Protective Anger

This is something I have been thinking about in our current environment. With so much polarity in our greater community, we stop listening to one another and when we do we start seeing one another as enemies. The Buddha taught 2600 years ago that hatreds never cease through hatred ... through love alone they cease. This is an eternal law. The challenge we face is that our own righteous anger can be a barrier to listening and close us off from love.

Sometimes I think we fall into this trap when we see our anger as " righteous", a species of anger the embraces duality and sees only victims and perpetrators, and anyone of a different tribe as alien and a threat. Unfortunately for us all, regardless of what side of the polarity we abide, we are both complicit of such thinking. It makes me wonder how much of my righteous anger is more about my suffering and could the depth of my righteous anger be the level of my own suffering and more about me no matter how much I pretend it is about others? And if that is true should I not attend to that suffering within me that is overflowing?

 

I want to always remember that protective anger, it is not violent but assertive, not blinded by “righteousness”, not fickle, but determined. Protective anger is awake, intentional, wise and focused on liberating ALL beings from suffering delusion and stupidity

 

Namu Amida Butsu