife died.” Very gently, swaying with the motion of the train, the big man began to sob. “I don’t got no wife, I don’t got no home, I don’t got no job. I’m so ashamed of myself.” Tears rolled down his cheeks; a spasm of despair rippled through his body.
Now it was my turn. Standing there in my well-scrubbed youthful innocence, my make-this-world-safe-for-democracy righteousness, I suddenly felt dirtier than he was.
Then the train arrived at my stop. As the doors opened, I heard the old man cluck sympathetically. “My, my,” he said, “that is a difficult predicament, indeed. Sit down here and tell me about it.”
I turned my head for one last look. The laborer was sprawled on the seat, his head in the old man’s lap. The old man was softly stroking the filthy, matted hair.
As the train pulled away, I sat down on a bench. What I had wanted to do with muscle had been accomplished with kind words. I had just seen aikido tried in combat and the essence of it was love. I would have to practice the art with an entirely different spirit. It would be a long time before I could speak about the resolution of conflict.

Now, isn’t that quite a story? What makes it particularly appropriate, is that we see the motivation of the protagonists. The young man, Dobson, is acting with an interested motive in mind (the legitimate use of his aikido skill) even though he invokes the safety of the other passengers. The old man is not: he may have the goal of defusing the situation in mind, but his action is a spontaneous one, coming directly from the heart, without guile, generous and in perfect accord with the Great Harmony. And as such it succeeds to perfection. Effortlessly. This is Wu Wei.
What I also like about this story is that the old man’s action succeeds to perfection not only with the drunk. It transforms the young man also, and will have far-reaching good effects through him and his teaching. So far-reaching, it is even reaching to me and you at this moment, decades later. Such is the power of Wu Wei.
.
(The story is called The Soft Answer)

Sports terrorism - the two extremes of the human spirit

A terrorist attack against a cricket team? Can such things be? I suppose I must admit they can. ‘The assault, just ahead of a match, was one of the worst terrorist attacks on a sports team since Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics’. Read the rest of the Fox News article here. Attacking Olympic athletes, attacking cricket players has something of an eerie crazy nightmare parallel universe quality to it. This is a form of terrorism that almost imposes pity, for the victims certainly but also, in another way, for the perpetrators.
I found a lead to an article that sums up my feelings on the subject at one of my regular ports of call Inca Kola News where the noble Otto has posted Simon Barnes' article The terrorists waging a jihad against joy. Simon Barnes is the award-winning chief sports writer for the Times and his article is at once a tribute to the best qualities of the human spirit as exemplified in sportsmen and women and a denunciation of the worst qualities to be found in that same human spirit as exemplified by terrorists.
For example, in Barnes’ article we read of the cowardice of the terrorists: ‘brave souls prepared to risk a battle against men with cricket bats while armed only with rifles and rocket launchers…’ How this contrasts with the bravery of the cricketers as we read in this article at Yahoo News:

Players recounted their ordeal after getting home early Wednesday.
"We were just hearing bullet after bullet thump into the bus. We were hearing gunshots, a few explosions and you could see bullets sometimes hitting a seat," Kumar Sangakkara said.
Jayawardene, the team captain, said it "was just a constant barrage of bullets. We don't know which direction it was coming from. It was just all over."
The team didn't panic, even when the bullets began finding their mark, coach Trevor Bayliss said.
"Everything was very calm and very quiet, and every now and then someone would say, 'I'm hit,' and then someone else said, 'So am I,' and someone else said, 'I'm hit as well,'" Bayliss said.

In the aftermath of this attack Barnes wonders 'if big-time sport will become a worldwide target. If so, sport as we know it will be changed for ever. Big sporting events as we know them will no longer be feasible. What, then, will the world lose?'

Barnes mentions one big sporting event that could have been a prime target for terrorists, and was not: the Beijing Olympics. For those who are receptive, I think the message the Tibetans sent to the Chinese went something like this:

We could have ruined your Olympics. But we don’t believe in terrorism. We believe in the joy of sport and the beauty of the human spirit. We believe in love. Because…

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule. Buddha

The fig tree always produces figs

There are some people, no matter how you treat them liberally, no matter how you give them no offence, they regularly have a wounding comment for you. A little, uncalled-for snide remark. Nothing that you can really take offence at and call them out for: you will immediately come off as seeming sensitive, touchy, childish. Such snide people are always quicker with the tongue than you are. But it is so unnecessary, I feel. It bothers me. I suppose I must admit I have a vindictive, judgmental tendency. And perhaps I am sensitive. But it takes a real philosophical effort for me to get past such snide comments. I have to bring myself in mind of some quotation or other. From Marcus Aurelius perhaps:

Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil…
Remember that as it is a shame to be surprised if the fig-tree produces figs, so it is to be surprised if the world produces such and such things of which it is productive; and for the physician and the helmsman it is a shame to be surprised if a man has a fever, or if the wind is unfavorable.

Today I came across this new-to-me quotation from the Bible in a Google search:

There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword,
But the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12.18

It comes from Biblos.com, and along with the different translated versions of the quote was this telling, insightful commentary on proverbs 12:16 to 12:23, through which sincerity and healing virtues run like a golden thread.

Mathew Henry’s Concise Commentary
12:16. A foolish man is soon angry, and is hasty in expressing it; he is ever in trouble and running into mischief. It is kindness to ourselves to make light of injuries and affronts, instead of making the worst of them. 17. It is good for all to dread and detest the sin of lying, and to be governed by honesty. 18. Whisperings and evil surmises, like a sword, separate those that have been dear to each other. The tongue of the wise is health, making all whole. 19. If truth be spoken, it will hold good; whoever may be disobliged, still it will keep its ground. 20. Deceit and falsehood bring terrors and perplexities. But those who consult the peace and happiness of others have joy in their own minds. 21. If men are sincerely righteous, the righteous God has engaged that no evil shall happen to them. But they that delight in mischief shall have enough of it. 22. Make conscience of truth, not only in words, but in actions. 23. Foolish men proclaim to all the folly and emptiness of their minds.

The Observer - I am not my anger

Following my last post The Observer Within, I wondered where I had come across the concept of the observer. I did a Google search and quickly found this talk entitled The Observer by Sri Vasudeva. Here is an excerpt that is very à propos:

In all our activities, if we look carefully, we will see that there is an observer involved. Sometimes we are so identified with the activity that we are not able to experience this observer self as distinct from the activity. In other words, we become the activity. For example, instead of seeing that there is the emotion of anger within us and being able to observe it objectively we become carried away in the feeling ‘I am angry’. If we are really observing we will experience the observer as being separate from the anger and will be able to say ‘There is anger within me’ rather than ‘I am angry’. Do you see the difference? This is extremely important to understand when seeking to experience the full or pure state of the observer. So there is a part of us that can observe the process of thinking, feeling and physical sensation whilst feeling the sense of separateness. Focusing on this observer can lead us to the Source of our being.

Vasudeva goes on to expound the great virtues of meditation in developing our awareness of the observer, since in meditation we practice observing many things – our body, our breath, our thoughts – without attaching to them. The practice of meditation then is an ideal way to get in touch with our centre, our inner, higher self: our observer.

Give attention to the observer within and seek to centre yourself in the seat of the pure observer. It is the seat of the ‘I am’ consciousness. It is the seat of your freedom and joy in the human experience. It is the seat of connectedness with your Source. Seek to live and act from this space.

Sri Vaseduva’s advice to train ourselves to see anger from an observer’s point of view rather than ‘becoming’ the anger reminds me of a Taoist practice expounded by Stephen Russell in his ‘Barefoot Doctor’s Guide to the Tao’ called ‘The Nobody Contemplation’.
Russell asks us to make a list of our possessions and say ‘I am not these possessions. I am not this house. I am not this telephone. I am not this rubber biscuit.’ Then do the same for our hopes and desires: ‘I am not that different house. I am not that personal satellite phone with built-in modem, fax and organizer…’ On to the people in our lives - ‘I am not my mother, I am not my son…’ - to our habits, addictions, aversions and phobias and finally to our body with all its aches and pains: ‘I am not my body’.

Feel it. You’re not your possessions, your desires, your people, your habits, your fears: you’re not even your body. You’re simply nobody. Revel in the freedom of it, then move out onto the street, a busy, grimy street preferably, and be nobody, absolutely no one at all. Being no one at all, you’ve nothing to lose, you’re just atoms moving in the everything, child of the Tao, and everything is yours.

The Observer Within

Even after writing several posts on anger, I find that I still have a long way to go. I recently ‘blew my top’ in quite a (for me) shocking way. I went from being in a good mood, laughing and smiling, to blood-curdling indignant anger and oath calling in the space of about 45 seconds. That is several thousand eons of good deeds up in smoke right there. And I cannot say it was for a good cause. However, in the midst of the anger I did experience what I have known some writers call ‘the observer within’. This is our ‘higher self’ or subconscious, which always remains emotionless even if we cannot, observing events happening to us in a dispassionate way. There was a distinct moment where I could have ‘snapped out of it’, but it passed – I let it pass - and I continued in my anger.
I remember once my son said something to me that from anyone else would have angered me enormously. Indeed for a fraction of a second I felt the anger. But before anything could be expressed some inner circuit-breaker was flipped - getting angry at my son for sort of ‘being me’ seemed suddenly ridiculous, impossible - and the anger instantly disappeared. Note that I did not ‘suppress’ the anger: it suddenly no longer existed.
This leads me to conclude that anger is a very strange thing indeed. If one second we can be gripped by its emotion and almost in the same second switch it off or look at it from a calm centre, then it has no real life, no real basis in our mind. Anger really is a temporary insanity.

A Zen student came to Bankei and complained: "Master, I have an ungovernable temper. How can I cure it?"
"You have something very strange," replied Bankei. "Let me see what you have."
"Just now I cannot show it to you," replied the other.
"When can you show it to me?" asked Bankei.
"It arises unexpectedly," replied the student.
"Then," concluded Bankei, "it must not be your own true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born you did not have it, and your parents did not give it to you. Think that over."
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From ‘Zen Flesh, Zen Bones’ by Paul Reps

Anger quotations

If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size? Sydney J. Harris

A man is measured by the size of things that anger him. Geof Greenleaf

Anger ventilated often hurries toward forgiveness; and concealed often hardens into revenge. Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

I was angry with my friend I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. William Blake

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Malachy McCourt

To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee. William H. Walton

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. Buddha

He who angers you conquers you. Elizabet Kenny

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. Marcus Aurelius

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. Chinese Proverb

Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes angry. Euripedes

Anger is short-lived madness. Horace

Anger and folly walk cheek by jole. Benjamin Franklin

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools. Albert Einstein

Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. Ecclesiastes 7:9

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves. Buddha

Reckon the days in which you have not been angry. I used to be angry every day; now every other day; then every third and fourth day; and if you miss it so long as thirty days, offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God. Epictetus

Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power, that is not easy. Aristotle

Anger is never without an argument, but seldom a good one. George Savile

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame. Benjamin Franklin

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1

The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression. Proverbs 19:11

He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he that rules his spirit better than he that takes a city. Proverbs 16:32

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. Thomas à Kempis

Anger (4) - no fortitude like patience

One moment of anger destroys a thousand eons of wholesome deeds, says Shantideva. At that rate, I at least have probably destroyed more eons of wholesome deeds than you can shake a stick at. On the other hand, I probably don’t have above an eon or two of good deeds to destroy. Humour aside, what are we going to do about it? For it is one thing to be angry through ignorance. It is another to continue to indulge in anger after one has been fortunate enough to come across the Buddhist teachings, among other philosophies, and so to finally realise one’s (awful) mistake. Shantideva does not leave us up in the air as to the answer. The second verse reads:

There is no evil like hatred,
And no fortitude like patience.
Thus I should strive in various ways
To meditate on patience. (2)

Patience then is the virtue we need to disarm anger. (After humility, that primordial virtue. But humility presupposes patience, since humility does not put itself forward). We need patience in the face of all the kinds of suffering we meet in this life. If you are prone to anger or impatience (and even if you are not), I highly recommend you study Healing Anger, by the Dalai Lama. In it he discusses the many verses of Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life that dissect the nature and causes of anger. We are shown how we can skilfully cultivate patience and tolerance so that we can transcend the bad situations we encounter.
For example, when someone causes us harm, we may get angry because we feel they did it ‘on purpose’ or because ‘they are like that’. But this is a mistake:

Even if it were the nature of the childish
To cause harm to other beings,
It would still be incorrect to be angry with them,
For this would be like begrudging fire for having the nature to burn. (39)

Will getting angry put out a fire? On the other hand, even if we know the person is not to blame or has made a mistake, we may still get angry. What then?

And even if the fault were temporary
In those who are by nature reliable,
It would still be incorrect to be angry,
For this would be like begrudging space for allowing smoke to rise in it. (40)

By meditating on these insights, we become more skilful and aware in handling situations that annoy and anger us. And this enables us to react with compassion instead of anger. It also enables us to ‘keep our treasure’.

Anger (3) - losing our treasure

There is no greater misfortune than to make an enemy lightly; we almost lose our treasure.
Tao Te Ching, verse 69.

How easy it is to get angry! It takes no special skill, no preparation, very little discernment. But no matter how wronged we feel, no matter how justified we feel, the very second we get angry with another person the moral advantage shifts away from us. Where once we felt like a good person, ‘collecting merit’ by our good efforts, trying to be more compassionate in all our interactions, once we have gotten angry all that seems to go out the window. We are brought shamefully low in our spirits when we think of what we said, how we said it; what we did, the way we did it. We 'almost lose our treasure'.

The Buddhist tradition is less equivocal about it: anger certainly makes us lose our treasure. In his ‘Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life’, Shantideva opens the chapter on patience in this way:

Whatever wholesome deeds,
Such as venerating the Buddhas and (practicing) generosity,
That have been amassed over a thousand eons,
Will all be destroyed in one moment of anger.

(From Healing Anger, by the Dalai Lama).

One moment of anger can do that? This anger business bears a little more looking into, don’t you think?

Anger (2) - a short-lived madness

Anger is a complex subject. It is linked to so many other emotions (hatred, envy, fear, pride) and qualities (humility, patience, courage, forgiveness). Having a British upbringing and being something of a phlegmatic introvert by nature, I am not much given to anger in general. But, as the saying goes ‘beware the wrath of a patient man’, I have sometimes surprised myself with an occasional fit of anger, out of all proportion to the cause.
The cause is neither here nor there, it is my frame of mind that is to blame. When it happens, I know that I need to take a break and step back to see the wider picture. And what I always see is a lack of awareness that has crept up on me, a feeling of having lost my way, of having lost myself almost. And then I turn to philosophy again (which I should have been doing earlier) and realign my thinking along wiser paths.
The best antidote for anger that I know is the Tao Te Ching, particularly the Dervy edition in French, with explanatory notes. A few hours bathing in the Taoist waters of humility, detachment and simplicity soon puts things back into perspective, for me at least and perhaps for you also.

Do not think your house too small, do not be disgusted with your life. Do not despise your condition and you will not grow weary of it. (72)

For me, there are three precious things to which I am attached and that I hold in high esteem: the first, love; the second, frugality; the third, humility, by which we may dare to put ourselves in the forefront to act in the World.
With love, we can be audacious; with frugality, we can be generous; with humility, we can accomplish great things.
These days, we lack love and therefore courage; we lack frugality and therefore generosity; we refuse the last place and therefore lose the first. It is certainly the way of death! But if we have love as our weapon, we will surely be victorious. He who practices that is invincible, Heaven helps him and he is protected by his mercy. (67)

Anger (1) - The Rod of Hermes

When I make a big mistake or suffer an important setback, I often try to soften the blow by making a pact with myself. I decide that because this setback has happened I will do some other positive action that I would not otherwise have done. In this way I try to turn a negative into a positive.
The Buddhists believe that we should never be angry at others who do us harm because firstly, they will reap the negative karma of their actions in due course, and secondly they give us the opportunity to practice compassion and patience. If there are no obstacles in the world how can we practice? So from a negative, a positive is produced.
I found this concept echoed in a passage from ‘The Golden Sayings of Epictetus’ translated by George Long. I should not be surprised that this concept had a name thousands of years ago: Epictetus calls it the rod of Hermes.

Can any profit be derived from these men?
Aye, from all.
What, even from a reviler?

Why, tell me what profit a wrestler gains from him who exercises him beforehand? The very greatest: he trains me in the practice of endurance, of controlling my temper, of gentle ways. You deny it. What, the man who lays hold of my neck, and disciplines loins and shoulders, does me good, … while he that trains me to keep my temper does me none? This is what it means, not knowing how to gain advantage from men! Is my neighbour bad? Bad to himself, but good to me: he brings my good temper, my gentleness into play. Is my father bad? Bad to himself, but good to me. This is the rod of Hermes; touch what you will with it, they say, and it becomes gold. Nay, but bring what you will and I will transmute it into Good. Bring sickness, bring death, bring poverty and reproach, bring trial for life – all these things through the rod of Hermes shall be turned to profit.

Heaven and Hell

A samurai warrior, seeking enlightenment, called upon a Zen master.
‘What is the essence of Heaven and of Hell?’ asked the samurai.
The Zen master looked at the warrior keenly and then laughed. ‘How can a great oaf of a samurai like yourself expect to understand the essence of Heaven and Hell?’
The samurai’s brow furrowed into well-worn grooves of anger, as the Zen master continued to laugh. He reached instinctively for his sword to cut off the Zen master’s head.
‘This,’ said the Zen master, holding up a finger, ‘is Hell.’
The samurai stopped. The furrows disappeared, as the samurai was filled with the liberating truth of this insight. He composed himself and bowed humbly to the Zen master.
‘And this… is Heaven,’ said the Zen master, bowing in return.