http://www.lucid-living.org/read-write/sharing-group-and-anger/ Spiritual Awakening, Conscious Living Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:25:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.lucid-living.org/read-write/sharing-group-and-anger/#comment-169 Chris Fri, 18 Jun 2010 07:51:30 +0000 http://sharing.lucid-living.org/?p=1556#comment-169 The Buddha described anger as like putting your hand in a fire to pick up a burning coal to throw at someone - guaranteed to be very painful to yourself and not guaranteed to harm your adversary. Anger is bad, childish, selfish and self harming but is also exposing, uncontrolled, powerful, energetic and excoriating. Pretending that you are above anger is bad, childish, selfish and self harming but is also dishonest, controlled, devious and counter productive. Anger is something none of us want but all of us have (excepting the handful of fully enlightened humans that exist at any one time) and disowning it or filing it away as inappropriate or not spiritual is like spraying perfume on shit. It is not a good look, being angry and showing your fangs, and we all want to look good, especially in the eyes of 'others'. It is not all bad news though. Anger, when truly contacted and allowed, is never static and usually leads us deeper to the real problem. It is the last line of our defence and once that has gone we are relieved and open. Just watch someone you love having an outburst, without judgement. Once they have expressed their rage they will probably be sobbing and soft and vulnerable and contrite and so loveable. Personally I do not trust people who remain aloof from anger because it means they are controlling themselves, and all this means is that they have swallowed the burning coal (plus some shit and some perfume). The loving space of a sharing group is the perfect safe and aware and strong environment for experiencing and moving through the anger that arises in and through us. This is not to propose war and indiscriminate rants and raves, that would not be appropriate and these groups are too mature for that anyway. Circles do resolve conflicts naturally and this process can really be helped by honestly admitting what or who is pissing us off in the moment and why. To do that is brave and loving and makes a lot of energy available to the group that, once released, will work its magic by itself. The Buddha described anger as like putting your hand in a fire to pick up a burning coal to throw at someone – guaranteed to be very painful to yourself and not guaranteed to harm your adversary. Anger is bad, childish, selfish and self harming but is also exposing, uncontrolled, powerful, energetic and excoriating.
Pretending that you are above anger is bad, childish, selfish and self harming but is also dishonest, controlled, devious and counter productive.
Anger is something none of us want but all of us have (excepting the handful of fully enlightened humans that exist at any one time) and disowning it or filing it away as inappropriate or not spiritual is like spraying perfume on shit. It is not a good look, being angry and showing your fangs, and we all want to look good, especially in the eyes of ‘others’.
It is not all bad news though. Anger, when truly contacted and allowed, is never static and usually leads us deeper to the real problem. It is the last line of our defence and once that has gone we are relieved and open.
Just watch someone you love having an outburst, without judgement. Once they have expressed their rage they will probably be sobbing and soft and vulnerable and contrite and so loveable.
Personally I do not trust people who remain aloof from anger because it means they are controlling themselves, and all this means is that they have swallowed the burning coal (plus some shit and some perfume).
The loving space of a sharing group is the perfect safe and aware and strong environment for experiencing and moving through the anger that arises in and through us. This is not to propose war and indiscriminate rants and raves, that would not be appropriate and these groups are too mature for that anyway. Circles do resolve conflicts naturally and this process can really be helped by honestly admitting what or who is pissing us off in the moment and why.
To do that is brave and loving and makes a lot of energy available to the group that, once released, will work its magic by itself.

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