Volume 6, Number 2, May 1998

It is not wrong to seek expression of perfection,
but you seek in the wrong place.
Do not seek outside the Self, not in ritual or prayer,
not in austerity practice nor determination to betterment,
as if these could produce perfection.
For I tell you that perfection is already present.
It cannot be produced. You have not to attain it, but only to learn to enact it.
The question then becomes not "where is perfection to be found?" but
"what blocks the clearest expression of the Divine
which is the inherent essence of this Self?"
When you inquire closely, you will find that answers are fear and the voices of fear.
"Ahh, Then I shall abandon fear, and caste out its expressions," you reply.
No, no no! Nothing is to be caste away. Nothing!
You shall not abandon fear but embrace fear and transmute the energy it offers,
bringing it to the service of love.
Do you think fear itself is dual with the Divine, that it needs to be destroyed? How could that be?
Fear is the teacher.
It's omnipresence is a reminder that you have a choice.
The choice is not to destroy fear but to cease to heed fear as master.
The choice between love and fear speaks not of destruction
but of responsibility and awareness. Of love. Of choice.
Of awakening into the realization of that choice.

Fear is an expression of love. You must understand this or you can go no further.

Aaron

From Aaron's upcoming new book, Human.

A February morning. As always, there is much to do, and little time for it all. I awoke at 5 and meditated for an hour, candles offering a soft glow to the pre-dawn morning. That hour was one of movement, mind touching the arising and dissolution of one thought after another. Next week I leave for 3 weeks of retreat. Taxes, newsletter, class preparation, private meetings, and more must be done first. Sound familiar? First morning light found me at my desk with letters and class planning. My house needs to be cleaned. My children and husband want some of my time and energy and I want to be with them. Yet even the joy of spending time with loved ones can feel like a burden when one is very busy.

One of my favorite Buddhist scriptures is the Metta Sutra. "Sutra" or sutta may simply be read as "talk" or "scripture." The usual translation for "metta" is lovingkindness. So this is a talk on lovingkindness, from the Buddha to his disciples. I quote the beginning:

He goes on to say how, once this inherently kind nature is stabilized in us, we may offer our loving thoughts and wishes to all beings. So we are to nurture these loving qualities, to be humble, straightforward, peaceful and kind, contented, unburdened … Unburdened with duties! What does it mean to be unburdened?

Some people have read this as an invitation to go off into the wilderness, to leave the sometimes chaotic and difficult circumstances of everyday life and find tranquil surroundings where mind and body may be undisturbed and at rest. I don't believe this is what he meant though. Yes, it is helpful, even necessary, to have times of outer quiet. I'm a firm advocate of retreats, for myself and others, and spend at least 2 months a year on retreat myself. But "unburdened with duties" does not mean to create a life for ourselves that's free of duties, but to learn to experience those duties in a new way.

Psalm 100 directs us: "Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing …" In a similar vein, Aaron often suggests to me, " do it with love or not at all." I want to share a story, a memory from many years ago, extracted from my journal:

When we ask what would allow this freedom from a sense of "burden" in our lives we must begin with the question, what is a burden? How does joyful service become burden?

Are you familiar with the Greek myth of Sisyphus? He was a king who angered the gods and for this they condemned him to hell. His fate: every day he had to push a boulder up a hill and at night it would roll back down. Why is his task "hell," or phrased differently, why is it a burden?

There is his attachment to getting it done, his desire that it could be finished, permanent! But nothing in this conditioned world is permanent. We all know that deeply, from our own experience. What needs it to be permanent? When I ask that for myself, the answers I receive are "self," the small ego self, and "fear."

The question then is, how do I attend to these fears so I can come back to joyful service? How do I relate to the difficult experiences which move through me? To allow this, we first must be present with experience, but so often, our inclination seems to be escape.

Where do we start? With deepening awareness! I want to share below a note from Mary, a meditation student:

Let us take this into practice. Sitting this morning with mind racing, thoughts arose of one thing after another which needed to be done. I focused, not on the content of planning, but on the tensions in the body. Each thought or sensation carries its own energy. Each has its characteristics, may feel hot or icy, sharp or smooth, prickly, tight, contracting … We teach labeling here but this labeling can also be a trap. When I note "planning," that label can be a way to categorize the thought, and thus to control it, to be a "somebody" who is once again safe and in control.

Instead, can I allow the direct experience of that thought, not controlling it, fixing it, or doing anything with it except to allow myself to be fully present with it, to allow it to touch me deeply. The same instruction can be used with any object which arises into experience, such as a physical sensation or emotion. So what do we do with these large "scavenger fish" in our lives? How do we attend to experience when it is heavy, confused, even overwhelming, and thus becomes "burden?" How do we practice being present with our experience?

I want to share from a recent class in which we spoke of this practice: What follows is simply the transcript made of that class talk.

In meditation and in daily life there are going to be a constant onslaught of physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions. Some of them are going to be unpleasant and we're going to contract around them. How do you respond to that contraction? Now, this gets subtle. The question isn't only how do we respond to the contraction. That's the first question. For most of us, the response is a kind of barricade, a separation from experience. At some quiet time of reflection, you might want to ask yourself, "Why have I responded that way to the contraction, creating further separation?"

When there's a sense of threat, it's very natural to either try to run or try to barricade ourselves or try to fight. If we're very determined not to fight, one of the natural ways that we've trained ourselves to deal with this unpleasantness is to disassociate from it. But when we do this, we fragment ourselves. We stop giving credence to our own experience and we say, "This shouldn't be the experience," rather than just, "this is the experience."

So it's ironic because ultimately creating separation doesn't work but it's a way that we've attempted to be safe. We need to see that first, to honor ourselves for trying to do something that offers safety even if it wasn't the most skillful choice.

When my children were young there was a large dog that lived on the block and whose owners often let him loose. He was not a friendly dog. When my children would see him come into our yard, they'd scream and run to the house. My first impulse was to yell at them and say, "Don't run from that dog." But I realized what they are doing is what they think will make them safe. In order to teach them to do what really will make them safe, I have to make them consciously aware that they're afraid and that they want to be safe. I could train the children not to run. But if the dog came bounding in and they didn't see him at first, there's a certain point where whatever I had taught them would fail. But if it came from within, if it came from a very clear place that said, "I feel afraid when I see Charlie. I don't like Charlie. I don't feel safe. I want to be safe. And I know that just sitting here or getting slowly up and walking to the house is the way to be safe," then they could open up their hearts to their fear and not have to be reactive to it. They could start to respond in a much more centered way.

And so working with all that through the years, the boys learned when they saw Charlie, to say "Hello Charlie, hello fear," and either continue their play or walk to the house. Charlie wasn't much interested in them then, and would just go his way.

We really have to respect that within us which wants to be safe and sometimes has reverted to very unskillful behavior to be safe. Instead of judging ourselves for that behavior we have to be willing to go back a step and acknowledge those feelings of vulnerability, of anger, of loss of control, of desire and how much fear and sadness there might be in desire; of feeling abandoned; of feeling a sense of loss. It's only when we can really let ourselves be touched by these experiences that they stop having any hold over us. For only here do we begin to know them for what they are, which is-the Pali word is sankhara, volitional formations-objects, including thoughts and sensations, which arise when the conditions are present for them to arise, which in themselves serve as conditions for future arising, and which will cease when the conditions cease, and are not "me" or "mine."

Through your practice you can learn to allow yourself to be touched by experience. You must first acknowledge, "This is going to be hard" or "This is hard." Give yourself credit just for trying to do it. That's a lot further than many people get. To let yourself be touched, really to stand naked, no defenses, what does this mean? We're never going to do that perfectly; we don't need to. There's an image in Buddhism of the spiritual warrior. When I first heard this term I pictured somebody with armor and a sword. Finally I came to picture the spiritual warrior as somebody who stands in a loincloth or totally naked, without defenses. He / she does have weapons, but those weapons are presence, honesty and lovingkindness. They don't strike back at that which has approached, but create more space so they can't be thrown off balance by it.

To be a warrior means, when it's cold, being willing to experience that cold directly on your body. When it's hot, being willing to experience that hot sun directly on your body. When somebody is angry at you, being willing to allow that experience of being blamed, feeling scorned or humiliated. How does that feel? When you're judging and angry with yourself, how does that anger feel? What is the experience, the direct experience of anger, of desire, of restlessness, of boredom, of pride, of helplessness, of shame, of any of these difficult kinds of energies? We stop bringing in past thoughts as a barricade; we stop bringing in planning and how we're going to fix this as a barricade to the direct experience; we stop bringing in anything extra and just allow this bare experience, with a gentle inquiry, "what is it?" What is the experience of shame, of anger, of boredom, of restlessness? What is the naked experience of it? Only here can we begin to know its true nature, that it is impermanent and arises out of conditions and not as "self."

There's a quote from the Buddha that I find very, very beautiful. "Abandon what is unskillful. One can abandon the unskillful. If it were not possible I would not ask you to do it. If this abandoning of the unskillful would bring harm and suffering, I would not ask you to do it. But as it brings benefit and happiness, therefore I say, abandon what is unskillful. Cultivate the good. One can cultivate the good. If it were not possible, I would not ask you to do it …" I often think of those words, "If it were not possible, I would not ask you to do it." The Buddha to me is the model of awakened self. It's possible. I may not do it perfectly. I may do it very sloppily at times. But that's okay. Can I ask myself to stay here and be present with this uncomfortable energy, from a place of deep kindness, just the way I asked my children to develop the lovingkindness to themselves to know their fear and strength and not to run from a vicious dog. If you run, you're going to get hurt.

This is where suffering arises, from these old patterns of wishing not to be present with what is. If you can stay here with your fear, you're going to find much more possibility of clarity. But it asks a lot of us. It asks us to be present with what we've habitually run from, probably for countless lives. We've got to remember this is a very old habit. We're not here to fix ourselves, we're not here to break the habit, we're simply here to understand how it has worked.

This is very important. The mind that says, "Aha! I'm barricading myself. I'm going to fix that." It's just another kind of evasion. Can you see that? Open to mind that says, "Ah! What is this anger, or restlessness, or craving, what really is this experience about? Am I willing to let myself be touched by this?" So we watch. That which observes the difficult mind state, the anger or craving, is not anger or craving itself. What observes? Can you begin to rest there?

Back to the beginning. What is burden? I began to investigate it in just this way. I invited "burden" on a three week retreat with me. Under "burden, I discovered desire for certainty, wanting to control, to be safe. And in all of these, nothing! Very powerful old conditioning, impermanent and not self. As I looked at the reaction of "burden" in myself, it looked like the child's toy, those balls that hang and knock each other, each serving as impulse which pushes the next. So now I knew it was nothing, but the idea clung; "burden" still arose. Next I saw how, each time it arose, I was getting out a sword to fight with it. Can "burden," or anger, craving, shame, or any other mind/ body state be there without war? Can I just nod to it, as the boys learned to do with Charlie, and not get excited? When there's nothing left to feed it, it will go. Until then, it can stay and remind me to keep my heart open, to have compassion for myself and all beings who feel unsafe.

I wish you all a summer of sunshine and rainbows after storms, of abundant gardens and long evenings under the stars.

Many people have asked me about the experience of deafness. A new anthology, Being Bodies: Buddhist Women on the Paradox of Embodiment, includes my chapter about deafness and the ways it has shaped my life. Edited by Lenore Friedman and Susan Moon, just published by Shambala, it's available in your local bookstore or at Deep Spring Center.

My greetings to you. I appreciate this opportunity to speak to so many of you and to choose from among past talks those which I feel would be most beneficial to share.

As you read my words, please remember that I am not omniscient. I offer my teaching to be truth only as I perceive it. If it rings true to you and helps you gain understanding, use it. If not, throw it away. Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts. My love to each of you as we walk this path together.

There is a teaching which is central to Buddhism called dependent arising. In simplest terms, this teaching means that in this conditioned realm when the conditions are present for something to arise, it will arise, as product of all that has gone before. When the conditions cease to be present, that which has arisen will cease. You don't need to take any body's word for this, it's very evident in your own experience. Whatever arises is impermanent and it will change and fall away. It does so because the conditions which supported it ceased. Does rain last forever? What about sunshine? It all changes. The moods of the heart and mind change in just the same way as does the weather.

There is also what we would call the unconditioned realm. In one sutta, the Buddha refers to this realm. Addressing a group of monks, he says, "O monks, there is an Unborn, Undying, Unchanging, Uncreated. If it were not so, there would be no reason for our work."

So we have an unconditioned realm and a conditioned realm. The important thing to remember is they are not separate. We have this core or unconditioned and out of it expresses the entire conditioned world. If you take any aspect of the conditioned realm and follow it into its heart, you find there the unconditioned. Not my unconditioned or your unconditioned, simply THE unconditioned. Look at a drawing of an octopus. Each limb seems to be separate. One waves in the air, one swims, grasps at an object. But they are not 8 octopi. There is one. It has one heart, one core awareness. Did you ever build snowmen? This instrument's children used to do so, and gave them names, identities. They seem to have a separateness but they are just snow. After a few days they melt and are just water, part of the earth itself.

One aspect of each of you is pure awareness, or pure heart-mind. This is the place where you touch into that unconditioned. And each of you has physical, mental and emotional bodies. These are the conditioned expressions of the unconditioned.

Each conditioned expression is unique but the heart from which it springs is simply the unconditioned.

Different religious paths and philosophies have different names for it. It doesn't matter what you call it. It is the unconditioned, the Deathless or Eternal. Those religions which speak of God call it God. Some Buddhist schools give the title "dharmakaya." Allah, Jehovah, Love, are alll names for that which cannot be named. Our work is not to name it. A name is a finite label. How can you put a fence around infinity?

What is the need to name it? Your work is to experience it within the self first and then in the outer world. When the experience of it in the self and the experience of it in what you think of as other is truly the same, then you have finally arrived at a place of non-duality. Realization of non-duality does not mean that John and Barbara are the same being. Non-duality means that this unconditioned core, this pure heart-mind or pure awareness mind, that is the essence of each of them is realized.

You cannot dwell only in the unconditioned. Throughout history, people have tried to do that, to find ways to withdraw from the conditioned realm. I will concede that a brief period of withdrawal while you firmly establish the experience of the unconditioned, is useful. That's part of the reason why you attend a retreat like this. Retreat literally from the world and find a quiet place where you may more fully experience the clarity and wisdom in yourself. Once you have stabilized the experience of it, if you hide there, unwilling to be drawn back out into the world, you have misunderstood. You have separated the unconditioned from its myriad expressions in the world. And by your refusal to work with those expressions, to cherish that which is skillful expression, and to find kindness, understanding, and the willingness to attend to that which is unskillful expression, you dishonor these multitude of expressions of the unconditioned. Some of it is indeed unskillful. In the simplest terms, that doesn't mean it's devoid of God.

Some beings do the opposite. They work in the world, work feverishly, even with deeply loving aspiration, to move the world away from fear and hatred and into paths of love. But they misunderstand. Unless you have touched this unconditioned in yourself, understand its full nature and understand the non-dual expression of all that has arisen so that you stop saying, "This is good, that's bad; keep this, get rid of that" but instead can simply nurture that which is seen to be good and deeply attend and understand with love that which is harmful—until you can do that, you are not truly serving the path of love but are serving fear.

I would ask John here to read a short piece from the Buddhist scripture Dhammapada. It is the first piece in the book, called "Choices." John, if you would read through that phrase, "This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible." I thank you.

Hatred can never be touched by hatred. Only love can resolve hatred and fear. When you are faced with negative emotions such as anger, why then do so many of you bring in more anger to conquer anger? This is such an old pattern for humans. At a certain level in your spiritual path, you deeply aspire to offer your energy purely. When the shadow side of the self arises, which shadow is simply the conditioned voice of fear and confusion and the delusion of separation, instead of responding with love to that voice and teaching it truth, you contract in an attempt to conquer it, to kill the voice of anger.

In part, the teachings themselves give rise to this misunderstanding. A friend speaks of coming to a Buddhist monastery in Thailand and seeing a sign above a door, "No anger is permitted here." The confusion actually arises as early as the sutras themselves. We're reading a translation, remember. But we must read and understand how the misinterpretation came about. Then perhaps we can more fully give ourselves permission to experience our feelings, whatever they may be. Note that I am not suggesting you act out your anger or your greed. To act it out or to suppress and deny it are both unskillful. But there is this third option which is to make space for it and understand, to be present with it with that choiceless awareness of which we have been speaking.

When observed, anger is just anger. Fear is just fear. Desire is just desire. They arise from conditions and will cease when the conditions cease. There is no "me" or "mine" here, just empty movement. "What is it?" is the question I like to ask. What really is this craving, or aversion? That which knows craving is not the craving itself. Come back to this awareness mind and see craving as the conditioned expression that it is.

Sometimes even that presence is not enough to allow you space from these arisings. You may observe that certain emotions like anger or greed arise because the conditions are present, that there's no central self in whom they arise. Nevertheless they continue to arise. We do need to look into the conditions that gave rise to these images. So I am not simply saying to let the emotion come over and over and over and over, without attendance. But each time that heavy mind-state arises, instead of its being an experience for which you judge yourself, and say how bad you are because it's arising, can it become a gateway to compassion for the self? Can it inspire a deep willingness to move even deeper into understanding the conditions which gave rise to it, so that eventually it will cease. Not cease because you have choked it to death but because you have understood it and there is no longer anything to feed the roots of it.

But each time that heavy mind-state arises, instead of its being an experience for which you judge yourself, and say how bad you are because it's arising, can it become a gateway to compassion for the self? Can it inspire a deep willingness to move even deeper into understanding the conditions which gave rise to it, so that eventually it will cease. Not cease because you have choked it to death but because you have understood it and there is no longer anything to feed the roots of it.

If you take away that which feeds the plant, the plant will die. If you take away that which feeds the roots of anger, anger will die. The same with craving. So I am not suggesting that you will always be angry, feel greed or jealousy or pride, and can do nothing but observe how these arise, only that you must work with it in a skillful way.

I'm going to ask John to read again. John, the section on anger, just through those first 3 lines from the beginning through those first 3 lines on the second page. Listen to this and see if you can understand how the distortion arose. It says right here, "Don't be angry." What did the Buddha mean? John …

Cease from anger. "Never be angry." What do I do with this? Most of you have heard me say this before. If you step barefoot on a tack, there's going to be blood. There's no way you can stop the blood and pain, unless you either remove the tack or pad the foot so that the tack cannot penetrate. When the tack is there and the foot comes down there is going to be pain of puncture and blood.

Knowing what you do about the Buddha's way, could you believe that he would say, "Do not bleed?"

If the conditions which give rise to anger are there, anger is going to arise. I think he's saying two related things here. One, not "Do not be angry" but "Do not enact your anger in the world." This is very different. Do not enact your anger in the world. Be responsible for your anger and for any emotion. Don't give way blindly to anger, in blame of others. Never hold anger. Be with your anger, but neither consumed by it nor in ownership of it. Second, do not give way to the habit of anger without investigating the conditions from which it arises. Do not resign yourself to an eternal pattern of anger. This does not mean you're ever going to fully vanquish anger. Only the fully realized being will fully cease to be angry, to have any heavy emotion arise. But long before you become that fully realized being, you can deeply understand the conditions that give rise to heavy emotion and work with them in such skillful ways that, as I just said, when those conditions arise they begin to serve as a catalyst for compassion, not a catalyst for fear and hatred.

But long before you become that fully realized being, you can deeply understand the conditions that give rise to heavy emotion and work with them in such skillful ways that, as I just said, when those conditions arise they begin to serve as a catalyst for compassion, not a catalyst for fear and hatred.

How does this work? Very rarely I offer an example of one past life or another. Many of you have asked me about my final lifetime, but I've only told the story once, to a small group. The being whom I was, was a Buddhist monk and a teacher. He had a disciple whom he loved almost as a son. Perhaps with too much attachment. But it inspired him to see the degree of this disciple's understanding, and that this disciple not only could translate what he himself taught but eventually would even take it one step further, giving voice to deeper understanding out of the voice of his own clarity.

Through a series of tragic circumstances for which the monk I was was partially responsible, this disciple was murdered. Not by the monk that I was, of course not, but by another who was very angry. The being I was at that time had thought he was beyond anger. And yet, great rage arose in that monk at the senselessness and tragedy of this murder, for the one who murdered the disciple loved him. One could call it an accident, and yet a weapon was cast in anger, not with intention to kill this disciple but intending to do harm, intending to act out his anger. And this disciple was there and was killed.

I thought I was beyond anger because so many years had gone by in which I had not experienced anger. I deluded myself. I was not grasping at being enlightened. Simply, I was astonished. There was so much rage. Grief, yes. But also, rage. Then I knew that I was not free, no matter how deeply realized I had thought I was, until I understood this arising of rage. I did not condemn myself that it had arisen, but was very disappointed in myself for I thought that I had subdued this "demon anger." But I understood that the conditions out of which it could arise were still present in me. And my work was to understand those conditions. So this monk that I was left the monastery where he had lived and taught and went off into the forest, there to wander alone for many years.

He looked deeply into the nature of his emotions, into how, when he fully understood that there was no separate self, how in a moment the delusion could recur and give rise to rage. He looked deeply at the nature of fear. The nature of need to protect the self. And of course to protect the self is not bad. If you didn't take care of yourself, none of you would be alive today. You do need to care for the self. It's a loving thing to do. But to care for the self can come from a place of love. It does not need to come from a place of fear.

He looked deeply and found the places where his heart was still not fully open to himself in compassion. The places where he held himself separate from himself. The years passed and he thought he understood. And then, one night he was given a very terrible and wonderful opportunity.

It was that proverbial 'dark and stormy night.' He had settled himself in a place with a bit of shelter to spend the night, under dense shrubs. The rainy season was fast approaching. His shelter became flooded so he was immersed in cold water. Rather than sit there, he got up and began to walk down a path in the dark and the rain. As he walked, the wind blew a tree over on top of him, literally. Not a single branch injured him. He felt it coming, fell to the ground and tried to protect himself. Large branches fell around him. They made a cage. One very heavy limb rested on his back, not with enough pressure to make more than a scratch, but his belly was deep in the mud and he could not move.

I say "he;" perhaps I should phrase this "I." When I say "I," you understand this is not me, Aaron. But that being who I was, one of many, many, many beings whom I have been. I don't use the word "I" because I don't associate with him as what I am now. But I think the use of the first person will make the story more vivid for you.

I lay there in the mud. I resigned myself to being muddy, cold, wet. I thought I should have to stay there perhaps two or three days but eventually someone would come down this path and find me. So I did not feel that I would die there. The rain let up a bit. But it was very dark and I could not see anything. Then I began to hear the soft breath and subtle growls of a large animal. There were tigers in these forests and I realized that a tiger had scented me trapped there. Again, after all of those years of my hermit's life and working to subdue anger in myself, anger arose. Anger at this tiger, who in a short time was going to kill me. Anger at my helplessness.

And with it the thought, "I am a failure. I shouldn't be angry." Remember, I had grown up with this tradition, "Do not be angry," with all of its misunderstanding. For me in that time anger meant I was a failure. It meant my whole life was a lie. "Abandon the kilesas" (negative mind states). But I was angry. I had been angry at the death of my disciple. I had spent all those years in the woods trying to understand how anger had arisen. But I had not done it with love, I had done it with intent to destroy anger. So there was that within me which was tight and cold, which considered anger as an evil oppressor which must be destroyed.

I lay there in the mud. These branches which imprisoned me also protected me. It was a species of tree you do not have in this country, with many very thick dense branches. And somehow I had just fallen into a small hole. I was surrounded by thousands of spikes. So this beast could scent me, but it could not easily reach me. He smelled my fear and he knew that I was meat, I was dinner. I could hear him tearing away at the branches, snarling at his anger, that they separated him from his prey.

How long can one continue to lie facing death without more honesty arising? I had felt I was a failure because I had not learned enough love to conquer anger. Then suddenly in a flash of light, I understood! I had not brought patience, love nor endurance to anger, but only more anger, and this had created self. Then it became my anger, and self expanded further. I did not see it in terms of the characteristics of impermanence, not-self and suffering. Finally I understood. "In this world, hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate." How could I hate this beast? It was simply a hungry animal doing what any hungry animal would do. Perhaps it had young that it had left back in its den. Perhaps its babies were starving.

And so I began to do lovingkindness meditation for myself and for this tiger. For the first time I allowed myself deeply to touch my pain. I saw how the tiger and I were one. I saw even how I could not die but would continue inside the tiger. And when the tiger defecated that which I had been out of itself, I would continue in the nurturance the soil that fed the trees. I could not die.

But even more, I saw the nature of fear and how fear had been a catalyst for anger. More specifically, I understood how the illusion of separation had been a catalyst for fear, and how my own harshness with myself had created that separation. When I opened my heart deeply to myself in kindness, separation dissolved, and then fear dissolved, and then anger dissolved.

I lay there experiencing such deep love and gratitude, knowing that it really didn't matter at that point if the tiger devoured me or not, that I was free. To cease to experience the heavy emotions did not mean to conquer them, but to touch the conditions that gave rise to them so deeply that there was nothing left to burn.

There's a beautiful quote in a Mahayana text, a Buddhist sutra offered after the time of the Buddha, called The Holy Teachings of Vimalakirti: "That which has no intrinsic substance, and no other sort of substance, cannot burn. That which does not burn is not extinguished. Such lack of extinction is the meaning of peace." What does this mean, in terms of my story? Simply, there was nothing left to burn. Anger could not burn because I found myself to be substanceless. Because anger could not burn, there was nothing of me that could be destroyed. That did not mean the body could not die, but the pure awareness mind, the heart, the place where I am inseparable with all that is, could not be destroyed. Buddhism calls this knowing the deathless.

At that point, there was nothing left to fear. At that point, anger ceased. This does not mean that if there was a skillful way to escape that trap, I shouldn't use it. This is to take care of the self lovingly and not out of fear.

What actually happened was quite wonderful. When my fear and anger ceased, I stopped giving out that prey scent. I could feel the tiger's confusion. Prey, as she experienced it, had suddenly left. It made no difference that there was still a human sitting there; it was no longer prey. She snuffed around for a bit and then she left.

I lay there for a day and then people walking the path found me, cut the limbs away and freed me. I spent several more weeks in that woods and then, as the rains began in earnest, went home, went back to the original monastery that I had left 10 years earlier, and again began to teach.

That was my final human lifetime. I tell that story in part to help you to understand that full freedom is possible. But most of you at this stage are more concerned with freedom from the suffering of everyday life. Freedom from the negative patterns which create pain for you and others is also possible.

You are not here to conquer any heavy mind state. You are here to learn how to bring love to the various experiences of the human: How to rest in that awareness which observes arising and understands it without being taken in, possessed, by it. How to allow yourself to be so present that that which had arisen ceases to arise.

The secret is presence. To allow yourself to be touched deeply by your experience takes much courage. Every being wants to be safe, and there is really an instinct to protect the self. You are staring in the face of all of that instinct, asking yourself literally to stand there and watch the tiger arrive.

Vipassana practice is the most useful tool I know to learn this. But your practice must also be balanced by devotional practice, by practices of metta and the other brahma-viharas, by sila or intention to live in non-harm and with devotion to the precepts, by service in the world, touching and being touched in literal ways—I don't mean touching by the hands although that too—the touch of the heart. There is a Buddhist teaching of the spiritual warrior. You are indeed all spiritual warriors. But you do not fight with the sword to conquer, you fight with the heart to learn how to love ever more deeply. Mother awareness attends. I prefer this image to that of the warrior.

You can use support tools such as the awakened heart teachings with which we work. These are practices which nurture the deep aspiration to offer one's energy with love. Use practices such as clear comprehension of purpose in which you ask yourself, "What is my highest purpose here? Is it really to be safe or is it to work in the most skillful way that I can in this situation and to bring love where there has been confusion and pain?" In order to enact that highest purpose, you must be honest with yourself about your degree of fear and the strong impulse to protect the self. If you deny it and are dishonest with yourself, then you are shifting into conquest rather than love.

I cannot begin to describe to you how all of this comes together, and how it does will be different for each of you. Each of you have your greater strengths and areas of weakness. Your teachers attempt to observe those areas of strength and help you build on them, and to know along with you the areas of weakness and help you to find more strength in those areas. So the path for each of you will be subtly different. I can only ask you to trust that if you continue to meditate, to be mindful, to give frequent inner voice to your deepest aspirations, to live your life with purity, clarity, kindness and love, that it will all come together and you will find freedom. Yes, freedom from the arising of these heavy mindstates and even more important, freedom from reactivity to them. You will learn how deeply you can love. And that is what I wish each of you. When you know who you are, when you know your true nature, you cannot doubt your ability to love for you are each of you inherently divine, and divinity is love.

I can only ask you to trust that if you continue to meditate, to be mindful, to give frequent inner voice to your deepest aspirations, to live your life with purity, clarity, kindness and love, that it will all come together and you will find freedom. … When you know who you are, when you know your true nature, you cannot doubt your ability to love, for you are each of you inherently divine, and divinity is love.

I would ask you to sit for a few minutes in silence with my thoughts. And then I would be glad to speak to your questions. I thank you. That is all.

Question: Aaron said anger can't be touched by anger, it can only be touched by love, which can be very difficult when you're angry and your heart is closed!

Aaron: I am Aaron. J, perhaps you've been watching some of the Olympics on television. You've seen some of these people swoop down a hill and off a ramp into the air and fly the length of a football field, even doing somersaults on the way down. Clearly it can be done. Hearing that it can be done, would you go upon that ski jump, slide down and leap? You'd kill yourself. You would need to start at the beginning, putting yourself on skis and ski down the beginner's hill. Eventually you would progress to the point where you could ski down a larger slope and perhaps jump over a tiny jump, 3 or 4 feet into the air. At the same time, you would be studying gymnastics, and perhaps diving from a diving board. Only after you had all the skills perfected that were necessary would you expect to be able to swoop down a slope, turn your somersaults in the air and land smoothly.

Most of you are stymied by anger for precisely the reason J just offered: everything closes. Most of you have learned not to enact your anger strongly in the world, or if you do, to apologize for it, and to offer to clean up after yourself as well as you can. May I kindly suggest that to work with great anger at this point is akin to attempting to go down the slope and leap without mastering the skills that are foundation for that jump. I am not suggesting that when there is strong anger and you are caught in it, you simply shrug and say, "I'm not ready to do anything about it." But instead of chastising yourself because you feel like a failure, simply know, this was a big ski jump. Let it remind you to go back and perfect the skills that are needed in order to jump successfully. This is why we call meditation practice "meditation practice."

Sit, and in your sitting feel the small ant that has crawled up on your leg and is walking across it. Touching, touching. Unpleasant. What arises, then, perhaps is not strong anger but irritation. "I don't like this. I want to be rid of it." In that sitting, without somebody standing there and confronting you, without a response necessary, all that's happening is the little ant is crawling across your leg. Or your neighbor in the meditation hall is breathing heavily. Watch the whole process of arising anger in these much lighter situations. Where there is not such tension and no immediate response necessary, practice and see what works, literally.

In that moment with the ant, can you watch the impulse to brush it off, just noting it as tension, tension. If your best friend came to you and said, "J, I'm feeling incredibly tense," you wouldn't holler at him and say "Stop being tense!" you would treat him with kindness and understanding. Offer yourself that kindness and understanding. Ask yourself, "What will my response be to tension, to contraction, pain or fear? When I'm feeling tension, it's very unpleasant. I want to be rid of it. I feel vulnerable. There is helplessness, sadness, fear." Allow those feelings, the fear and helplessness. What does helplessness feel like? How is it experienced in mind and body? Is there any self to it? Does it stay or does it eventually change? Watch all these things. What happens when there is immense emotion and then it ceases? How does that abatement feel? What do you learn when you watch that dissolution many times? What creates the deepest suffering, your helplessness and the discomfort of it in mind and body, or the craving that wishes to be free of this discomfort? Check it out, there on the cushion with the ant.

Then how will you respond? What opens the heart. Try metta, right there in that moment. See if you can give yourself a little space, a little kindness. "May I feel safe. May I feel happy." Allow yourself to feel how much you want to feel safe and happy. Remind yourself that all beings want that. Relax and allow the experience of this tension. Remember to thank the ant.

You have innumerable little ants in your life. There are so many opportunities to practice. Slowly you will build up the skills so that you can work with the greater pains. So my suggestion, when strong anger arises and your heart closes, is simply to remind yourself, "Oh, this is a big ski jump. Perhaps I'm not ready to jump here. Perhaps the best I can do is just to sit and breathe and get through it. May it inspire me to note that I need to work harder on presence with difficult emotion in times when it's not such a heavy weight."

There's much more I could say here, J, but I think perhaps this is sufficient. Would you like me to speak further or does this answer your question? I pause.

Question: When we are confronted with very heavy emotion like a strong anger, what are your thoughts about venting the anger where no one is hurt, such as hitting a pillow or screaming in an empty car?

Aaron: I am Aaron. My first response, F, and I do not mean this critically at all, is to ask, why you would want to do that? (laughter) To practice anger only enhances anger. You speak of venting. The anger is strongly experienced. As long as you vent your anger so that you do not have to feel the pain of the fear, sadness, or whatever may lie beneath the anger, you cannot learn about the nature of anger. Your anger is not a burden, your anger is a gift. Even that anger is here to teach you something. It requires much courage to stay present and ask, "What is the nature of this anger?" and discover what lies underneath, what conditions have given rise to the anger. This is what I mean by presence. By allowing yourself to be touched so deeply, one layer after another, you are truly asking yourself to stand there naked.

This is not an intellectual investigation. You move into the body, into the experience of anger in the body. There may be no thought chain at all, but simply a sequence such as enormous grief, fear, images from this or past lives of places in which you were very unsafe, were literally traumatized. Slowly you begin to understand the whole delusion system that solidified the self, that created the fear and out of the fear, the anger. I'm not suggesting here that fear is always what lies directly under anger. Often it is. If not, what else is there? Use your anger as the gift that it is, the opportunity for deep investigation.

But if, as J just suggested, your heart closes to the point that you cannot do anything with it, that you just feel stuck in the immensity of the anger, then you do not vent your anger but vent your energy. This is different. You're not taking an ax and pounding wood and pretending it's the person with whom you are angry. Who wouldn't like to do that sometimes? (laughter) But you can in a very kind way take that same ax and chop wood with an awareness, "there is an enormous tension in me and I need to let some of it out."

This is very subtle. It's not for the beginner. I know I am not addressing a beginner here in you, F. But for those of you who are newer to the practice, what I suggest must be done with care. It perhaps needs a bit more experience because it can backfire if it is done in an unskillful way. Essentially this movement that you call venting must be free of any desire to enact the anger on something and must come from a very kind place of wanting to relieve tension. You can simply walk around. You don't have to scream, you can just sing out, as in chanting, which can start out very forceful and slowly diminish into a calmer chant. You can run, which will eventually slow down and work its way into walking meditation.

Here you give yourself the opportunity to subdue the strong energy a bit so that it feels more manageable. And at the point where it feels more manageable you can enter more deeply into it with that question, "What is it? Can I let myself be more touched by it?" Do you understand the difference? I pause.

Question: In 20th century terms, would Aaron see the search for causation to be met by psychotherapy? Or counseling?

Aaron: I am Aaron. In terms of your specific question, F, yes, psychotherapy does address causation. The difficulty here is that is not just causation that we must understand. That's only one step. To understand causation is to give the individual a sense of control. There's still a self who is trying to control. So merely to understand causation does not in any way shatter the idea of separate self, or address that idea. Even more important, it does not provide in the experience of the pure heart/mind with which to replace the separate self as a stable platform on which to live. You cling to separate self because you have no alternative. If separate self dies, if the ego is shattered, you collapse.

Meditation not only investigates dependent arising and the whole chain of causation, it also provides you that experiential center which I earlier called "the deathless." And from that increasingly stabilized center, you can begin the experience of allowing this, let me phrase this very carefully, of allowing yourself to release hold on the myth of separate self as ultimate reality. Separate self is a reality but it is an expression of the ultimate reality and not ultimate reality in itself. It is the snowman which exists, but whose true existence is water, is life!

I began speaking tonight by talking of the need to be in both realities, not to hold to either one but to understand the ultimate and the relative and how they come together. Psychology investigates only the relative. In order to successfully move through this you must investigate both. Those who have moved through a course of psychotherapy successfully, in other words, have found freedom from their symptoms, understand how certain notions had arisen based on early life experience and they are no longer slave to the reactions of those emotions. Nevertheless, the emotions still exist. One could have been paralyzed by a sense of unworthiness, investigated the origins of that unworthiness in one's childhood, and understood exactly how it happened. Understanding, one may well have moved into a place where one no longer had to enact that unworthiness in one's life, where one could begin to form stable and loving relationships and to work in the world in a more stable way and not be "the unworthy one." But in certain circumstances such as an angry boss coming into the room and criticizing your work, that old pain is still going to arise. You may not need to react to it but it's still there. So there's a certain degree of freedom from this understanding of causation, through therapy.

In meditation you begin to look at the one who thought he was unworthy and deeply understand that nobody was ever worthy or unworthy—this understanding is not just intellectual—or even with some small degree of experience, understanding how that unworthiness arose.

Meditation penetrates through to the whole creation of the myth of the self and how that self then moves one step further into an idea of worthy or unworthy. Where there is no self there can be no worthy or unworthy. Then the whole myth shatters. Whatever arises ceases and is not self. That is the truth which offers true freedom. The craving after something to be different is suffering and heightens the pain. When you know it is, only then does the pain stop arising when somebody blames you and confronts you.

I think these two disciplines support each other wonderfully but they are not the same. Does this sufficiently answer your question? I pause.

Barbara: In response to Aaron's answer at the retreat (see above) about not venting heavy emotion in a harmless way, came a question to which Aaron wants to speak. Somebody who heard the talk became angry at it. She said that many people in our society are uncomfortable with their anger and that sometimes pounding something or acting out the anger in that way can be very helpful to help people to allow the experience of their anger or other heavy emotion.

So she was upset with Aaron's answer and thought it was an irresponsible answer. Aaron says he wants to clarify this, to take it one step further, because this particular question and answer will be used in the newsletter, and because it is a very important point.

Aaron: Good evening and my love to you all. I am Aaron. First, I stand by my reply given at the retreat. The reply was to a question about venting anger. When one is venting anger, one is in touch with that anger. One may be locked in with that anger, but one is not feeling so ashamed or uncomfortable with the experience of it that one has suppressed it entirely. There are many people in your culture who have been taught that it is bad to have any heavy emotion, that one should not be angry, jealous, or impatient, and of course, it is hurtful to others to enact those emotions, so many people do suppress emotion.

You are human. You have an emotional body. When conditions are present for emotions to arise, they will arise. I have talked many times about emotions not being good or bad but simply being energy. I am not going to talk further upon that subject.

For the being who has not allowed itself to feel its emotion but has locked itself away so that some level of anger which is not allowed into the conscious mind is literally eating at the body and subconscious mind, that being does not need to vent its anger, that being needs to be allowed to experience its anger. One of the ways this can be done is to use what is almost an artificial tool. We take, for example, somebody who has been seriously abused by another and who has blamed itself for that abuse, has internalized perhaps and said, "Well, it's my fault. I'm just unworthy," or "I invited it in some way" or gives some other excuse. Intellectually that being may know that there is anger underneath but if you ask, he or she will say to you, "No, I really don't feel angry except at myself."

In helping such a being to become more connected to its emotion and not to fragment itself in this way, we can literally hand it something like a baseball bat and cushions. Sometimes in the physical expression of the body, we begin to allow the connection to an emotion which had been cut off. We have experienced with students a number of times that, as the emotion moves into the being, that first intellectual beating of the pillow gives way to tears and much rage, which has been so long suppressed. One might then say, "Is this not the venting of anger?" Not really. It is the allowing of anger. It is allowing the being to get in touch with that which for so long felt unsafe to touch.

Once a being is in touch with its emotion-and anger of course is not the only emotion we're talking of, here-and has found some level of willingness to allow the experience of that emotion, it may find the thoughts keep coming up, memories, for example, which were forbidden, of how it was abused or humiliated or shamed or blamed, how unsafe and hurt it felt. And then an intensity of rage may arise.

Here we come to a second step. What do we do with that intensity of rage? There are skillful means for working with it. We must separate that which wishes to lash out and harm another, which expression we do not wish to nurture, with that which simply feels the boiling up of emotion, a tremendous intensity of fear, confusion, solidity of self. Like a pressure-cooker, sometimes the steam needs to be let out.

Very soon after the one who is doing this work has allowed the emotion into consciousness so that the anger is no longer directed toward the self or suppressed, but begins to have an object, there is a shift in the experience. The anger may be intense. We deal with the energy of the anger in a skillful way so as not to further intensify the sense of separate self, and of hatred toward either self, abuser, or anger. We do not begin to introduce metta, or lovingkindness meditation, immediately. There does need to be some period of time for processing the anger. So we allow a space, a period in which we recognize anger as anger, just know it for what it is. That which knows anger is not anger itself but is awareness. Here we differentiate, and thus, allow the angry one the opportunity to find this calm, wise aspect of being in which to rest and view the situation.

From this calmer base, the process continues. People come to me who were abused in their childhood, have worked with therapists and in meditation, and still carry an intense hatred of the abuser, a sense, "I can forgive anything but that. I cannot forgive that person." We're not talking about forgiving the abuse. We're talking about the person who abused. We're not even talking about forgiveness yet, but developing compassion. We simply offer loving wishes to that being, see that that being also has suffered, and wish them well. The "one who was abused" may find it impossible to offer such wishes, but the wisdom mind, the open heart, in it's clarity, breaks down self and other and such wishes become possible.

The only way that you will begin to break down the sense of a separate self is by beginning the practice of replacing self for other, of beginning to see that every sentient being is an aspect of or expression of yourself. That every being wants to be happy, every being wants to be free of suffering.

To take a stick and beat a pillow with the image of the abuser in mind does not in any way help you to develop that sense of replacing self for other. Therefore, it is not skillful anywhere beyond the first time where the anger or other emotion is allowed to arise. As soon as that stick is actually hitting a symbolic someone, and mind would give identity to that pillow it is hitting, then you are practicing your anger, not releasing energy.

But when you are able to see the intensity of this energy and you just can't sit with it, you feel like you're going to burst open, there's so much rage, you don't know what to do with it, you offer the rage outward. If God is real for you, offer it to God. You can go and chop a pile of wood, but you're not imagining that the person who hurt you is the piece of wood. You're simply taking all of this energy and saying, "It's too much for me to handle. I need to release some of it. Please take it."

I hope this clarifies the question. My answer at the retreat was necessarily incomplete because of time restraints and the nature of the specific question, "Can I vent my rage?" I answered only that which was asked. I do understand the concern that my answer raised. I do want to be clear about when it is useful and when it is not useful to express one's anger in this way. I would pause here to hear your questions.

Aaron: I am Aaron. "How can you release the anger?" I hear your question. All beings want to be comfortable, safe and happy. Anger is an intense energy which feels quite uncomfortable. We speak of burning with anger. It's a sharp, hot energy. When the anger is so intense that you really feel that you might act it out and do harm to others, or that you might simply explode inside in some way, there are certain practices that one can do to make a bit more space for the anger or to release it. These are two different options: to release some of it or to make more space for it.

Remembering that anger is energy, one of the things you can do is simply to use some of that energy, to go out and run, to chop firewood. If mind shifts back to the object of the anger, such as a person, and as you run or chop, images come up, such as chopping and seeing the person as the wood, you may ask yourself, do I really feel so angry that I would lie him here on the firewood pile and chop him? If your answer is yes, you've got to acknowledge that to yourself. My answer here applies to someone who is on a conscious spiritual path. You ask yourself then, is this what I really want? What is my highest purpose here? Is it revenge or is it growth and learning? Is it harmony? Is it a breaking away from patterns of unwholesome karma and creating a more wholesome karma? Here the very images of doing harm that may arise are taken as meditation subject. If the answer is yes, I really would cut him up with my ax, allow that answer to show you how deep the pain goes. What else is there? Shame? Humiliation? Injured pride? Fear? How do these feel in the body? One looks into that which feels such pain and begins to understand how all of this confusion arose.

Finally you can acknowledge the intensity of the anger and it is okay that that anger is present. There is no shame that the anger is present. Certain conditions came together and whoosh! here is this anger; Volcano: pressure is under the ground and whoosh! there's a volcano; certain conditions—whoosh! But you're not helpless. The volcano spills its lava out and if people are in its way and are maimed or killed, so be it. You don't have that option. You are a sentient being and responsible for what pours out of you. The question here is no longer whether the anger exists but is a challenge, "What am I going to do with this energy?"

As the image shifts and you find yourself with the "enemy," pretending that you're chopping him, you need to stop. Clarify for yourself, "What is it that I am doing here? I do not really wish to create harm for this being on the deepest level of my truth. The personality self may wish to but the divine self really doesn't want that. But I need to do something to release this energy. I offer this energy to my woodpile." In a sense you can say, "I offer it to the divine itself." Chop! Chop!

Here you are literally releasing the energy. More difficult for most people, but very useful for some, is simply to work with a body energy meditation, drawing energy in and feeling all the chakras spinning down to the base chakra, touching spleen, solar plexus, heart, and so forth, one chakra at a time. Take that anger energy and bring it into the chakras. Feel the whole flow of energy through the body. And then with a very conscious thought, let it break out through the crown chakra like a fountain exploding. But it's no longer anger, it's been purified through your energy system and what you are sending out is energy. As you send it out, let there be an image, "May this anger be transformed. May it appear out in the universe as pure energy, available to anyone who can use it." In this way there can be a very conscious transformation of the anger energy, a purification of it.

This is more difficult. It is a practice for a more advanced practitioner. But when one is able to do it, it can be a very powerful practice because it brings you so immediately back into touch with that divine awareness. That which truly does love and does not wish to do harm. Then there can be compassion for the relative human who is suffering and wants to do harm. You become within yourself like a parent holding an angry child. The parent doesn't condemn the child. The parent has compassion for the child in its rage but it holds the child so the child does not act out its rage. It holds the child until the child quiets down. Here the divine self embraces the personality self with no sense of shame in it. But you make the shift from the personality as predominant into the divine self as predominant. And then the energy is purified and sent out.

As some of the energy is released so you can stay with the anger, then you have the opportunity to investigate it? What is it? Is it permanent or does it change? Begin to see it as impermanent and not-self.

The second option is not to release the anger but to create a bigger container for the anger. Remember, anger is energy. Anger, this whole experience of anger—again I'm using anger but any heavy emotion can be substituted—this entire experience of anger is a learning opportunity. It's not a problem. It's just a situation that needs your loving attention. Anger can be an enormously helpful tool. We can watch how that energy rises and dissolves, how impermanent it is. We can see how the self seems to solidify around this heavy energy and then expands outward as the energy passes. So we can learn also about the way thoughts and physical sensations arise in what truly is an empty self. Just waves passing through.

You also can learn a great deal in the relative plane about the workings of the personality self and how certain long-established patterns became created. What are your own habitual tendencies? What arises most frequently when certain triggers are pushed? Is there a someone in whom they arise?

When there is enough space that you don't have to get rid of the anger, it's a very profound practice to sit there, literally hold out your hands and allow yourself to take this anger and just hold it. Hold out your hands in front of you now, all of you, cupped in front of you. What if I were to walk around and place in that hand, with your eyes closed, an unknown object. It would have certain characteristics. It might be hot or cold, sharp or smooth. Soft or hard. What I'm describing would seem to be a physical object like a feather or stone. If you think about emotions, they also have these characteristics. We experience a certain emotion as sharp or smooth, soft or hard.

When you take an emotion like anger and say, "Ah, I know this, it's anger," that is a way of categorizing the anger and thereby separating yourself from it. When you can label something, it's a way of controlling that thing. In meditation we teach labeling but it must be done with care so that the labeling is simply a way of focusing on the direct experience of the object that has arisen. If the label becomes a container for the object then it becomes a way of distancing yourself from it. There is a vipassana teaching of, the Pali words are vitakka and vicara, holding and penetrating. We take the experience, allow ourselves to hold it, to stay and be present with it, and then we must go into it and find out what it really is. When we do the above exercise with anger, what you are willing to receive into your hands then is anger or whatever emotion you're working with.

I would ask you here to allow an emotion to come into your mind, something that is difficult for you, like patience, or fear of giving, jealousy, anger, pride. Let it be an emotion you're a bit uncomfortable with in yourself. Literally hold your hands out cupped in front of you again and accept that emotion into your hands with the thought, "What is it?" Instead of saying, "I know this is pride, or anger, or jealousy," can you just say, "What is it? I'm willing to hold it even if its icy cold or burning hot, I'm willing to hold it. What are its characteristics? What do I see as I look deep into it?" This process allows you to experience that mind state directly, to really know it, not just the concept or label with which you have previously distanced yourself from it.

Anything that you hold in this way changes. It breaks down into many parts. You've observed this, each of you, with physical pain in the body. When you first note it, it may be a sharp pain, but if you ask yourself to stay present, it begins to break down into burning or tingling or tightness or throbbing. And the sensation may run up and down that part of the body, that limb, and not just stay put in one place. It's the same experience. You take this emotion, hold it, and see it begin to break apart. What you are doing then is making more space for it, beginning to find the true nature of that emotion. Often when people look deeply at anger they find fear, for example. And in fear, the thought that one's needs won't be met, that one won't be safe, will be hurt. Some see lack of control, and so forth. Each of you will have to look for yourself.

We begin with a willingness to not get rid of the anger once it feels workable. Receive it. Receive it as a gift. You are not in incarnation for comfort or convenience. You are here to learn. Everything in your experience is part of that learning. Sometimes it's pleasant. Sometimes it's difficult. Receive it as a gift and ask, "What is it?" What is it here to teach you? What are its characteristics? What is its nature?

If it feels very hot or heavy or pulsating or uncomfortable, allow yourself to know how uncomfortable it is. Breathe with it as you would a sharp spasm in your body, allowing more space for it. There must be no force here. There's no "I should investigate this energy," only a gentle, "I wish to investigate it because herein is the grounds for my learning. And my highest purpose here is not to be safe, it's to learn." If the highest purpose is to be safe, then put the difficult object down and back away. Then you don't want to be doing this kind of a practice. We're talking about ultimate versus relative safety here. This is the practice that will lead you into the experience of ultimate safety but the path is a difficult one. If you want relative safety, then you're going to have to sacrifice some level of ultimate safety, at least temporarily. I want to phrase that very cautiously because ultimately you are always safe. You are going to have to sacrifice some level of knowing you are always ultimately safe, of coming into the firm experience of that safety in order to create the illusion of relative safety. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to be present with this pulsatingly hot energy and take the risk of being with it until you understand it? Neither way is always right. Where are you? What do you need to learn?

But if you are able to allow yourself to be touched by this object, this anger, desire, fear, whatever, and truly know it, in the body and the mind, then I promise you that you will experience its dissolution, and a spaciousness that ceases to fear arising but makes use of it to deepen wisdom and compassion.