Buddhist Concept of Anger/ Hatred

Preface

This is an assignment paper for Buddhist Ethics subject and the topic that I am going to describe in detail is Buddhist Concept of Anger / Hatred.  This topic actually is very interesting, and talking about Anger. The aim of this assignment is to let all of you know  the way to eliminate anger and this is for everyone to observe in detail. So I would like to sincerely give my respect and thanks to our teacher Ven. Ashin Sumanacara for giving me a great chance to write this assignment and this work will pay off to me.

 Introduction

In this assignment paper, I am going to describe all about Anger that concept of   Buddhism and also how Buddhism shows the way out of this anger or how to kill this anger when the anger is appearing suddenly. We all know what anger is nature that all living being experienced.

Anger is a completely normal and human emotion. And sometime it is very hard to control when somebody makes angry and it leads to negative condition, and also turns destructive, it can lead to problems, problems at society, problems at work, in your personal relationships, and in quality of your life. And what should we do if the anger coming to us immediately, let’s see in detail that I am going to describe in body text.

What is Anger in Buddhism?

According to Buddhism view there are  the three poisons that  leads to evil and suffering . The Three Poisons are lobha, dosa and moha, or greed, hatred or anger, and ignorance. Now I am going to talk about only Dosa in detail what looks is like. We can call Dosa as violence mind, and it involves grief, fear, depression, anger, and grudge. This violence mind is attacking, planning to kill other people - all of these are dosa.

Dosa is conditioned by lobha, we do not want to lose and we do not really ignore what is dear to us and when this actually happens some bad situation we are sad. Sadness is dosa, and  it is really  akusala. If we do not know things
as they are, we believe that people and things last. However, people and things are only phenomena which arise and fall away immediately. The next moment they have changed already and it happen very fast. If we can see things as they are we will be less overwhelmed by sadness. It makes no sense to be sad about what has happened already.

There is one story in Buddha time that we can read in Theirigatha,I think this story also related with Lobha, Dosa and Moha. The story is about the king's wife Ubbiri mourned the loss of her daughter Jiva. Every day she went to the cemetery and cry in deep sadness. But one day she suddently met the
Buddha and the Buddha told her that in that cemetery about eighty-four thousands of her daughters (in past lives) had been burnt.

The Buddha said to her: Ubbiri, who wails in the wood Crying, O Jiva! O my daughter dear! Come to yourself! See, in this burying-ground Are burnt full many a thousand daughters dear, And all of them were named like unto her.
 Now which of all those Jivas do you mourn?

After the Buddha  gives Dhamma to her then she developed insight and saw things as they really are. And after listening Dhamma talk by Buddha, she immediately attained Arahatship. This is one story that concerning with Lobha, Dosa and Moha.

Kinds of Dosa

According to Abhidhamma there are two types  of Dosa mula citta that we have studied in Abhidhamma. one is asarikharika and one is sasankharika. And I just want to give an example to understand clearly on these two Dosa mula citta that the first one Asarikharika is that  when, for example, one becomes angry after having been reminded of the disagreeable actions of someone else. And another one Sasankharika dosa mula citta is more intense than when it is sasankharika. Dosa-mula-cittas are called patigha.sampayutta, or accompanied by patigha, which is another word for dosa. Dosa.mula-cittas are always accompanied by domanassa. The two type of dosa-mula-citta are

1. Accompanied by unpleasant feeling, arising with anger, unprompted (Domanassa-sahagatam, patigha-sampayuttam, asankharikam ekam)

2. Accompanied by unpleasant feeling, arising with
   anger, prompted (Domanassa-sahagatam, patigha sampayuttam, sasankharika ekam.

As we have understood, there are many degrees of dosa; it may be coarse or more subtle. When dosa is coarse, it causes akusala kamma-patha through body, speech or mind.

Two kinds of akusala kamma-patha through the body can be performed with dosa-mula-citta, killing and stealing. If we want less violence in the world we should try not to kill. When we kill we accumulate a great deal of dosa.

The monk's life is a life of non-violence; in fact the monk does not hurt any living being in the world. However, not everyone is able to live like the monks. Defilements are anatta, they arise because of conditions.

The purpose of the Buddha's teachings is not to lay down rules which forbid people to commit ill deeds, but to help people to develop the wisdom which eradicates defilements.

How to overcome the Anger?

Anger is caused by greed and self-attachment and makes us discriminate against whoever disturbs our happiness, producing the enemy.

 If we are a victim of anger and hatred, try to feel sincerely that these forces are our enemies. This is not imagination, it is reality. They are our enemies.

And we should think of anger as a thief. When we are angry with someone, feel that our anger are a human being who has come to steal our inner wealth, our peace and poise. If we are wise, we will never allow a thief to enter into us. We should think of hatred, too, as a human being who has come to rob us of our love, which is also our inner wealth.

When we realize that somebody is a thief, immediately we take precautions against him. So we have to feel that our anger are  veritable thief, our hatred is a veritable thief. If we regard our anger and hatred in this way, then naturally our will always stand at the door to our existence and keep our door properly guarded. If we see a thief there, we will not allow him to enter.

And also that we have to know and realise clearly that there is no peace, no joy, no satisfaction in the anger or hatred that we are offering and becoming.

When we offer anger, we have to feel that we have become anger. When we offer hatred, feel that we ourselves have become hatred. The moment we want to give something to someone, feel that we ourselves are that thing, and that is why we are in a position to give it. When we offer something to someone, we expect to get some inner satisfaction. But if we give anger to someone, he does not appreciate it and we also do not get any satisfaction from it.

 Now, when we give something to someone and he does not appreciate it, then you feel miserable. If our gift is not going to be well appreciated, then we don't give it. we try to give something else, which will please the person.

It is no wonder if we, in our everyday life, feel angry with somebody about something. But we should not allow this feeling to reside in our mind. We should try to control it at the very moment it has arisen.

Conclusion

We would like to live in this  world with harmony and unity among nations and we are disturbed when people commit acts of violence. We should consider what is the real cause of war and discord between people: it is the defilements which people have accumulated. When we have aversion we think that other people or unpleasant situations are the cause of our aversion. However, our accumulation of dosa is the real cause that aversion arises time and again. If we want to have less dosa we should know the characteristic of dosa and we should be aware of it when it arises.

So try to understand and try to associate with others in every situation and very actions. And try to follow what the Buddhist gives advice to eliminate anger or hatred. By going this way and following this precious teaching, you probably reach to Nibbana gradually.

References

http://buddhism.about.com/od/basicbuddhistteachings/a/anger.htm

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/piyatissa/bl068.html

http://www.sgi.org/buddhism/buddhist-concepts/anger.html

http://www.urbandharma.org/udnl2/nl030904.html