Awakening the Buddha Within _ Eight Steps to Enlightenment - Lama Surya Das [65]
Dealing with this challenge in today’s world really does require round-the-clock diligence; so many things are potentially disturbing. The only hardware store in town charges you twice what you think something is worth; your ex–best friend leaves town with your VCR; little Janie’s third-grade teacher is mean and punitive; some hit-and-run artist did six hundred dollars’ worth of damage to your parked car before driving off. How could you not feel angry, resentful, and mean-spirited?
I think it’s important to remember that there is nothing in the Dharma that tells us never to be angry. Anger is a human emotion; it doesn’t automatically disappear. Also it has its own logic, its own intelligence and function. If you bottle up and swallow your anger too often, you are going to make yourself ill. Meeting the challenge of ill will is not about denying, repressing, or suppressing anger. It’s about staying up to date with anger and other emotions by experiencing and releasing their energy moment by moment rather than storing them up. It’s about not carrying grudges or blaming yourself, or turning your anger inward and becoming depressed and despondent. Ideally we should be able to be sensitive and aware enough not only to feel life fully but also to let it go.
Have you ever been in a situation where you felt that someone had treated you very badly, and you couldn’t let it go? You continued to want some kind of resolution or vindication. Perhaps this went on for so long that you felt out of control, and instead of briefly befriending your anger and disappointment, you allowed these feelings to become uncomfortably close companions? The Dharma doesn’t tell you to turn your anger inward. Buddhist wisdom encourages you to look at these situations realistically, experience freely and feelingly, stop grasping, and transform your attitude.
Right now as I look out the window, a group of deer have gathered around some corn that my neighbor has put down in the snow. Most of them are grazing peacefully, but two appear jealous and are shoving the others away while trying to get more than their share. Observe animals closely, and you realize that jealousy, ill will, and, yes, compassion, arise even among the wildest. The animal kingdom has its Mother Teresas as well as its Caligulas. Think about the dogs who help take care of the physically challenged. Animal trainers recognize that some dogs are clearly more compassionate than others. Animal behaviorists have amazing stories of compassionate dolphins, elephants, and gorillas.
In his teachings, the Buddha spoke about remembering his past lives. The scriptures say that he began his path to enlightenment during a lifetime when he was a bull in one of the infernal realms. Pulling a cart, he felt compassion for the weaker animal joined with him. When he told the demon in charge of this particular hell realm that he would pull the load alone, the demon became so enraged that he struck him on the head with his trident, killing him on the spot. Thus the Buddha, by putting another being’s needs before his own, began his path to perfect enlightenment and Buddhahood. This is a lesson in Compassion 101.
On a very subtle, but no less real level, every time you see yourself on one side of the fence, with someone else on the other, you’re being tripped up by the challenge of ill will. If you empathize with them—try to see through their eyes—you might miraculously find yourself on the same side. Ill will, left on its own, can easily escalate into mean-spiritedness, anger, or rage, sometimes without our even knowing that the escalation is taking place.
Working to embody a selfless, altruistic bodhicitta and walking the Mahayana Way is living the Golden Rule. When the astronauts visited the moon or traveled through space, many commented on the transformative experience of looking at the earth and seeing it as a whole, with no fences, no borders, no countries, no wars.