Lesson for mindfulness - part 14:

Anger and ill-will

Battaramulla
Siri Sudassanarama
sadaham senasuna
Ven. Dr. Mirisse Dhammika thero

In the beginning of this Chapter we discussed anger and how to use mindfulness to cope with angry feelings. Anger is often the result of having one’s strong desires thwarted. As a result of these angry feelings, the student may start to blame others, such as parents, teachers, friends, or even society in general, for his/her unhappiness. “This is compared to having an illness which makes everything taste bitter: to an irritated mind, the world is an irritating place”. Therefore, in meditation, they should reflect on their anger and try to be intimately acquainted with anger and is characteristics. What is anger? How does it feel in the body, and in the mind? With is anger? How does it feel in the body, and in the mind? With awareness and wisdom, they should perceive anger as the root of an unpleasant state of mind. When the student focuses his awareness fully and honestly inward towards his mind, he may see that the most direct and immediate cause of his anger is in his mind. The external environment is merely the trigger that activates the seed of anger in the mind. After some period of mediation practice, they may learn to gently let go of their hostility. As Weissman and Weissman state, “Forgiving ourselves, letting go of the wise to manipulate others, is being they strong energy of aversion and transforming it into the energy of compassionate understanding.”

Here I should point out that the meditator should build awareness gradually and maintain it at every moment. Impatience for a better result is counterproductive. What is important to making progress is growth in understanding. Through understanding the unsatisfactory and painful nature of anger, hatred and aversion, people can cultivate the ability to see into themselves more clearly. They can make their minds healthier by channeling their mental energy into feelings of compassion and forgiveness towards themselves. By practicing meditation in this way, anger and its related feelings such as hatred will lose power over the meditator. I will discuss compassion towards self and others in more detail in Chapter 4 when I describe the Metta Sutta, or Loving-Kindness meditation.

Dullness and Drowsiness

The third hindrance, dullness and drowsiness, or lack of attention or the inability to concentrate properly, indicates that our mind is not alert and focused enough. Of course, dullness and drowsiness can be a result of physical fatigue, but here we are concerned with drowsiness and low energy in the absence of physical fatigue. It is in a sense a ‘lazy” mind. When we see drowsiness appear, we should appreciate that this is a natural function of the mind, especially in the untrained or undisciplined mind. The untrained mind is unstable and shaky in that it cannot maintain concentration on a single object of subject for even a short period of time. For the undisciplined mind, one thought comes and is quickly overpowered by the next thought. A perfect analogy would be like bubbles in a stream: one bubble appearing and being quickly replaced by another, as they all flow along. The untrained mind lacks energy and determination, and this results from the “unstableness” of the mind. Some students are drowsy most of the time, and it may lead to inertia, especially when doing their schoolwork. “This is compared to being in jail: one is incarcerated in one’s passive state: not engaging with any worthwhile activity, one gets nothing out of life”. Whenever they feel drowsiness, they should try to become more awake by becoming more aware: they should practice mindfulness on their drowsiness.