Darth Vader was Right

Posted on February 2, 2005 in Anger Reading

If you go to the bookstore and peek in the Buddhism section, Thich Nhat Hanh takes up more of the shelf than the Dalai Lama. I’ve been reading as many of his books as I can get my hands on including Peace Is Every Step : The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life, Being Peace, and most recently Anger. Hanh sees no difference between your personal relationships and the ones you have with your government, a challenging thought that I mentioned in an earlier article. Anger is the book I am working through now. It’s provocative to learn that Hanh’s second rule for managing anger is “Do not suppress it”. I for one have encountered my share of New Agers who have shut me down in mid-rant with “Don’t be angry” and similar guilt trips. Hanh says Do be angry, just don’t do or say anything that would escalate it while you work through the problem of your rage.

In Chapter Seven “Enemies”, he urges his readers to “Begin with Yourself”. As I read him, we have to watch our feelings of guilt because they can become a vendetta we carry out against ourselves. On page 127 he writes:

We should not fight our anger, because anger is our self, a part of our self. Anger is of an organic nature, like love. We have to take good care of angwr. And because it is an organic entity, an organic phenomenon, it is possible to transform it into another organic entity. The garbage can be transformed back into compost, into lettuce, and into cucumber. So don’t despise your anger. Don’t fight your anger, and don’t suppress your anger. Learn the tender way of taking care of your anger, and transform it into the energy of understanding and compassion.

In his strange way, Darth Vader was right: feel the anger in yourself. Just don’t use the Force to lash out. Use it to transform the feeling.