I had the good fortune to cover Thich Nhat Hanh speaking on fostering peace at Loyola University in 2003, for Yoga Chicago magazine. He spoke at length about how to deal with anger on a personal level.
“Every one of us has a seed of anger that lies deep in the depths of our consciousness. When that seed of anger is able to sleep quietly we are able to laugh and to lead our daily life, but if someone comes and says something and does something touching the seed of anger in us, that seed of anger will manifest as an energy of anger in the upper level of our consciousness and we will be inhabited by that energy of anger and we will suffer. If we do not know how to handle the anger we will allow the anger to possess us and push us to say and do things to create suffering for us and do things to the other person or persons. That is why a good practitioner when she knows that anger is manifesting, she immediately goes back to her breathing.”
We shouldn’t try to fight anger. “Mindfulness is just recognizing that anger is there and embraces anger in the most tender way. When your child, your baby suffers and cries, you as the mother go into the room of your baby and the first thing you do is to pick your baby up and hold your baby tenderly in your two arms. You do not know what is the cause of the suffering of your baby, but the fact that you pick up your baby and hold him or her tenderly in your arms, you can already bring a relief. Your anger, your fear, your violence–you don’t know yet what is the nature of it, the roots of it. But if you know how to generate the energy of mindfulness and concentration and recognize it and embrace it tenderly with the practice of mindful breathing, mindful walking, you can bring relief to your yowling baby, which is your anger, your fear or your despair.”
Such mindfulness doesn’t happen overnight. “We shouldn’t wait until an emotion comes to begin to practice because if so we’ll forget the practice,” he said. “Every day we have to devote five minutes to deep belly breathing–mindful breathing–and in three weeks it will become a habit. A good habit. And when a strong emotion manifests you will remember how to practice.”
Nor can it be done in a void. It’s important to have the support of a community, or Sangha. He said, “For those of us who are just beginners in the practice, we need a brother or a sister to assist us in difficult moments.” He wrote in Touching Peace (1992) that interpersonal relationships are the key to success in mindfulness practice, and “Without an intimate, deep relationship with at least one person, transformation is unlikely.”
He concluded by reminding us that we can choose which seeds we want to grow and that peace begins at home. “Our family and our school should be the place where we practice selective watering, so that the seeds of hatred and fear will not be watered anymore–instead the seeds of joy, peace, understanding and compassion will have a lot of chances to be watered and educated. Politicians, journalists–we all have to come together and have a discussion as to how to reorganize our way of daily life. There is no way to peace–peace is the way.”
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