If you know what the real roots of your anger are,
you can also transform your anger.
At first you think that your anger has been caused by the one outside...
that just something he said or he did caused your anger.
You don't know that the main cause of your anger is the seed of anger in you.
That is very important.
Other people, when they hear such a thing or they see such a thing,
they don't get angry like you.
because the seed of anger in them is smaller.
The seed of anger in you is very big, that is why you get angry so easily.
That is why you have to accept the fact that...
the main cause of your suffering or your anger is the seed of anger in you. It's too big.
And your son should recognize that
and not to blame everything on the environment or on the other person.
That's one thing to see.
The other thing to see is that...
someone who does not know how to handle his anger...
his suffering will spill over to other people.
When someone is angry, he suffers, she suffers.
Because she does not know how to handle the energy of anger,
she makes people around her suffer including her beloved ones.
And that is someone to be helped, and not to punish.
When you see the suffering of that person, you don't want to punish him anymore.
You know that you have to help him
to transform the anger in him.
But you cannot help him unless you know how to do it yourself.
If you don't know how to go home to you with mindfulness...
recognize, embrace and transform your anger, you cannot help the other person to transform
his or her anger.
That is why you must help yourself first.
The Buddhist meditations offer you very concrete ways of recognizing, embracing, calming,
and transforming your anger.
And if you go to your son with those techniques that you have mastered, then you can help him.
Otherwise, any advice would not help.
Everyone knows that anger is not good for us and for other people.
Everyone knows that.
But the fact is that they cannot help.
They are overwhelmed by the energy of violence of anger.
That is why everyone should learn the art of embracing anger and transforming it.
The first step is to learn how to breathe mindfully to smile to your own anger,
and to embrace your anger tenderly like a mother embracing her baby.
This is something I have done, many friends of mine have done it,
and we have learned it from the Buddha.
We know that when anger manifests in us,
we should not do anything,
we should not say anything.
Because doing or saying something out of anger, will bring about negative things
that will make us regret later.
That is why when anger manifests, the best thing to do is
to practice mindful breathing, mindful walking...
to take care of our anger, and not to try to talk or to do something
with the person we think to be the cause of our anger.
The question was whether sometimes anger helps.
It has been asked so many times.
In fact, if someone makes you angry, you should not try to suppress your anger
because suppressing anger may be very dangerous.
Using the energy of mindfulness to recognize your anger
and embrace it tenderly is what we should do. Much safer.
That does not mean that you do not have the right to tell him or her that you are angry,
that you suffer...
that he has done something or he has said something that made you suffer,
that you are angry.
You can very well tell him or her with loving speech.
In Plum Village, we advise our friends to do like this:
Within or before the deadline of 24 hours,
you have to tell him or her that you are angry, you suffer,
and you would like him or her to know it.
You don't have the right to keep your anger for yourself alone for more than 24 hours.
It's not healthy!
You should tell him or her, but in calm speech. If you cannot do it,
you can write down on a piece of paper.
Our friends remember, memorize well the formulas.
You may like to try it.
The first line you may write to him is: Darling,
I suffer. I'm angry.
And I want you to know it.
I don't know why you have done such a thing to me.
I don't know why you have said such a thing to me.
I suffer very much.
I'm angry.
I want you to know.
That is the content of the first sentence.
If you can't say it, then you have to write it down.
Make sure to deliver to her or him before the deadline.
You'll feel better.
The second line, the second thing you might like to tell him or her is...
You are doing your best.
Darling, I'm doing my best.
It means: I'm practicing according to the teaching of the Buddha.
I am practicing mindful breathing and mindful walking,
generating the energy of mindfulness in order to take care of my anger,
in order to bring relief, and then I will be looking deeply into my anger to see
what the root of my anger is.
That is to see whether that is my wrong perception that has created anger,
or maybe because of some of your unskillfulness.
Looking deeply is to find the root of your anger.
And generally it has been born from our lack of understanding and compassion.
So the second line you write down is:
Darling, I'm doing my best.
When the other person reads the sentence, he will have a lot of admiration for you.
You are a person who know how to handle your anger.
You are a practitioner.
You don't react angrily like other people.
That inspires her or him to practice the same.
What have I done to her?
What have I said to make her suffer like that? I have to look back.
And that is an invitation for the other person to do the same.
Very gentle, very non-violent: Darling, I'm doing my best.
And the third line.
Very difficult to say or to write down:
Please help me.
Because usually when you get angry at him or her,
you want to show that you don't need him or her.
You want to prove that you can survive, you can very well survive alone.
That is the pride that always goes with anger.
If you are capable of writing it down: Darling, I suffer.
I need your help.
You'll suffer much less right away.
Even if he or she has not done anything, the fact is that you can bring yourself to
write down that sentence bring your anger down.
Darling, I need your help.
I'm sure that when she gets the message, she will think very deeply about it.
What have I done to make him angry like that? What have I said to make him angry?
So you invited her to meditate with you.
I always advise my friends to write these three sentences down on a small sheet of paper,
the size of your credit card. And you slip it into your wallet.
Every time anger manifests, go home to yourself,
breathe in mindfully, breathe out mindfully, and take that paper out read it.
And you know exactly what to do and what not to do.
And you are a real practitioner.
If you can help your son, your partner,
your husband, your wife, your daughter to do the same,
that would be wonderful.
You are both together on the path of transformation and healing.
And you can transform the energy of anger and violence
into the energy of understanding and compassion.
When we are angry, we are not very lucid.
That is why acting out of anger will bring suffering.
Sometimes you can pretend to be angry.
But if you are really angry, don't do anything.
Don't say anything.
And you can tell him or her, without anger, that you suffer,
that you are angry, that you want him to do know it.
That is much better than to use your anger to prove something.
There are those of us who think that the energy of anger can be very powerful...
that if you make use of that energy, you will do a lot of things.
If people are able to blow themselves up
because they have a lot of anger in them, anger is tremendous kind of energy.
It's true that terrorists have a lot of anger in themselves.
That is why they can do anything in order to punish.
If we are angry
and if we use anger as the energy in order to punish them back,
we are behaving in exactly the same way.
The teaching of the Buddha is that anger can never remove anger.
Anger can only promote more anger.
Only understanding and compassion can put down the flame of anger
in us and in the other person.
Understanding and compassion is the only antidote for anger.
And using that, you heal yourself and you help heal the people who are victims of anger.
That is why we cannot believe in the benefit of anger
because anger will always bring more anger.
Violence will always bring more violence.
And in a person-to-person relationship, that is [also] true.
In a relationship between one group of people with another group,
one country with another country,
the same thing is true.
(bell)