Ep. 18 - Beyond Rage: Finding Clarity in a World of Emotion

What happens when anger fuels our actions? Can something traditionally viewed as poison ever become medicine? These questions form the heart of a profound meditation on emotion, motivation, and clarity.

Starting with a thoughtful listener question about anger's place in both spiritual practice and social movements, this episode takes us on a nuanced journey through the Zen perspective on emotional states. We carefully distinguish between inwardly-directed frustration that motivates spiritual growth and outwardly-projected anger that inevitably clouds judgment.

The metaphor of fire runs throughout – anger, like flame, can quickly transform from a controlled burn into an indiscriminate wildfire that consumes everything in its path. When we're caught in anger's grip, our ears close even as our mouths open wider, creating a fundamental barrier to understanding. This contradiction makes anger a dubious tool for positive transformation, despite its cultural celebration as necessary for change.

Instead, we explore the surprising power of alternatives: clarity, understanding, and especially compassion. Contrary to popular misconception, compassion isn't weakness but tremendous strength. It allows us to oppose harmful actions while recognizing the Buddha-nature present in all beings – even those we most strongly disagree with. This recognition forms the foundation of Zen ethics and offers a pathway to effective action without internal corruption.

Whether you're wrestling with your own emotional responses or questioning how to create meaningful change in a divided world, this episode offers wisdom that challenges conventional thinking while honoring our full humanity. Join us for this exploration of what truly burns brighter than anger – and how it might transform both ourselves and our world.

Chapters

• 0:15 Introduction and Listener Email
• 9:04 Understanding Anger as a Poison
• 17:38 Self-Directed vs. Outward Anger
• 24:15 The Dangers of Uncontrolled Emotion
• 33:15 Clarity Through Understanding, Not Anger
• 42:46 Compassion as the Powerful Alternative
• 48:57 Conclusion and Buddha Nature

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Hello, this is Nicolas Sotomayor, first time caller, long time listener.

Speaker 2: 0:33

You are listening to the World Through Zen Eyes and hopefully back to another episode of the World Through Zen Eyes podcast. I am Myung An Sunim, flying solo. Dr Lambert was besieged by life's responsibilities and so he couldn't make it today. Couldn't make it today. It's then just you and I and the possibly I don't know what to call the meanderings. I like to think of it sort of a maze, if you will. No string or breadcrumbs to follow out, but a maze Perhaps the sort of classical view of the brain, with its sort of tunnels, if you will, twisting and turning and flowing this and that way. Nonetheless, meandering, I do want to share a email from a listener that, of course, offers praises for the podcast. This isn't to say I wouldn't share an email or a fan mail that doesn't applaud Booing. Emails, too, would be shared If impactful, meaningful and useful.

Speaker 2: 2:38

So this is both a praise and a question. That's why I think it's a good thing to do here. Good afternoon, sunim. Hope you are keeping comfortably indoors on this rainy, rainy Saturday I wanted to share how much I enjoyed and learned from the two-part series on karma.

Speaker 2: 3:05

The episode on reincarnation was mind-bending, and then I heard the two about karma. These episodes become only more prescient and engaging. We are all better for it. Thank you Well, thank you Well, thank you, yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2: 3:32

A question I've had that might work for an episode is on the topic of anger. Anger is one of the three poisons that perpetuates suffering. However, it is also a fundamental emotion, one of the primary colors of emotion, if you will. What is the place of this emotion in a Zen context? Anger can be very destructive, obviously, but channeled constructively, can also be a powerful component to effecting transformation and necessary positive change. Consider the Civil Rights Movement or the American War for Independence, the Revolutionary War. Channeled anger is a big part of the American identity. As an example, I took part in a mass protest today that was fueled, in significant part, in anger over the current policies at play in this country. The protest was peaceful and constructive, but it was driven in large part by a need to express collective outrage and anger over troubling governmental policy changes. Where is the balance? Anger is often viewed as a strong motivator, and how does it factor in the context of Zen?

Speaker 2: 5:04

Tangentially, but possibly related, is the fifth precept refrain from intoxication. A lay view on this precept is that about the consumption of altering substances, ie alcohol, etc. However, one can also be just as easily quote-unquote intoxicated with rage, anger, pride, ego, ignorance or desire or greed. What are ways we might interpret intoxication? These podcasts offer such an abundant and overflowing banquet of food for thought, an abundant and overflowing banquet of food for thought. Thank you for the continued efforts of both you, your part, and Dr Lambert, for continuing to make these amazing and enlightening episodes week after week. Many thanks. Well, it's a beautiful and truly thank you.

Speaker 2: 6:09

You know I call these kind of receipts karma receipts, when people tell me that something said or done had played a role, a meaningful role. It's not that we obviously seek out some praise and accolades on account of vocation, of a monkhood. One's own journey through the spiritual growth can be well. It is at times arduous and of course, in the Mahayana, in the Zen sort of perspective, the idea is that we are doing this motivated by the Bodhisattva principle, doing this motivated by the bodhisattva principle, and so we are to transform the hardship that we may be undergoing into a necessary alchemy process of what essentially is the lotus rising from the mud kind of situation. But nonetheless, it's nice, let's say. It's nice to see or hear that your life ripples and echoes into lives of others and that your vocation, that of a monk in this case, is meaningful and, yeah, so a karmic receipt, if you will. So thank you for that. I am going to keep the name of the email or the writer of the email, the author, in disclosed on account of that. I'm not entirely sure if this was meant to be sort of presented in that way, but onwards we go.

Speaker 2: 8:46

So anger yes, there is a common view on anger as a possibility of transforming it into a constructive kind of motivational energy. I'm very cautious, and there's a sort of dubious element to this. For one. What it would require is such a fine discernment of oneself and the colors and the flavors of one's emotional state. To where is the boundary of anger as destructive or impeding becoming constructive and motivational? It's a very delicate thing and as such, then it's a hard one. It's a hard one I'd like to think of it as the internal, or the self-directed, and the externally directed perhaps. And we have to really consider the nuanced possibilities here, consider the nuanced possibilities here.

Speaker 2: 10:29

So the email mentions anger as one of the three poisons, the fundamental teachings in Zen, the poison of greed, anger and ignorance. And what we know of poisons right, is that it's the dosage how much is poisonous. So we have to set that kind of aside, have that there as a kind of backdrop, if you will. How does one know when one has sort of ingested, if you will, sufficient amount of the thing to render it poisonous? And so we have precepts and things that govern us.

Speaker 2: 11:21

And in the case of the precept mentioned in the email, namely the one of intoxication and rightly so, we could say the intoxication can be intoxication with power and pride and ego and anger and outrage, etc, etc. The precepts in this case are referring to just the simple. Really we could say more, focusing on the simplicity of it, namely the intoxication via substances that then cloud the perception. So the intoxication via anger, let's say, is the internal or the mind is already clouded. That ergo the intoxication, mind is already clouded that, ergo the intoxication. So there the physical element of intoxication that then results in, let's say, in the case of alcohol for example, for the thinning of the blood, the swelling of the veins, the brain swelling, the essential kind of we could say oxygen starvation of the brain type of thing that then results in the cognitive processes being hindered and clouded, warped and twisted, etc. After all, murders have been committed out of anger. So there's these easier kind of well, if you murder somebody out of anger, you've gone overboard.

Speaker 2: 13:20

The Not PopgGyong Sutra, I believe. Yes, pop-hwa-gyong, one of the sutras, yeah, pop-hwa-gyong Sutra, I believe. It lists the ill effects of anger on so many levels and we view anger as this sort of raging fire, indiscriminate raging fire that scorches and burns through the seed of good fortune, and therefore it's a dangerous emotion to toy with. I had mentioned that, perhaps a way to looking, because we do have anger, if you will, as a motivational element within Zen philosophy. We call it Bunbyul, I mean Bunshim, I'm sorry, but what it essentially is is a more, we could say, anger but frustration thing of that nature. But it really is, is pointed and directed on at oneself and it's not angry with oneself in that typical use of the word.

Speaker 2: 15:07

Essentially, what it is is to say, for example, let's say, the Buddha practiced meditation and reached enlightenment. He strove and drove and pursued the goal and he accomplished it. He was a human being, I am a human being, he breathed, I breathe, he ate, I ate, etc. Etc. Etc. So if all of these elements in a sense are alike and the same, how come I still haven't reached enlightenment? How come I haven't practiced diligently enough or sufficiently enough, or whatever you want to call it? How come that person did it and I haven't yet done it? That's the sort of self-frustration as a motivational element. It doesn't cloud the mind is the big factor here. Outwardly pointed anger warps the perception, it twists the mind, it skews everything to the one side of the spectrum. It's sort of eye for an eye.

Speaker 2: 17:00

It's sort of eye for an eye, the actions of others fueled by their of the other, opposing side, angry at those people, based on one's own anger, one's own perception, one's own viewpoint, the right and wrong element here, we could say from the Zen perspective, from the pure Zen perspective, is a preference, it's a personal viewpoint, and so if operated, and if we operate out of the principle of emotional anger and outrage, it is merely the perception we want to give off. It's an act that shows the emotional kind of challenge of the masses. But if, say, the anger of the other side, whatever that side is, is expressed and then we express anger in return, then essentially what we are are the same. We are anger against anger. Clarity must be maintained if change is to be brought. The theater of anger is a tool. The theater of protest is a tool. The theater of these external expressions are a tool. They are essentially what drums are to war. The drums rattle and shake the inside of the person, excite the body to action, but it's the motivation to action and therefore then the action must have a clarity in it. It can't be clouded by an emotional state that then warps our perception. It must be well-constructed if it's going to be constructive, well constructed if it's going to be constructive. And so clarity is what we are essentially within Zen, always after. We are essentially within Zen, always after. We are after clarity. We're trying to stay away from the things that cloud the mind, the sort of cataract of emotional overwhelming states.

Speaker 2: 20:13

And this isn't to say again that we are to be some emotionally castrated eunuchs. That's not the goal, that's not the point. After all, emotions are part of life. They are there to inform, they are there to sort of a feedback loop, but they are informed by our perspectives also. So they are informed by our entrenched viewpoints, and so what we are pursuing is clarity.

Speaker 2: 20:56

The frustration or the anger, in a sense, is a, like I said, a punsim, which is a kind of self-motivating element to pursue clarity. So it's almost a sort of strange dynamic there. I'm going to say I'm angry that I get angry, kind of right, and in that sentence I get angry that I got angry so that I can no longer be engulfed in the flames of anger. So the inner or the self-directed anger, if you will, for the lack of a better word, an outwardly directed anger, are of different qualities. We are following the bodhisattva path, after all, and the bodhisattva path is the path of compassion and understanding. And this is such a difficult thing frequently because yes there are things that one can be outraged over.

Speaker 2: 22:32

There are wrongs, in a sense, and and terrible things, and there are going-ons and the usual thought then is something akin to well, if I'm not enraged, then I am passive. Right, rage in and of itself, anger in and of itself, is nothing, it's the actions, it's. The real impact is in the things that we do. So there's a difference between sitting and sort of brewing and stewing in one's frustrations and outrage and anger and these things, and actually doing something. And this is where that nuance comes into play. If we are just sitting and stewing and brewing and getting ourselves all kinds of worked up, we are damaging ourselves physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually. How then are we to consider this sort of militant approach to it? The militaries of all the world structure their day-to-day activities very precisely. The military wakes up at a certain time, goes to sleep at a certain time, eats at a certain times. The sayings are kind of you go to the bathroom and you sleep when you're told, and it's true in a sense, there's a rhythm that is created and the rhythm creation is intended to create a strong, healthy soldier. That's the underlying reasoning and dynamic why we go to sleep at a certain time, why you wake up at a certain time, why you eat when it's time to eat, why you train and do this and this and this, why To make a better soldier, to make a better warrior. And if the anger element, the outrage element, is damaging, then one cannot be a better warrior for the good, let's say, one cannot be fit to do the work if the mind is clouded by anger and its perspective. And we say that we use it as a motivation. But if you consider other tasks in our lives that we do and accomplish and do well, we do it out of an understanding of the need. I mean one could go to work angry every single day and get it done and say, well, you know, I get angry, so I'm motivated to sit, you know, in a cubicle, kind of thing. Right, and so anger is not the only motivator, but it is and this isn't to say that the email suggests it to be the only way, but it is one of the stronger emotions and, naturally speaking, then it is one of the impactful and governing emotions that can very quickly and that's the other element very quickly rising is fire that just bursts. Frequently, not always. Sometimes it starts small and smoldering and progressively, progressively, turns into this huge raging wildfire. But it is quick to rise, generally speaking, and as such it also then has a tendency to dissipate, unless it becomes destructive. So that's the element of it, that's the nuance of it, it's quick to rise of it. That's the nuance of it. It's quick to rise, it starts, and then, chances are, it either dissipates very quickly or it continues to devour everything indiscriminately in its wake.

Speaker 2: 27:43

And this is the problematic element of anger. Does one have truly the ability to do a sort of controlled burn or can it, as it frequently does, turn into a raging wildfire, gets out of hand? You know you want to burn a thing, but then a spark jumps onto the thing that is not part of the thing you want to burn and innocence gets caught in it, our innocence, frequently, the innocence of others, the innocent lives, the innocent bystander, the innocent thing, etc. Etc. And so there was a protest, mentioned in the email and the uh, the peacefulness of it, right, and, and we know, we know sort of Gandhi's uh, such a graha and and the peaceful, peaceful resistance and and things of that nature as a, as a tool used. Its motivation, however, was not anger.

Speaker 2: 29:24

So, yes, having emotions is a natural, it is the spectrum of life, it is the spectrum of, of the, the breath of emotion. And if we don't experience or if we suppress one or the other, that is also an unhealthy way of existing right. So when emotion rises and we are not wakeful to it again, in Zen, frequently we talk of this wakefulness and if we're not wakeful to it, if we're not aware and awake of the emotion, the wind, you know, the river, as the Popgugyong Sutra speaks of a sleeping village swept in the middle of the night by a flood, if we are not wakeful which is a challenging thing to be continuously, but we train it, that's the call, that's the point. But if we are not wakeful, then we are susceptible to being swept by the flood. And if the emotions give a rise and we don't catch it and we don't recognize it and we don't control it and hold it and balance it, then, knowing when what was meant to be a motivational energy or really it's something that we think of, post right, the anger comes, we use it and then we dub it as oh, I'm angry because you know the motivational thing. So there's a kind of a strange order of things. What comes first, what comes second, which again makes it so much more challenging. Was it anger that motivated, or was it motivation that then said, anger was the motivator? Was it understanding that moved me to join a protest, let's say? Or was it a whatever? So it's a. It's a slippery slope.

Speaker 2: 32:14

I would say, alternatively, understanding, and again we could go on and perhaps must go on. Just what do we mean by understanding? It's words we play with and they have traps and trap doors and booby traps and things blow up and pop out of the walls and it's a sort of whimsical thing. Words, because if we say you know better than to be angry is to understand, then it seems that what is suggested because it frequently is the connotation that to understand means to be okay with that thing, and that's, of course, not what understanding means. Right To understand.

Speaker 2: 33:13

If I have a disease, understanding it means I understand the mechanism, the process, the this and that. Let's say, if something goes on and I understand why and how and its sort of underpinnings and the mechanism of it, I understand it. It doesn't equate to I'm fine with it. I understand it. Therefore, I'm fine with it. What it makes me is be able to more efficiently deal with it On the account of understanding, not on the account of emotional upheaval. Understanding makes the thing clear. Understanding, if I understand why someone does something, if I understand what is the possible mechanism in their mind that makes them act and say and do things, the underpinning, underlying karma of that person. If I understand that, then I know how to have a conversation, then I know how to be productive, then I know how to arrive, hopefully, at a resolution.

Speaker 2: 34:50

Anger is not an understanding emotion. Anger is entrenchment. Simultaneously, as anger flows out of our mouth, the ears close. Usually what happens is we are just yelling out and the roar of the voice of anger drowns out our ability to hear anything. And this is the dynamic element and this is the, the mechanism by which innocent bystanders and and I don't mean necessarily in protest settings, I mean in our family lives and things of that nature it's a person, a child, a spouse, whatever, a dog, a cat get barked at by an angry person having done nothing. And then we have oh, I'm sorry, I lost my temper because usually being something so far, far away from the innocent ones. And so anger is not an understanding emotion.

Speaker 2: 36:07

Anger is not an understanding emotion. It then to be used to arrive at an understanding seems, like I said at the beginning, perhaps a little dubious. We must be cautious of it, as it is, with all emotions, a good way to think of them. Like I said, it's not that we are trying to be sort of emotional eunuch, kind of castrated and just a blah. That's sort of a psychopathic, and just the blah, that's sort of a psychopathic. I mean, dr Lambert isn't here but I would ask whether it seems to be that it's a DSM, part of the DSM definition of a psychopath, maybe the inability to feel emotion, in a sense. So that's not what we're after, absolutely not. But what we are after is knowing the dosage of our emotional state and this is across the board.

Speaker 2: 37:28

We've talked about patience in one of these episodes and the usual yin to the yang, the um to the yang of the patience is anger. But we've talked about the more refined meaning of patience and patience towards nature, patience towards time, patience towards joy develop the sasang medicine principles and the oriental medicine principles and the five element theories that place emotional states within the context of medicinal practice, that certain emotions are damaging to certain organs, that certain emotions or the amount of said emotion. Maybe it's a better way to put it, as Ijeoma put it letting the emotion run amok. It's equivalent to sort of stabbing yourself in the ojang, the five viscera. So this idea of emotional states. The question then is how much Emotion? Yes, how much. How much joy? How much joy? And again from sort of from the satsang medicine principles, joy. Then there's sort of overjoyedness, that then, if you continue down the path of joy without balancing it, without controlling it, without without understanding it, then we could end up sort of mania.

Speaker 2: 39:35

I frequently, when speaking of said thing, bring up this thing that's kind of burnt into my mind of a certain university, and we see this time and time again where a football team or whatever, what have you, wins a I don't know championships or whatever those things are called, and it wins it. And in joyous celebration there's a riot. In joyous celebration they set a couch on fire. In joyous celebration they set a couch on fire, and joy is celebration. That's joy. It's got the same family as joy, but it isn't joy, not at that stage. It isn't Psychosis, if you will.

Speaker 2: 40:25

And so when thinking of emotion, always, I think a good way to consider is how much, how much am I in, how deep am I in? How much is enough? And in terms of motivation, clarity and understanding and compassion are also powerfully motivating elements, more powerfully than anger, on the account that there's a clarity of perception, even if just that one element is what we want to highlight, that there's a clarity of perception. And if we have the clarity, if we have the understanding, and then we could see the path. If we are bloodshed fury, we cannot see the path. If we are bloodshed fury, we cannot see the path. The smoke of anger fills everywhere and we cannot see it. The raging fire fills everywhere and we cannot see the path. We don't know which way to go. We don't know which way is safety. We're sort of surrounded and engulfed and then this kind of blinded swinging ensues.

Speaker 2: 41:56

Compassion, on the other hand, also has a benefit over anger, in the sense that we do not become like. This is in context of some conflict, one side and another side and if one person is angry and the other person doesn't like their anger and becomes angry at the other angry person, then what we end up is alike. We end up both alike in our anger, and so we would rather have a compassionate approach and again, compassion is not frailty, it is not weakness, it is not sort of being a pushover. This is the trick and the problem with these words.

Speaker 2: 43:03

In the Chonsugyong Sutra Chonsugyong, the Thousand Eyes Sutra there is a line that speaks of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, kwanseumbosal Kyesu Kwanum Debiju and essentially what it follows is that we bow before the Bodhisattva of compassion and there's, if you will, almost a warning we bow before the Bodhisattva of compassion, in a sense. Why? Because of the compassion, yeah, but we also are in a sense warned of the power of compassion. We are warned to not simply focus on, you know, when, the artistic expression of Kwanzaa Mbosal, of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, whether it's in renderings and paintings and sculpture and statues, it's a, you know, sort of gentleness, right, there's a motherly energy about it, right, and it's sort of compassion. So there's a beauty and gentleness and tenderness and that kind of thing. But that's not the whole thing, that's not the only thing. There's a power, prodigious, prodigious power, in compassion.

Speaker 2: 44:42

When done right, done right, compassion is a powerful force and it's a powerful force that keeps our heart pure. This is the big element. Anger against anger, one becomes like one's enemy. One must see the other one as an enemy and this is, and this is the opposing. Let's say I'm opposing some viewpoint, I'm opposing some side, and I start out of a purity. But if anger and those things are what motivates, then it's very easy to become impure in one's intention, in one's action. So the powerful, powerful motivation of compassion has that element that other motivational sort of principles don't have, namely that it keeps our heart pure, because we never venture into trampling onto the hearts of other human beings, because that's the other thing we have to consider.

Speaker 2: 46:36

No matter what the other person is, there is a Buddha nature there. No matter what the other person is, they have their own traumas and scars and viewpoints. Within a context of whatever, what have you? It's a complex thing, but beneath the complexity of it, beneath the ignorance of it, beneath the greed of it, beneath the selfishness of it, beneath the anger of it, beneath the whatever of it, is a Buddha nature. That is to say, in as much as I am striving to reach mine and excavate mine and clear the mirror of the mind, if you will.

Speaker 2: 47:27

If this was not true, if this was not the case, that then somebody could be rotten so to the core, then the principle of me attempting to find my Buddhahood, attempting to find my own Buddha nature is cancelled out, because then they and I are a different species. They're not human and I'm not human. If one can and another one cannot, we are not the same being, but the truth is that we are. We are the same. Underneath it all, we are the same. The differences, the uniqueness, the discrepancies, the conflicts or the connections, whatever, are more superficial, and so compassion can be a very powerful motivator, is a very powerful motivator. It has a clarity about it and it keeps our heart safe. Thank you so very much. I'm Myung An Sunim. Until the next time, take care of yourselves and each other.