“… the underlying stratum of our lives is anger.
Since anger and its subsets – depression, resentment, jealousy, backbiting, gossip, and so on – dominate our lives, we need to investigate the whole problem of anger with care.
Often … efforts (to eliminate injustice & create justice) are dictatorial, full of anger and self-righteousness.
In spiritual maturity, the opposite of injustice is not justice, but compassion. Not me against you, not me straightening out the present ill, fighting to gain a just result for myself and others, but compassion, a life that goes against nothing and fulfills everything.
All anger is based upon judgments, whether of ourselves or others. The idea that our anger must be expressed for us to be healthy is no more than a fantasy. We need to let these judgmental, angry thoughts pass before our witnessing, impersonal self. We gain nothing by expressing them. It is a mistake to suppose that our unexpressed anger hurts us and that we must express it and thereby hurt others.
An appropriate and compassionate response does not come from a fight for justice, but from the radical dimension of practice that ‘passeth all understanding.’ It is not easy. Perhaps we must go through agonized weeks or months of sitting. But the resolution will come. No person can provide this resolution for us; it can be provided only by our true self – if we open wide the gates of practice.
Let us not adopt some facile, narrowly psychological view of our lives. The radical dimension I speak of demands everything we are and have. Joy, not happiness, is its fruit.”
Beck CJ. “Nothing Special: Living Zen.” HarperCollins 1995.
Beck CJ. “Nothing Special: Living Zen.” HarperCollins 1995.
Photo: Andre Gallant http://www.andregallant.com/ |
Thanks for this. I am challenged by the words, especially "facile, narrowly psychological view of our lives." You've provided a quote which sets me pondering about anger in a fresh way. I love the fog and what it hides and what it shows. Great post.
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