Mahāyāna Buddhism emphasizes compassion, and yet it portrays awakened beings who look anything but peaceful and loving. The best-known of these is Vajrapāṇi, “the bearer of the thunderbolt,” who is massively muscled and lunging into the warrior pose many of you will know from yoga.
Vajrapāṇi is midnight blue in color, with bulging eyes and prominent fangs, and, as his name suggests, he wields a stylized thunderbolt in his right hand. Instead of being surrounded by a gentle aura, he’s wreathed in dancing flames. Vajrapāṇi doesn’t represent ill will, which all awakened and nearly-awakened beings have long overcome. Instead he embodies enlightened energy — the compassionate desire to help others.
Speech with the power of thunder
Although the first part of Vajrapani’s name literally means “thunderbolt,” one of its secondary meanings is “denunciation in strong language.” The connection is that this critical yet compassionate speech has the power of thunder.
Coming back to our everyday experience, when a parent sees their child about to run into the road, or do some other harmful action, it is useless for them to issue a warning gently, because the message will almost certainly fail to penetrate the child’s excitement. Instead the parent speaks loudly and forcefully — even angrily. Yet the intention, as with the Bodhisattva, is to help and to protect, not to harm.
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Language is often so imprecise that one word, one concept can embrace opposites. “Anger” is like that. It encompasses both the desire to help and protect, and the desire to hurt and to harm.
Adjusting our vocabulary
It’s interesting to ask whether the words people used in the past had the same range of meaning. I’m not in a position to say, but when I was reading an essay the Roman Stoic Seneca wrote on anger, it was clear that he was referring to a state of being completely out of control. I’m sure Seneca at times would have spoken loudly, clearly, passionately, and with a desire to prevent harm being caused — that is, angrily — and that he probably wouldn’t have regarded this as the same emotion that leads to people throwing things around, punching people in the face, and harming innocent bystanders, which is the kind of thing he was warning us against in his essay.
So maybe we should call the unhelpful, harmful form of anger “rage,” and the fierce compassion or moral urgency shown by the parent or by Vajrapāṇi “passion.” (Many people seem to believe that having passion is un-Buddhist. This idea can arise from a mistaken understanding of the goal of Buddhist practice. We’re not aiming to become emotionless, but instead to rid ourselves of unhelpful emotions such as selfish craving and ill will. It doesn’t help that these unhelpful emotions were often called “the passions” by early translators of Buddhist texts. It’s natural that modern readers would take this to mean that we’re meant to get rid of passion in the sense of strong emotion. But at the time these translations were made the word passion primarily meant “suffering,” which selfishness and ill will cause. Powerful forms of love and other skillful emotions that we might call passions do not cause suffering.)
I once heard the Dalai Lama say that anger transforms the world faster than compassion, but that’s why you have to be very careful with it. He points out that the spiritually useful anger (passion) is directed against the harmful action, not against the person. This is what distinguishes it from harmful anger (rage), where we want to hurt the other person.
When the Buddha talked about anger (kodha, in Pali) it was always destructive anger he meant. He didn’t seem to have a word for the “clean” anger that is passion. Yet passion is sometimes evident in his speech when he felt the need to criticize someone. Sometimes this can sound shocking to the modern reader, such as when he said, “It is not fit, foolish man, it is not becoming.…” [emphasis added]. This sounds like ill will, but in fact it was the Buddha’s compassionate attempt to save someone from themselves.
The “come-to-Dharma moment”
In Christianity they talk about a “come-to-Jesus moment,” which one Bible website describes as “a pivotal point when a person confronts an important truth — especially an uncomfortable or life-altering reality —and makes a significant decision or change.” Being called “foolish” by the Buddha was a wake-up call — a “come-to-Dharma” moment. Hearing it would have been an indication that you were way out of line. So although the Buddha’s words may sound harsh, they were intended to prevent suffering.
I had a come-to-Dharma moment in my twenties. I had been in a Buddhist study group where a number of people had difficulty understanding some of the vocabulary, which I happened to be familiar with. Being an arrogant young man, I expressed myself in highly condescending and insulting language. Soon after, one of the teachers took me for a walk to tell me, very directly and forcefully, just how inappropriate my speech had been. He was passionate — angry — but there was no rage. Although I had been insulting to others, he didn’t direct any insults at me. He didn’t try to hurt my feelings. He just pointed out, clearly and directly, the painful truth: I had behaved in an arrogant manner that was antithetical to the way we were expected to comport ourselves while discussing spiritual teachings.
A few days later I went on a month-long intensive meditation retreat, in which I squirmed and festered with resentment, remembering his criticism and refusing to accept it. Eventually, after much suffering, a bubble of defensiveness burst within me, and I could finally accept that the teacher had been right. I saw then that I had been trying to impress others with my intelligence because I believed, deep down, that I was unworthy of love. It was that recognition that prompted me to ask for ordination.
This is what passion (good anger) can do. It breaks through the defenses we build up in order to justify our wrong-doing.
Sometimes it’s okay to offend people
In a conversation with a prince called Abhaya, the Buddha explained the difference between his sometimes fierce, passionate communication and ordinary anger. Abhaya had been sent by a rival teacher to entrap the Buddha by asking him if he would utter speech that is disliked by others. If he were to say yes, then the prince was to point out that he had behaved unkindly, just like any ordinary person. (We can tell from this that the Buddha’s passionately critical speech was well-known!) If the Buddha were to say no, then he was to be reminded that he had in fact said things that others had found painful to hear. The expectation was that the Buddha would be “like someone with an iron cross stuck in his throat, unable either to spit it up or swallow it.”
When he attempted to spring his rhetorical trap, Abhaya was holding a baby on his lap. The Buddha, deftly turning Abhaya’s simile to his advantage, asked whether, if the baby were to get a sharp object stuck in its throat, Abhaya would fish it out, knowing that this would cause the baby pain. Naturally, Abhaya said he would, because he loved the child. The Buddha pointed out that because he too had love for other beings, he would sometimes speak in a way that they find unpleasant. He can do this because he “knows the right time to speak so as to explain what he knows to be true, correct, and beneficial, but which is disliked by others.”
The Buddha had enough empathy to know whether the person being addressed might be receptive to his words. It’s not a good idea, for example, to offer criticism when someone is already under stress, because they’re already defensive.
Also, the Buddha will only say what’s true. He’s not going to exaggerate or distort.
He’ll only say what he believes will be helpful, because his concern is for the other person’s spiritual well-being. Only under those conditions will he say something that he knows will be upsetting to the other person. This kind of speech might well sound and look like anger, but it’s really passion, which is anger, purified by mindfulness and empathic considerateness, so that it is intended to help, not to hurt.
The power of passionate speech
Anger in the good sense of passion can be spiritually helpful. It can help us maintain maintain healthy boundaries when others disrespect us. It can free us from the shame that can arise when we have been disrespected. It can respond to the suffering and injustice we see in the world. Sometimes it will motivate us to act — not necessarily in the moment of anger itself, but later, when we reflect on the suffering or injustice we’ve witnessed. This kind of anger can be the manifestation of our most cherished values, expressing themselves passionately, in a skillful way.
When passion arises, because it is a state of arousal physiologically resembling rage, we have to be very mindful of our speech. We need to focus on the action rather than attacking the person. We need to avoid sarcasm and put-downs. We need to stay grounded in our bodies and be mindful of our feelings so that we don’t lose control.
Catch unhelpful anger early
Seneca advises us to catch our anger early. Since nothing good can come of rage, it’s helpful to deal with it before it gets out of hand. We can do this by learning to recognize the physical sensations that accompany its upwelling.
For most people this is difficult, or even impossible, because extreme anger shuts down the parts of the brain that allow us to be mindful. You’re therefore more likely to have success if you train yourself to recognize the physical signs of rage while you’re in a mindful, balanced state. To do this, vividly remember past examples of rage arising within you, so that you can recognize what bodily sensations trigger this powerful emotion. You might recognize things like surging energy, a sharp intake of breath preparing you for action, your pulse quickening, tightness in certain parts of the body, and so on. Having done this, it’s more likely that if rage begins to erupt in daily life, you’ll recognize it and respond more skillfully than usual.
Handle with care
Often, when rage is arising, the most skillful response is to step back and cool off. Once we’ve brought ourselves back to something resembling emotional balance — which might take anywhere from minutes to days — we can try engaging more reasonably.
To help us step back from rage, we can recognize the harm it can do. Remember arguments you’ve been involved in, whether in personal interactions or on social media. Recall how unpleasant and intoxicating rage is, and how hard it is to let go of anger and resentment. Constant anger is exhausting. Anger is of course painful for those we inflict it upon, and can can provoke them to be angry at us. And chronically angry people are often unpopular.
For all these reasons, we need to be wary of anger. Yet passion — anger purified, its energy harnessed — can also be a powerful motivation for righting wrongs. It might even be an ethical imperative for us to connect with our anger. Indeed, the Dalai Lama has made that point in one of his books. It’s title? Be Angry!
This is an extract from one of the forthcoming chapters of a book I am writing on politics as a spiritual practice, which I’m currently releasing as a course, called As the World Falls Apart.
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