Expert: Laurie McLauglin - 3/31/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hi,

 I'm not really a buddhist, but I am learning buddhist technigues to better manage my anger and anxiety. I have one concern, in my readings there is a section called Anger attachment and it sounds to me that I am being instructed that my anger can come from my attachments to objects and people. But my question is that I work with someone whom I am attracted to and like my buddhist text says I find my self in a state of anxiety and stress when around her because of my feelings towards her, even though she doesn't share my attraction, I feel it would be very hard to avoid her. I would like to know more on how to manage my emotions and not get upset when I am at work. How does buddhism say to adress such an attachment and avoid become stressed, anxious or anger because of such a strained atmosphere with a co- worker. Thank You for you time.
Bryan

ANSWER: Thank you for letting me answer your question.  It is a great question and a fairly universal one.

I am by no means a complete expert on such matters and if you ask 10 Buddhist practitioners, they will give you 10 different answers.  But I will do my best to give you some clarification based on what I have learned thusfar.

Yes, you are correct.  Anger can come from your attachment to things. Buddha taught that the way to end suffering is to learn to let go of things that cause you to suffer, such as anger and anxiety.

Buddha’s first teaching was about suffering.  We suffer, for example, when we have strong emotions for people when they don’t feel the same towards us. We spend our whole lives suffering because we are grasping at things we want and we are trying hard to avoid the things we don’t want. We want someone to like us and we get anxious if they do not.  Perhaps that is because we are creating expectations which are not met.  Our ego gets involved and we believe we deserve things. In my Buddhist practice, I work with dealing with all the situations I just mentioned to help reduce my own suffering.

There are a couple ways that as a practicing Buddhist, I have learned to let go of negative emotions and feelings, for myself.  Hopefully they might help you. The first way is through learning and practicing meditation. It is actually quite easy to learn and with practice, one can eventually, reduce and eventually eliminate one’s negative knee jerk emotions and reactions. This will allow you to see the girl at work, for example and have no negative emotional reaction to her.

We think we are in charge of our lives, right?  That we have free will.  But as you see – you have these emotions which are causing you to suffer and they seem to have a mind of their own and you cannot help yourself.  You see the woman and you immediately get anxious and angry. Where is our free will now?

Developing a meditation practice will, if we work on it, puts us back in control of our own emotions and helps us not to suffer.  And it is actually very easy to do. All it takes is practice and dedication to the practice.  But that is not hard, once one discovers the benefits one receives from this practice.

First one finds a quiet place.  You only need 10 to 15 minutes a day.  One sits comfortably with ones eyes closed.  One takes a few deep breaths and then lets ones breathing settle to a regular rate.  Then all one does is focus ones attention on either the rising and falling of the belly when one breathes in and out or one focuses ones attention on the sensation of the air on the upper lip as one breaths in and out.  One feels the cold sensation as one breathes in and the warm sensation as one breathes out.  That’s it.

But when we start out, we find that as soon as we try to concentrate only on our breath, one realizes that one can also see the many thoughts that crowd into our minds all the time.  So, the practice becomes that when one recognizes a thought forming, one simply acknowledges it and then returns ones mind to the sensation of the breath.  One does not follow the thought or grasp onto the thought.  Eventually one will be able to keep ones mind on the breath without distractions for the whole fifteen minutes.

The benefit is that one can apply this technique throughout ones day. With practice, one can begin to recognize ones thoughts as they are arising and also recognize if they are beneficial, neutral or harmful thoughts as they are arising and choose to follow them or not before they turn into full blown actions or emotions.  So, as you practice this simple breathing meditation, if the woman in question comes into the room, instead of the knee jerk reaction of becoming anxious and angry, one can simply recognize that the thought is arising and choose to let the thought fade away without engaging in it.

Eventually by doing this practice, one’s mind becomes less crowded with thoughts and one’s life becomes more peaceful, as we learn to live more and more in the present moment and not get pushed around by our own emotions.   We regain control over our own lives.

We get so angry, the Buddha says because we believe something to be existent from its own side and possessing of qualities that make us feel one way or another.  Until we study Buddhism and understand the world as it really is, we believe that the person, for example, you are interested in is inherently real and has inherent beauty and our not being able to attain this beauty causes us to suffer.

Well, the Buddha said – we suffer because we see things incorrectly.  If we did not see things incorrectly, we would not suffer – that is logical, right?  Because no one wants to suffer so perhaps we are causing our own suffering by mistaken views.

But the view that you have of that woman is simply a projection of your own mind.  Here’s what I mean.  If someone was truly beautiful; if beauty was an inherent quality of that person, then that person would always look beautiful no matter what time of the day or night – and furthermore, everyone would see that person as beautiful because beauty was inherent to that person.

But I suspect that not everyone in the world would see that woman as beautiful.  When we see something we like, we naturally intensify the good qualities about it. You see her as beautiful now.  Let’s say she started liking you and you guys started going out.  What if suddenly she dumps you for another guy?  Will you think of her as beautiful then?  What about when she gets old?  Will she be beautiful then?  Beauty is not an inherently existent part of her nature.  Otherwise she would always be beautiful no matter what. This of course is the same for all the qualities you believe she possesses that make her attractive to you.

It is you that is putting the label “beautiful” on her; or desirable, or friendly, or kind, or gentle – or any other label.  I am not talking about her internal beauty now (her soul, if you will). But, our ego sees something our senses find pleasing and we grasp at it and form attachments to it.  It is then we suffer. We suffer because we make expectations based on our mistaken view.

But these feelings are as natural to us as breathing.  Our grasping, wishing, anxiety.  These are all normal emotions and we just have to suffer through them, right?  Nope.  The Buddha teaches us how to let go of these negative emotions.

He teaches something called dependent arising. The good qualities of the woman you are in love with came into being in dependence on many things.  She looks the way she does in dependence on many things – her sense of style, her genetic make up, her karma and your karma with her – plus a myriad of other causes that has you perceiving her as beautiful.  Again, it is not something inherent within her.

Where is her beauty really? In her eyes?  What about her figure? Can you point to one specific thing on her body and say – “There! That is her beauty!”  No.  Her beauty is not in any one specific part of her body.  So, if it is not in any of her parts – how can her beauty be in the whole collection?  Because if it was, in the whole collection, if she lost her finger in an accident, then she would not be beautiful, because she would no longer possess the entire collection of parts she has now. It gets tricky.  

So, perhaps it is us that labels her as beautiful (or desirable or what have you) and it is not inherently part of her nature.  But we grasp it as if it was inherent in her when in fact we are just imputing that on her and then believing it as truly existent.
We can begin to let go of our anxiety and anger and attachments when we begin to realize things are not really the way we have been taught they are.

So, there is the mental – logical side Buddha gave us to help us let go of our negative emotions and stop ourselves from suffering.

I know this may not have been the kind of answer you were looking for but I will be happy to clarify anything about the answer you wish.


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: This was very informative and helpful, I have trouble though with the mediation process. Like I watch my breathing and stomache/ chest motions, but the closing of my eyes and clearing of my mind is thr toughest trick. When I try the just one eye closed trick, my attention becomes focused on what ever is in my field of vision and if I close both eyes it becomes like day dreaming instead and all the goofiness in my mind pours out. I was wondering if you had any more tips to share.

Answer
I am glad that my last answer was of use to you.

Thanks for letting me answer your question about meditation.  First off, you are not alone.  It definitely takes practice to learn to be a good meditator and to benefit from the meditation practice. And those issues that you are experiencing are quite common.

If I may offer two sayings that I have learned that helped me to develop the patience to keep practicing even when it felt like I wasn’t getting very far.  Geshe Kelsang Gyatso always says “Try, don’t worry.” Geshe Chekawa said “Abandon all hope for results.” In other words, don’t worry that you are not meeting any expectations you might have.  It does not matter.  This will take as long as it takes.  As long as you are practicing consistently, eventually, the results will come.  So, don’t lose hope.

Now, as far your specific issues about meditation, it took me about five years of meditation to learn to meditate with my eyes partly open. The reason I can do it now, is because although my eyes are open, I am not looking out, I am focused within.  But as I said, it took five years to get to that point.  So, don’t worry if it does not work for you to keep your eyes open during meditation.

The nature of our mind is expansive. When we think normally, our minds feel very constrained and small.  But actually, as you learn to meditate, you will see that its nature is quite expansive, like the sky. For me, it is very helpful to visualize my mind as large as the sky.  The thoughts are clouds that move through the sky. Some people prefer to think of the mind as the ocean and the thoughts are like fish. The nature of the mind is clear like a cloudless sky or a clear ocean. Ironically, the thoughts which we usually consider to be our mind, are not. Our mind is the expansiveness that holds the thoughts.

So, if all the thoughts you usually have are crowding in on you, imagine your mind as vast as the sky (or ocean).  Then we can separate the thoughts and we automatically stop holding on to the thoughts.  Once we begin to visualize the mind as expansive, we can visualize the thoughts as clouds.  And just as clouds, we can simply name them “thought, feeling, sound, idea, memory”, ect., and once we name them, just let them pass through the sky of the mind and return our thought to the breath.

Eventually, you will notice that your mind is becoming clearer. You will not have to clear your mind, your mind will do it for you. The key is not to attach to any of the thoughts, feelings, sounds, ideas, memories that come into your mind. Of course, you will attach to them out of habit.  But once you realize that you have attached to one, simple bless it and let it go and return your mind to the rising and falling of your belly. Do not chastise or beat yourself up.  Simply return your thought back to your breathing.

You will begin to develop mindfulness – that is the part of the mind that is aware of what is going on every moment. Notice, I said aware – not in control. And with mindfulness, you will be able to return your mind to the breath more and more quickly eventually. And mindfulness will come in right handy in a myriad of other ways as you will see later down the road.

If you find yourself daydreaming, the moment, you notice it, let it go, and return your thoughts to your breath. Our mindfulness is like a muscle that we need to develop and most of us don’t even realize we can control our minds so of course our mindfulness muscle will need developing.

See if any of these ideas helps you.  Let me know either way. If this does not help, let me know and I will suggest other things.  But give it a couple weeks and make sure you are consistently meditating as many times a week as you can preferably at the same time each day.

I hope this works for you. Namaste - Laurie