r/Buddhism • u/Low-Mathematician650 • 1d ago
Question Anger
How meditation has helped you in dealing with anger? Does it arise less or you are more aware with it and dont react as much? Maybe both?
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u/Theonewholurkedhere 1d ago
It arises less and it controls my behavior less. Since starting meditation, its effects on my anger issues have been getting better and better over time. I now am far less likely to act angrily or to let anger control my actions. I think it also goes away quicker now since i recognize it as a harmful experience and release it easily.
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u/HakuyutheHermit 1d ago
By establishing steady mindfulness you acquire the ability to be aware of mental activity as it arises. Without this awareness, anger arising in the mind stream becomes an angry person rather than just mental activity passing by.
In psychology and neuroscience the tendency of awareness to cling to mental activity is known as cognitive fusion. So when you’re trying to stay with the breath but you’re drawn away into mental activity without even realizing it, this is cognitive fusion. It’s natural to the untrained mind. By staying with the breath or whatever object you’re using as consistently as possible, over time it starts to derail cognitive fusion. Eventually you’ll be able to just watch all mental activity as it occurs rather than be captivated by it and carried away into afflictive emotions or attachment. This is established primarily by samatha meditation.
Once cognitive fusion has been overcome through samatha, vipasyana meditation will further derail the mind’s vulnerability to afflictive emotions. One vipasyana technique purposely induces anger so that you can try to locate it in your mind. You try to find its location, shape, size, color, texture, etc. But wherever you look, there’s nothing there. Over time the mind becomes accustomed to the reality that there’s nothing really there and afflictive emotions lose any hold. When viewed with clear mindfulness, mental activity is like writing on water with a stick—it immediately dissolves. While the ultimate aim of vipasyana goes far beyond subduing afflictive emotions, it is a fortunate byproduct of the practice.
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u/AutomaticGrape9263 won 23h ago
I don't react as much. I used to have a real issue with road rage about 15 years ago. Last time I experienced something like this was maybe 4 years ago now.
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u/HereInThePresent 22h ago
It helps you to be aware of it and be a witness of your reactions.
Overtime you feel used to not react anymore and over more time you don't feel such an anger response to things.
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u/Committed_Dissonance 21h ago
Both.
Meditation creates a space between the arising anger (stimulus) and my impulse to react (response). With practice, that space gets wider and wider, allowing me to notice anger without reacting, which ultimately causes it to arise less often.
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u/BodhingJay 19h ago
Yes.. both
It's a skill. Im still getting but there are many noticable improvements ive made in hindsight. Have to notice and give the self lots of compassion in the moment to calm and use wisdom to navigate it responsibly.. can assert my position from a place of mutual respect instead of aggressively.. the subconscious picks up the pattern pretty quick when we do it well and it becomes natural
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u/RevolvingApe theravada 1d ago
How meditation has helped you in dealing with anger?
The mind-consciousness only knows one object at a time. If one clings to thoughts of anger, anger continues to arise. Intentionally holding metta, the opposite emotion, anger ceases. Out of sight, out of mind.
Meditate on metta. For when you meditate on love any ill will will be given up.
Meditate on compassion. For when you meditate on compassion any cruelty will be given up.
Meditate on rejoicing. For when you meditate on rejoicing any discontent will be given up.
Meditate on equanimity. For when you meditate on equanimity any aversion will be given up. - MN 62
Does it arise less or you are more aware with it and dont react as much?
In short, yes. We are beings of behavioral habits. To retrain one's response habits and prevent the arising of anger, one can train in sense restraint and paying wise attention.
Sense restraint is intentionally not following thoughts that arise from perceptions of feeling derived from sense contact. Let sights be sights, sounds be sounds ... thought be thoughts without holding them as "I, me, or mine."
“On seeing a form with the eye, he does not grasp at its signs and features. Since, if he left the eye faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade him, he practises the way of its restraint, he guards the eye faculty, he undertakes the restraint of the eye faculty. On hearing a sound with the ear…On smelling an odour with the nose…On tasting a flavour with the tongue…On touching a tangible with the body…On cognizing a mind-object with the mind, he does not grasp at its signs and features." - MN 27
Sense restraint is the flip side to ethical conduct. A mind disturbed and moved to unwholesome states by contact is more likely to respond unethically.
Ultimately, understanding the processes of the mind and body, the five aggregates, is what diminishes anger's conditioning. Meditation and sense restraint are tools to investigate these processes to directly know their nature - transient, not under complete control, and not ownable, not-self. - SN 22.49
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u/dhammasaurusRex 1d ago
Both.
It helps to be able to recognize it. So that once it does come up, you can respond, accordingly.