Most often I tend to see in some debates mentioning how someone or something might be portrayed as angry and mentoioned so in a negative light. So I would simply like to know; Do you see anger as evil? Yes? No? Why?
Personally I don't think it is evil. It may make people who are angry scary in some manner. But anger is an emotion that people are born with, and there are enough cases when it is more right for people to feel angry rather than anything else.
Do you see anger as evil?
Moderator: Moderators
Do you see anger as evil?
Post #1'Belief is never giving up.'- Random footy adverisement.
Sometimes even a wise man is wrong. Sometimes even a fool is right.
Sometimes even a wise man is wrong. Sometimes even a fool is right.
Post #21
How do you lose anger?
This is what separates the enlightened mind from the unenlightened mind and why enlightenment can't be forced on someone.
Can you force someone to lose the anger if they are not ready to?
I could be justifiably angry at al the prejudice I receive at these forums.
Deleting my posts that I take hours to write?
Receiving replies as such: "This is not a debate topic, it is a barely comprehensible series of opinions."
Or I can accept 'what is' and still maintain my peace.
Tired of being angry?
Just relinquish control and anger will be diminished.
Anger and control go hand in hand.
Some of these tendencies come from habit other times they stem from ignorance.
Either way we can change our habits or extinguish ignorance with knowledge, mindfulness and practice.
The first step is realization that something is disturbing our peace needs to be changed, so glad you have taken this first step for without realization that there is a problem nothing can be done. I get stuck here as well with wrong thoughts and wrong speech and am thankful for your post as a reminder to be on guard of this tendency and to work on being mindful of the Buddhist eightfold path. I already have the knowledge but sometimes am not mindful of walking the path.
On page 90 of the AA's 12 and 12 the writers mention how the addict cannot afford "justifiable anger" and it should be left to those better qualified to handle it. With reference to this statement -- it is gospel - there is no argument here. We can always settle such disputes by looking deeply into the person, place, thing or emotion in question and ask if it helps or hurts our practice?
Does having anger and hatred in our hearts ever increase our peace or serenity or does it diminish it? Even is we are justified, so called, in having this emotion does it suddenly become a peace generator in our life with this newfound license to hate or is it still a peace buster whether we have an excuse or not? The path is clear about which direction to take and all that remains is the release of the anger.
Some people get confused with this anger question and beat themselves for still experiencing this emotion thinking they should be a "perfectly spiritual individual" and above such lowly emotions as getting angry. They think they can perfect their lives and wipe out natural law with one blow called spirituality.
Due to the diversity of thought we humans are capable of we have all sorts of thoughts and emotions that pop up in our heads. Without this ability we could not think as we do. But, just because thoughts or emotions pop up in our heads the choice is ours alone whether we foster and build on any particular thought or emotion.
Spirituality does not eliminate such thoughts - it just helps decide what we do with them.
Anger is also part of our natural make up. Anger is an emotions that can serve us when we need to summon it up in a life or death situation such as self defense or when our species had to hunt big game for a living - hunt with spears, clubs and rocks. Even if we are dealing with life or death self defense and must generate anger, the byproducts is still a disruption of our peace as we recover from the circumstance as a shaking and rattled mess.
So, even if anger is justified, so called, it does not magically become a peace promoter in our lives instead of a peace destroyer.
Anger is also an important emotion for self preservation in less dangerous circumstances than big game hunts, for without feeling anger we wound not seek out change - changing our environment that might be an unhealthy one for us. So, we should never regret feeling anger, but just as anger and excretion are two naturally occurring parts of being a human, we should let them serve us instead of we being enslaved to them.
Anger comes in two forms.
Nature Based Anger and Toxic Based Anger
Always remember, anger is a nature given tool of defense and living right. But it takes humans to tun this healthy tool into an unhealthy, toxic tool of destruction.
Besides justified anger, there are HUNDREDS of other things that one cannot "afford" in their life is they desire inner peace. Sure, we can all white knuckle it and just scrape by with, ready to slip off at a moments notice if we want to put our desires before our practice. But, learning what fits and what does not fit comfortably in our life is the ongoing battle we all have to undertake if we want peace. In short, we have to ask if our practice can "afford" the many things we come into daily contact with and the measure of our success will be determined by how well we live within our comfortable means by asking this "affordability" question.
Before I could find lasting and peaceful recovery I had to learn to refuse many areas of my old life that did not serve me any longer. This is how I coined the phrase, "You are not recovering until your start refusing...refusing the old sick ways that got you here." The 3 paths that addiction (Yes, anger is addictive) can take are these: the addiction can be increased, it can be decreased or can be frozen. These 3 paths shows us which direction we are headed in with our recovery at any given moment.
Clarity about affordability comes from a continual orientation of putting our programs wants first and our personal wants or desires second and by asking the question of how any person, place, thing or activity will affect my recovery program? Once the addict has this affordability mindset in place they can direct their thoughts towards the cultivation of recovery, so that whatever action they are engaged in - it is always evaluated from this perspective and they can find great success from applying this single minded dedication to change. Suddenly they find their recovery practice and life can become as one and asking such questions becomes second nature for them.
But again, this is the textbook or idealistic way of looking at this affordability question, we need practical application in the real world. Many of us have families and jobs and to be a total renunciate of all things disruptive to our peace and our recovery program is not always possible or desirable when looking at the big picture. I often hear excuses from other addicts saying they can't stop this or that because of their family, jobs or other obligations, so we need to balance these two extremes of being a total renunciate with the other extreme of being paralyzed and not changing a thing because of excuses and justification. We have to work towards a balance if we want peace and just like exercise, we always seem to find reasons for not doing what we know is right.
The way I work it is to be aware of what is disruptive to my peace and to change it if possible as a first choice or work on accepting it as the serenity prayer says as a second choice. I try to stay away from justification or looking for excuses to continue on the wrong path. I either change things or work on accepting them. If we base our decisions of proven principles of recovery it helps takes us out of the decision making process and rests our recovery on solid foundation instead of excuses.
I don't beat myself for not being able to perform well in every given circumstance under the sun. I know that I do not mesh well with everything and everybody in life and I have certain limits and abilities. To do otherwise would say that we have the right to be perfect and violate our make up and that we have no limits or boundaries to govern us and are godlike. The 12 step programs reminds us to work within our limits by "staying right size" on pages 122-125, so it tells me right there I am not immune to all things destructive just because I work the 12 steps.
In SCA they have a tool called abstention. They abstain the best way they can from people places or things they have found to be detrimental to their recovery program efforts from past experience with them. My recovery success is based a lot on abstaining from people, places and things that do not mesh well with me and if I cannot avoid them, then I work to make the unavoidable fit better by changing things on my end.
Yes, we cannot change others, but we do usually have control of ourselves and how we participate in dealing with others. Even though we cannot completely change or wipe our many problem areas in our life we can usually change *some* aspects of most problems to make them more bearable. So, I am always looking for small changes to make in the right direction and this recovery orientation towards the direction of change helps by giving hope of possible larger future change as well.
In addition you can work practice a meditation on the 4 Immeasurables aka Divine States of Dwelling. Radiate the 4 Immeasurables in all 4 directions as well, as above and below you so it emanates from your being throughout the universe.
Meditate on:
Limitless Compassion for all suffering beings.
Limitless Joy for over the salvation of others from suffering
Limitless Peace for all beings whether friend or enemy
Limitless Kindness towards all sentient beings.
But bottom line is either you must change from the inside out - or life will change you 'its way' from the outside in and this tends to rot your insides with the byproducts that a life of toxic anger produces.
Take Care,
V (Male)
Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
For free access to my earlier posts on voluntary simplicity, compulsive spending, debting, compulsive overeating and clutter write: vfr44@aol.com. Any opinion expressed here is that of my own and is not the opinion, recommendation or belief of any group or organization.
This is what separates the enlightened mind from the unenlightened mind and why enlightenment can't be forced on someone.
Can you force someone to lose the anger if they are not ready to?
I could be justifiably angry at al the prejudice I receive at these forums.
Deleting my posts that I take hours to write?
Receiving replies as such: "This is not a debate topic, it is a barely comprehensible series of opinions."
Or I can accept 'what is' and still maintain my peace.
Tired of being angry?
Just relinquish control and anger will be diminished.
Anger and control go hand in hand.
Some of these tendencies come from habit other times they stem from ignorance.
Either way we can change our habits or extinguish ignorance with knowledge, mindfulness and practice.
The first step is realization that something is disturbing our peace needs to be changed, so glad you have taken this first step for without realization that there is a problem nothing can be done. I get stuck here as well with wrong thoughts and wrong speech and am thankful for your post as a reminder to be on guard of this tendency and to work on being mindful of the Buddhist eightfold path. I already have the knowledge but sometimes am not mindful of walking the path.
On page 90 of the AA's 12 and 12 the writers mention how the addict cannot afford "justifiable anger" and it should be left to those better qualified to handle it. With reference to this statement -- it is gospel - there is no argument here. We can always settle such disputes by looking deeply into the person, place, thing or emotion in question and ask if it helps or hurts our practice?
Does having anger and hatred in our hearts ever increase our peace or serenity or does it diminish it? Even is we are justified, so called, in having this emotion does it suddenly become a peace generator in our life with this newfound license to hate or is it still a peace buster whether we have an excuse or not? The path is clear about which direction to take and all that remains is the release of the anger.
Some people get confused with this anger question and beat themselves for still experiencing this emotion thinking they should be a "perfectly spiritual individual" and above such lowly emotions as getting angry. They think they can perfect their lives and wipe out natural law with one blow called spirituality.
Due to the diversity of thought we humans are capable of we have all sorts of thoughts and emotions that pop up in our heads. Without this ability we could not think as we do. But, just because thoughts or emotions pop up in our heads the choice is ours alone whether we foster and build on any particular thought or emotion.
Spirituality does not eliminate such thoughts - it just helps decide what we do with them.
Anger is also part of our natural make up. Anger is an emotions that can serve us when we need to summon it up in a life or death situation such as self defense or when our species had to hunt big game for a living - hunt with spears, clubs and rocks. Even if we are dealing with life or death self defense and must generate anger, the byproducts is still a disruption of our peace as we recover from the circumstance as a shaking and rattled mess.
So, even if anger is justified, so called, it does not magically become a peace promoter in our lives instead of a peace destroyer.
Anger is also an important emotion for self preservation in less dangerous circumstances than big game hunts, for without feeling anger we wound not seek out change - changing our environment that might be an unhealthy one for us. So, we should never regret feeling anger, but just as anger and excretion are two naturally occurring parts of being a human, we should let them serve us instead of we being enslaved to them.
Anger comes in two forms.
Nature Based Anger and Toxic Based Anger
Always remember, anger is a nature given tool of defense and living right. But it takes humans to tun this healthy tool into an unhealthy, toxic tool of destruction.
Besides justified anger, there are HUNDREDS of other things that one cannot "afford" in their life is they desire inner peace. Sure, we can all white knuckle it and just scrape by with, ready to slip off at a moments notice if we want to put our desires before our practice. But, learning what fits and what does not fit comfortably in our life is the ongoing battle we all have to undertake if we want peace. In short, we have to ask if our practice can "afford" the many things we come into daily contact with and the measure of our success will be determined by how well we live within our comfortable means by asking this "affordability" question.
Before I could find lasting and peaceful recovery I had to learn to refuse many areas of my old life that did not serve me any longer. This is how I coined the phrase, "You are not recovering until your start refusing...refusing the old sick ways that got you here." The 3 paths that addiction (Yes, anger is addictive) can take are these: the addiction can be increased, it can be decreased or can be frozen. These 3 paths shows us which direction we are headed in with our recovery at any given moment.
Clarity about affordability comes from a continual orientation of putting our programs wants first and our personal wants or desires second and by asking the question of how any person, place, thing or activity will affect my recovery program? Once the addict has this affordability mindset in place they can direct their thoughts towards the cultivation of recovery, so that whatever action they are engaged in - it is always evaluated from this perspective and they can find great success from applying this single minded dedication to change. Suddenly they find their recovery practice and life can become as one and asking such questions becomes second nature for them.
But again, this is the textbook or idealistic way of looking at this affordability question, we need practical application in the real world. Many of us have families and jobs and to be a total renunciate of all things disruptive to our peace and our recovery program is not always possible or desirable when looking at the big picture. I often hear excuses from other addicts saying they can't stop this or that because of their family, jobs or other obligations, so we need to balance these two extremes of being a total renunciate with the other extreme of being paralyzed and not changing a thing because of excuses and justification. We have to work towards a balance if we want peace and just like exercise, we always seem to find reasons for not doing what we know is right.
The way I work it is to be aware of what is disruptive to my peace and to change it if possible as a first choice or work on accepting it as the serenity prayer says as a second choice. I try to stay away from justification or looking for excuses to continue on the wrong path. I either change things or work on accepting them. If we base our decisions of proven principles of recovery it helps takes us out of the decision making process and rests our recovery on solid foundation instead of excuses.
I don't beat myself for not being able to perform well in every given circumstance under the sun. I know that I do not mesh well with everything and everybody in life and I have certain limits and abilities. To do otherwise would say that we have the right to be perfect and violate our make up and that we have no limits or boundaries to govern us and are godlike. The 12 step programs reminds us to work within our limits by "staying right size" on pages 122-125, so it tells me right there I am not immune to all things destructive just because I work the 12 steps.
In SCA they have a tool called abstention. They abstain the best way they can from people places or things they have found to be detrimental to their recovery program efforts from past experience with them. My recovery success is based a lot on abstaining from people, places and things that do not mesh well with me and if I cannot avoid them, then I work to make the unavoidable fit better by changing things on my end.
Yes, we cannot change others, but we do usually have control of ourselves and how we participate in dealing with others. Even though we cannot completely change or wipe our many problem areas in our life we can usually change *some* aspects of most problems to make them more bearable. So, I am always looking for small changes to make in the right direction and this recovery orientation towards the direction of change helps by giving hope of possible larger future change as well.
In addition you can work practice a meditation on the 4 Immeasurables aka Divine States of Dwelling. Radiate the 4 Immeasurables in all 4 directions as well, as above and below you so it emanates from your being throughout the universe.
Meditate on:
Limitless Compassion for all suffering beings.
Limitless Joy for over the salvation of others from suffering
Limitless Peace for all beings whether friend or enemy
Limitless Kindness towards all sentient beings.
But bottom line is either you must change from the inside out - or life will change you 'its way' from the outside in and this tends to rot your insides with the byproducts that a life of toxic anger produces.
Take Care,
V (Male)
Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
For free access to my earlier posts on voluntary simplicity, compulsive spending, debting, compulsive overeating and clutter write: vfr44@aol.com. Any opinion expressed here is that of my own and is not the opinion, recommendation or belief of any group or organization.
-
spiritletter
- Apprentice
- Posts: 224
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:44 pm
Post #22
Everybody is capable of anger. Not everybody acts on it. I do not think anger is evil; it is rather a human response to the infliction of injustice and brutality.
-
john_anthony_gonzalez
- Student
- Posts: 74
- Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:18 pm
- Location: Phoenix
Re: Do you see anger as evil?
Post #23It depends on how it's used, if its a righteous anger than its ok. Jesus gave a good example of this at the temple when he got angry because of all the merchants in their. So he pretty much tossed over tables and knocked stuff around because they were turning a place of God into a market place. This is considered righteous anger.scorpia wrote:Most often I tend to see in some debates mentioning how someone or something might be portrayed as angry and mentoioned so in a negative light. So I would simply like to know; Do you see anger as evil? Yes? No? Why?
Personally I don't think it is evil. It may make people who are angry scary in some manner. But anger is an emotion that people are born with, and there are enough cases when it is more right for people to feel angry rather than anything else.
So no anger isnt evil if it is used correctly
-
Greatest I Am
- Banned
- Posts: 3043
- Joined: Thu Jan 04, 2007 1:04 am
Post #24
Like almost all issues or topics anger has both good and evil components.
It should of course always be under control but righteous indignation can be seen as good, while inappropriate use is of course evil. The situation that anger is levelled against will decide if we are looking at good or evil anger.
Like all God given emotions, we should thank God for anger. Let us try to use it properly.
Regards
DL
It should of course always be under control but righteous indignation can be seen as good, while inappropriate use is of course evil. The situation that anger is levelled against will decide if we are looking at good or evil anger.
Like all God given emotions, we should thank God for anger. Let us try to use it properly.
Regards
DL
-
Nameless
Post #25
Not my will but "thy will be done.."!Do you see anger as evil?
When 'my will' is thwarted, resentment is the natural response. Resentment all too soon becomes anger! All a result of the 'sin' of Pride!
I do not see anything as 'evil' though, in response to your question, as that would also be a commission of the 'sin' of Pride. Who am i to 'judge' god's creation, or to flaunt the sin of the stolen fruits of the forbidden Tree of the knowledge of good and evil? The forbidden fruit is 'Pride'!
