As society gets angrier, the ancient Buddhist teachings are more relevant than ever
Are we getting angrier? A video that went viral last week showed a 60 year-old man pounding the windscreen of a woman who’d honked him. Eyes bulging, spewing profanity, he was seized by rage, like the Incredible Hulk in a Tesco car park.
Anger is hardwired. We need it. Faced with a threat, the adrenaline and cortisol we need to fly or fight flood the brain. But sources like the Gallup Global Emotions Report say our societies are getting more angry. Serious violent crime is down, but there are more attacks on staff, more road rage and an angrier, more polarised edge to our politics.
One explanation blames the algorithms that know we’re more likely to click on stories that anger us. Then the echo chamber amplifies it into righteous indignation. ‘If someone behaves like that to me, I will call them out,’ said the man in the car park, just after he’d been found guilty.
It’s a big theme in Buddhism. One kind of anger wants to burst through frustrations but it can also fester and become hatred and aggression. In a famous verse from the Dhammapada the Buddha mimics our minds. ‘“He hurt me, he insulted me, he robbed me.” Those who dwell on such thoughts will not know peace.’
But what should we do, especially if we really have been hurt or robbed? The Buddhist insight is that when we indulge anger we bring additional suffering on ourselves. As the Buddhist sage Shantideva says, it tears us on its thorns. So we must develop patience. It doesn’t take much to test us: a weekend with the inlaws or being put on hold at a call centre can do it. ’Putting up with little cares,’ says Shantideva, ‘I’ll train myself to bear great adversity.’
With some self-restraint, we can turn towards our emotions. Tibetan Buddhism has two classes of deity and along with peaceful Buddha figures are wrathful forms: demonic in appearance, with bloodshot eyes and swollen bellies, they trample on corpses and drink blood from skulls. The imagery is extreme but its aim is to evoke the immense energy anger contains and how it might feel to master it.
We need that power. There will always be angry men in car parks. Women, too. But when anger is harnessed, Buddhism says, it brings the dignity of self-control and the happiness of a peaceful mind.
