Buddhist answers to common questions
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27 March, 2009 – Lam Shenphen Zangpo answers basic questions that every Bhutanese man, woman, and child on the street wants to know.
I have a friend who had a very unhappy childhood. Now he is bitter and angry towards everyone. Are there any Buddhist practices that could help him let go of his anger and move on with his life?
Well, there needs to be some acknowledgement of the situation by your friend. Many people with this kind of attitude either do not recognize or do not accept they have a problem. They are in denial. The first step is to awaken your friend to the problem. Only then can remedial action begin.
I’ll relate a story. Some years ago when I was staying Tokyo, I occasionally visited a store run by an elderly lady. She was very much loved by the community, and one day I mentioned this to her. She replied that it hadn’t always been the case, and explained that she had suffered an unhappy childhood followed by an abusive marriage. She felt the world was against her and she fought back. According to her, she was very unpopular.
The situation began to change, she explained, after a friend persuaded her to attend a Dharma teaching. It was a very basic teaching on cause and effect, but it struck a chord. It caused her to realize that it was her own response to the world that was perpetuating the suffering. She was caught in a downward spiral. People were mean to her, and she retaliated. The teaching woke her to reality. She was out of denial, and swore from that moment to sever the downward spiral.
Therefore, it is important that you use skilful means to make your friend aware of his problem and, at same time, offer him solutions. You have to be like the Buddha who in his first sermon proclaimed that life was suffering, but at the same time offered a means to go beyond it.
Methods are plentiful, but to be effective they must have a view. Like the various parts of the eco-system, we are all connected and dependent on each other. Failing to recognize this fact creates a sense of alienation, which, as the old Japanese lady realized, is often followed by bitterness and anger. In her younger days she did not realize that her hostile attitude was like a tree shedding toxic leaves onto its own roots. She was poisoning herself.
Tonglen is a Buddhist practice that offers an effective means to challenge our ingrained fears and to dissolve our clinging to the ego. If your friend can do it regularly, I think it might help him overcome his anger and bitterness.
Practically, how do we practice tonglen? Well, first we think of someone who is suffering, perhaps a terminally ill patient alone in hospital or maybe a street-child in some anonymous city. We contemplate their fears and hardships and breathe in their suffering. On an inhalation we aim to take on all their pain and allow them the space to open and relax. On an exhalation, we send them happiness and whatever relieves their pain and fears.
During the practice, it is common to experience resistance or even anger. We just don’t want to take on another’s suffering or give them our happiness, and our deepest fears are represented by a heaviness in the pit of our stomach or a tightness in our chest. At such moments, we switch our attention to others who are likewise unable to face their fears, and we begin to take on their pain and send them happiness and joy.
In the same way that knots are removed from matted hair by continuous combing, our fears and bitterness are removed by repeated practice of tonglen. Over and over we breathe in others’ suffering and over and over we breathe out happiness and joy.
Let’s be honest. We have spent our whole lives chasing pleasure and running from pain, and it hasn’t worked. The same shadows follow us. Tonglen offers a means to challenge these fears and to finally lay them to rest. At the same time, the practice enables us to awaken our innate compassion and to experience the vastness of mind. We let go of past traumas and develop a spacious attitude to present problems. Life is no longer such a big deal.
Therefore, to return to your question, it is important that your friend first acknowledges that he has a problem. If he can do this, then recommend that he begin tonglen as a daily practice. In addition, he can also do it spontaneously. For example, if he sees someone in pain. At that very moment he can starting breathing in their suffering and sending them happiness.
As the Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn says: “Breathe – You are alive!”
Source: Kuenselonline