The Buddha’s teaching speaks of two principal types of wisdom. The first understands karma and its effects and knows the functioning of phenomena in the relative world. The second realizes the deeper mode of existence, that all phenomena and persons lack independent or inherent existence. Both of these types of wisdom aid in the cessation of unhappiness that produces anger, but the latter especially relaxes our mind by cutting all false projections. For that reason, we will now discuss how to use it to counteract and eventually eliminate anger and other painful, disturbing emotions.
As noted previously, anger and other destructive emotions are based on false projections of the mind. While the inappropriate attention that nourishes anger projects or exaggerates negative qualities, our ignorance projects an even deeper distortion: independent or inherent existence. While at one level we know that things exist dependently—sprouts grow from seeds, a table depends on its parts—things appear to our mind in the opposite way, as if they had their own essence and existed under their own power, independent from everything else. When we are upset, our “self” or “I” similarly appears to be solid and to exist inherently.
In The Wheel of Sharp Weapons, Dharmaraksita states:
All things are like images found in a mirror,
And yet we imagine they are real, very real.
All things are like mist or like clouds on a mountain,
And yet we imagine they are stable and firm.
Our foe—our insistence on ego-identities
Truly our own, which we wish were secure—
And our butcher—the selfish concern for ourselves—
Like all things these appear to be inherently existent,
Though they never have been inherently existent at all.
Although they appear to be concrete and real,
They have never been real, any time, anywhere.
They are not things we should burden with ultimate value,
Nor should we deny them their relative truth.
How do we apply this understanding to our daily lives and especially to situations in which we are vexed or even infuriated? Let’s consider, as an example, a situation in which we are angry because others have betrayed our trust or been prejudiced against us. Underneath the anger is hurt, and together with the anger and hurt, we feel a strong sense of “self”—there is a solid “I” that is hurt and infuriated. We sit quietly and ask ourselves, “Who is this ‘I’ that hurts so much?” or “Who is this ‘I’ that should be respected and treated better?” In other words, we try to find the “I,” the person that is feeling those strong emotions. If such a solid, concrete “I” exists, it should be findable under investigation. We should be able to locate exactly who it is that feels hurt, that deserves to be treated better, that wants to be respected.
Then, we undertake an investigation of the sort described in detail in Buddhist books on wisdom: Am “I” my body? Am “I” my mind? Am “I” totally separate from my body and mind? When we analyze deeply, we cannot find this self-sufficient “I.” We are left with only its absence, its non-existence. Abiding in this state of not finding, we experience freedom and peace. There is no solid person who hurts. There is no independently existing person that has to be defended. Our mind and heart rest in openness.
Another way to see the non-existence of the solid “I” that feels hurt is to ask ourselves, “How do I know I’m hurt?” When we investigate, we see that we know this only because the feeling of hurt exists. Dependent on that feeling, we generate the thought, “I’m hurt.” In other words, because either our body or our mind feels hurt, we think, “I am hurt.” Without taking our body and mind into consideration, we would not generate the thought “I.” Thus, the “I” arises dependently. It exists only in relationship to, in dependence upon, our body and mind. It does not stand on its own. Therefore, it does not exist from its own side, independently. It is empty of being solid or of existing under its own power. Thinking in this way, we arrive at an open state focused on the lack of a concrete “I” who needs to be defended and whose happiness is most important.
From a Buddhist viewpoint, it is possible to eliminate anger and other destructive emotions from our mindstream completely so that they never arise again. How is this achievable? As we have seen, anger misapprehends its objects. It is based on the exaggeration or super-imposition of negative qualities. in addition, it is founded on ignorance, which projects an independent “I” that is unrelated to anything else. Believing in a solid, separate “I,” we relate to the world in a self-centered way, considering everything pertaining to ourselves to be the most important.
We can oppose anger on two fronts. First we familiarize ourselves with love, compassion, and patience, because, being accurate and beneficial emotions, they counteract the self-centeredness that lies behind anger. We can do the meditations to generate these and use them as antidotes to anger. When we are habituated to these positive emotions, they inhibit the arising of anger even in situations where we previously would have been irritated or hostile.
Secondly, we investigate the nature of reality, specifically analyzing the self that is angry. By seeing that the self and all phenomena exist dependently, not independently, we develop the wisdom realizing the emptiness of inherent existence. Familiarizing ourselves with this wisdom through deep and persistent meditation has the power to eliminate ignorance and anger from our mind forever.
It is not an easy job to develop this wisdom which directly perceives emptiness. This realization depends on stable meditative concentration, which in turn depends on living our life with ethical discipline. Directly realizing emptiness also entails purifying our mind of the imprints of our past destructive actions and accumulating a store of positive potential through acting constructively. Thus many other practices are required to lay the foundation for and to support the development of the wisdom realizing reality.
For this reason, we must study and listen to teachings from a qualified spiritual mentor. We must think about these teachings and discuss them with others to ensure that we correctly understand them. Finally, we must put them into practice through meditation, so that our mind becomes thoroughly familiar with them. In that way, our mind is transformed and we progress towards enlightenment or Buddhahood—the state in which all mental defilements have been eliminated and all good qualities have been enhanced to their fullest. Since each of us has the Buddha potential, the basic purity of the mind, enlightenment is a state that each of us can attain if we expend the effort to create the causes for it.