Don’t let anger control you; address it in love (cf. Matthew 5:22-25)

Stock up on flour!

Oh good, my librarian cheered this Monday, when she read the paper, finally some other news than about C-19. There is still a world out there, and nothing has changed, she added turning down-cast again. [Duh.]

As for myself, all I can say about today’s news is, finally, somebody else has noticed this spring is turning into the worst dry spell in decades. I had been waiting for that for about 8 weeks now. The price of food is going to be exorbitant soon. Eat your salads and juice your fruit while you can!

To arms!

There is more other of-the-same News which I find more disturbing still for how it indicates nothing at all has changed, despite the incredible efforts made to show us in the plainest but fairest possible way what is wrong with us. For I believe C-19 is only the glint off a brandished sword thrust into our stoney midst to remind us we are on a mission to become a New Michaelic Man. I challenge the Arthur in us all to pull this one out!

So this item regards the trouble in Minneapolis.

If you are furious about Floyd what are you going to do about it? When you feel your blood raging at oppression, boiling up your sense of justice, the thought of unfair treatment paralysing all you understand about humanity, then what is the best measure to take? What does this inflamed reaction beg of you?

We begin with objective observation, as always, in our Buddhist mood and adherence to the eight-fold path, our one sure way to get us from day to day.

There was a picture of THE police officer in the act of incidental asphixiation in my paper this morning. I wouldn’t have paid the picture any attention - when do we not think of an American cop holding down an African American? – were it not for my friend who had called for a friendly chat about how well things were moseying along at his side of the country, far, far, far, far away from the USA, and just before saying bye, he remembered how terribly angry he had been earlier that evening.

I awaited to hear the direct cause of his flare up, already a little dismayed that whatever it was he clearly had wanted to keep it out of our midst. As if I were a friendly neighbour one does not discuss politics or religion with. As if I am a mother not to be disappointed. But it's not about me doubting my instructions once again (to remain close to one's heart and let it roll off the tongue). I catch my own amazement at how a man can muffle away a deep emotion such as anger only to let it flare up again in the presence of the one you love. Clearly it had not burned itself out yet, and I also know it couldn't for it runs too deep through his own biography. I waited to hear what had specifically fueled his smouldering kindling this time, while tallying up the new damage to his battered adrenals.

Had his precious washing machine given up on him? Had his mother toppled over again? Had the lift in his flat gone out of order? Were the stores out of his mother's favorite wine? Maybe, oh heaven help us, an announcement from the government? It takes little for a damaged soul to crumble more onto a hungry hearth/angry heart.

It was the situation with Floyd that now raised his voice and rapidly increased his irritation with my indifference to the situation (I had not heard about, at all, but instantly got the general picture of). Clearly he was identifying, as so many already had. In the wave of civil unrest we can watch our rage unfurl. But what good does that venting do? Is it truly going to turn things around or break a pattern (in a revolutionary sense)? Is it effective? We may consider it a call for change, but does it change anything?

Let's not be barbaric

I can tell you what it is not.
It is not empathy with Floyd's mother (for empathy is consoling). It is not compassion with Floyd who may be rather disorientated now that his life may well have been terminated in untimely fashion, but I reserve caution on this judgement even, for what do we know about the timing regards the passing over into another form of existence? What is the game of preditor/prey, victim/attacker really about as per seen from a spiritual vangage point?

Anger has its place. It is a great Mover. It sets things in motion, declogs, uplifts, activates. But now how to act effectively? What needs to be moved and where to?
What needs to be done that is not wasteful of our life-time? How can we be more beautiful dancers?

If my friend had done his homework that day, he would have known to answer me at least – even if he had failed in the moment – in the vein of knowing:

that anger must be guarded against, as a destructive force before it strikes a flame. Once it has caught onto something inflammable within there will be fire where there is no possibility or necessity to act. You can then only let it consume you to the point of exhaustion (yell into the wind); or you can pull apart/remove the inflammable source and find a method of dousing.

Right timing plays a big part in understanding what all this knowing entails and how to effectively set to work on it.

Were it not poor timing, I'd hand you a

Trip Tip

to Fansipan, the Roof-top of Indo China and meet up with somebody who knows how to handle all emotion that just plain makes you miserable

Once we get it, have our most powerful moment of AHA! That works any which way around, as light that hits off what is in its way – so brightly, blindingly, as if only to show where it passes through effortlessly, namely your eyeballs right into your brain to form a concept otherwise known as emotion – we begin to relax and heal or become whole, that is: wholly human, holy beings.

The Milk Imagination Exercise

Common sense knows: we cannot cry over spilt milk, nor must we ignore the spillage. This language informs us of our rational self, which always offers us the first time-out from anger. It recommends we do something practical about a situation and leave personal frustration out of it.

Think of a drink of milk; set it on the table before a toddler; imagine yourself at 8 in the morning, face half made up, one kid still in bed contemplating the fate of the Great Auk and the next thousand birds faced with extinction, the baby hanging from a teet, the blender cap missing, the Nespresso cups finished, and oooopsy-daisy, there goes gravity playing its funny little trick and the toddler on her hands and knees now asks for a straw, because she remembers she is not a cat and may not lick the floor.

However practical a household situation may be, even then we find it hard to know what to do (first/next/at all).
How far can we go regards the analysis of this wasted milk? This spoiled carpet? This hyper-active child? This careless placement of the tumbler?

truck accident
Some spills are larger than others. But everything is always relative and can only ever be known from the knower's stand point.

Shall we cry (bloody murder)?

Let's calmly consider how effective that will be.

Does it bring Floyd back to life? Unh-un. Does it stop cops killing the next innocent man? Not a chance. Does it stop cops getting killed so that their colleagues won’t use incommensurate amounts of force on innocent members of the public, apprehended merely out of the officer’s fear that finds people looking suspiciously like a perpetrator by default: looking remotely strong enough to lift a spoon (does it take much more strength to pull a trigger, switch out a blade, or hey, let’s modernise our forms of attack and mention a sneeze or a cough)?

In one short bullet point then:

# Change begins with taking a different stance

Suggestion:

After you have noted that you feel anger, start converting this energy in to grief by bringing it in very close to your heart. What saddens you?

Be effective with your anger!

See it as a privilige that you can, at least, feel that much. Anger may be our last port of call, on that front, before we turn into transhuman zombies. Understand, also, how anger is a call to be better at being your true self.

For trust you me, we are only ever angry about something we feel we own, or are indellibly connected to and fear we will lose. Anger is also that belaying device for when we aspire to higher ground. So yes, when we identify threats to our most precious commodity: our own life or that life which is a direct extention of our own (as it flows through our beloved or dearly beloved brethern), we react with the only two options available to us: fight or flight. But perhaps it is time to reassess these options in the light of right effort, action, view, resolve, and general attitude?

This is not a call to be passive, but on the contrary: to become extraordinarily vigilant, every waking second, and to note your every twinge within, before an external picture alerts you to the source of you own problems/misery/suffering.

Respect Free Will!

Discover your own pain. And own it. Do not lightly expose it: it cannot be shared, it can only infect. Transform it! Into a creative constructive force. A project (a life well-lived) can be shared! It will attract goodness and mercy and this is all we can really ever hope to pass on in a totally free state of existence. The rest will always be imposition and redirection and as such, where it affects others involuntarily, a violation of free will.

The Value of Emotional Distancing

Can we start to heal our life by keeping our distance from others and use their presence only to confirm our own? There is peace to be found in the distance from our own emotions, which we let mirror in others by nature. If we remain Pavlovian in our sympathy/antipathy mechanism we will be doomed. Sensing this to be true we panic and revolt. Press pause, take a few deep breaths and change your ideas on this perhaps, no?

There is joy to be had in learning to draw in your spikey aura to form an etheric egg of promise around yourself.

Be cute as you tread lightly.

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Photo Credits:

• Top: clear glass cannister with flour and pear is by Ilinca Roman
• The tower is Landmark 81, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, taken by the same man who took the Buddha seated up high in the cultural complex on Fansipan Peak in Sapa Town of Southern Lao Cai province, the amazing photographer (you climb that high!) Constant Loubier
• The lion is by the stout of heart Jean Wimmerlin
• The hedgehog by the endeared Nicolas Savignat