Anger and Truth

November 20, 540pm



In a period of intense anger and frustration. The choice at this time is clear: either do something about the mind-state, or ride the fucker out so I can see how it feels. I guess the goal of the latter is to really build space around it, to witness it, and to have some equanimity underneath it. But even that feels like “doing something about it.” If I do that stuff, I’ll feel equanimous.

For a minute or so. It’s amazing how the schizophrenia was accelerated today. This retreat is like “Flowers for Algernon” - the mind itself changes so radically that it’s almost like being in a different subjectivity. And today (Saturday) has been up and down so many times, and sometimes for such short periods, it’s impossible even to recall it. As I intended to say to someone, the only thing that makes meditation retreat bearable is meditation.

I think i have a belief that, in anger, we say what we “really feel.” Okay, now the truth comes out: I hate myself, I hate this, I hate my body, I hate my curved back, I hate that I’m not able to be rich and successful like my friends, all that. Ok, ok. But it’s obviously true that when I’m in anger, my mind is not clear, right? That is observable. I know that it’s ok for that woman to have gotten in line ahead of me, where she did - she didn’t see where I was standing, didn’t see I was even in line. Maybe off in her own world a little, but forgivable certainly. But in anger, even now a little, I’m ready to fucking scream at her. How self-absorbed! And then she did the damn mindfulness meditation washing the dishes – how many times was that exact example used as something not to do?! To an extent, there is a ‘truth’ to these expressions of feeling - they express how I feel. But they don’t really express the truth of what’s going on in the world.

Now if we go to something like “I hate my body,” it’s trickier, since it’s not making a claim about the world, it’s really just claiming something about my beliefs. It’s not even saying something about my body - I’m not saying “I have an ugly body” or something like that. Even that is subjective, but you get the idea. It’s only saying “I hate __”. And somehow that does have more of a ring of truth to it than does “I hate this place.” Even in anger, I know I don’t hate this place really. Maybe just at the moment. And not even that. What’s interesting is that sadness came up immediately, as soon as I had that little insight about ‘ring of truth.’ I don’t want to hate my body, so thinking that “deep down” I really do, makes me sad.

The Buddhist view here is that these are all just transitory feelings. There is no true feeling “deep down” in the sense of “really, I feel this.” Since there’s no really I. Sometimes I hate my body, sometimes I think it’s completely fucking amazing. Both continue to coexist. Unfortunately, I guess.

And they coexist with periods where I may have some preference or feeling, but nothing so strong as love or hate.

So, the question is still unanswered - is anger something that shows us truth, or falsehood. Definitely not truth about the world. Truth about our feelings? Still unclear. When someone fights with their spouse and says “I can’t stand you!” clearly they are speaking some degree of truth. Clearly, though, in many cases at least, they also love the other person. I guess a more accurate way of saying ‘I can’t stand you’ is, “When you do or act like X, I experience a lot of aversion.” No claim that this is like ‘the truth’ of the situation, just- certain conditions evoke this response.

Clearly I am aversive to my own anger. I really don’t like this mindstate. I keep wanting to open up a porn file, so I can lose myself in that. What that would mean for me would be an interruption of this mind-state, because lust is so powerful, and even better a replacement of this mindstate with a pleasant one (energy, lust, etc). I do have some confidence that I can do this through meditation. Is that the goal, though? Go to the breath - serenity now?

No, I know the goal is to be present even with this anger. But, it really seems to have me right now more than I have it.

It also feels like repression to not act on it in any way. I really don’t like repression. I don’t like discipline either. Hate the way it feels. The story comes up very quickly: repression is bad. It’s unhealthy, it’s dishonest, it’s not seizing the day. This is half of Blake’s story - marriage of heaven and hell. “Better smother an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.” That’s a good line - really puts into high relief the untenability of the extreme no-repression view. What’s needed is either a golden mean (yecch) that is a marriage of heaven and hell. Hell being Dionysian, orgiastic, vibrant. Heaven being ethics. Eros and ethos.

Gafni says: Real eros doesn’t want to smother the infant. It’s pseudo-eros, trying to heal a deeper thing by going to the fridge, or smothering the infant. See who you really are, and you won’t act out that way.

By the way, I observe that this whole process of writing isn’t so different from porn. Shift away from the uncomfortable mindstate (anger) into something else, and something nice (intellectual reflection). But really, how different is that from getting equanimous underneath it? Couldn’t that be characterized as shifting from uncomfortable mindstate (anger) into comfortable mindstate (equanimity). The only difference I see is in the latter move, we are ‘with’ the energy of anger - we don’t move away from it or shush it down.

We only shush down our actions.

The anger is passing anyway. Just like the boredom - which totally had me for a little while, but which I walked through and watched it melt. And even like the sadness, which came up as I was walking in the gym and was gone 10 minutes later when I was davening maariv.

Advice to self: just allow this absurd process to happen. Don’t even try to understand or control it. That is what Sharon means by faith, or part of it anyway. This is why the practice and the external discipline is so important - takes subjectivity out of a lot of the decisions. It’s why I have to go to the 615 sit, because otherwise I’m not doing the process. That may be called for, but only in extremis, not out of mere preference to keep writing.