Never, ever get angry.
Feel it, but don’t become it.
Know there are those who feed off it.
War is profitable.
Because of events happening in the world, it is important to understand the connection between these happenings and our true nature. That bit in between is consciousness – what is going on in the mind.
Anger is caused by reacting to external events. How we respond will either liberate our karma or create more.
Although, in absolute terms, anger is mirror-like wisdom – the first instance of clarity reflecting everything as it is – in relative terms, if anger is held onto, it clouds clarity and we re-act according to our karma.
In the ‘normal’ run of things, if we dislike something we get angry (even subtle dislike is anger, which can turn to hatred), and so we react creating stress in ourselves and those around us. This is the present state of the world: in the Kali Yuga, we over-react.
If there is dislike, there is also like. So if we don’t get what we like, we dislike…therefore we get angry. Consciousness becomes subtly confused. Everything in this universe is based on attraction, repulsion or inertia (ignorance).
We think that we are free-willed people, but practically everything in our home is connected to a corporation. We liked it, so we bought it. This is how the corporations work, getting you to want or need something. In a fair world this is acceptable, however…!?
Corporations are so global that they have a tremendous amount of power and have to keep us buying – spending our wealth. Corporations are powerful entities: they keep the world going round…that’s busy-ness for them and us! We are all involved somehow, playing our part. Just look at the amount of surveillance going on in our personal lives.
So, if this world is run by huge corporations, they will never want the public to think clearly about what is being done to them… “Buy more! Want more! Expect more! Live the dream!”
We know that corporations can influence political parties, and finance them, therefore having control over governments.
All this is easy to see, and we have got used to this way of life…haven’t we? When we consider the power and size of corporations, we start to see how this power is used politically. Although this is all in the name of profit, obsession now takes a hand, and the phrase “NewWorld Order” comes to mind…
We now find the world pushed into austerity. The cycle of boom and bust is at work, and we can no longer afford to “Buy more! Want more! Expect more! Live the Dream!” And so, people become stressed and angry.
What if this was done on purpose?
What if consciousness was being toyed with?
Is the world being run by social engineering?
We see things swinging to the left and then to the right.
Are political parties actually working together in a charade?
Is it possible that this world is run for profit on a huge scale?
Are people being used as ‘cash cows,’ ‘cash slaves’ and ‘debt slaves’?
This alone could make us angry, but what if there is another ingredient added to the mix?
What if the emotions were being enhanced? The most powerful of these is anger, and this takes us back to …“never want the public to think clearly about what is being done to them.” Distraction is needed.
The media, in all its forms, is hellbent in getting us to react. Incidences portrayed on the news and videos, triggering a response. All over the world, we see protests by angry people, treated heavy handedly by authorities, making people even more angry! Engineered austerity is squeezing poor people even further. They want us to get angry!
Anger is the outcome of fear/aversion. Its opposite is desire/attraction. When we don’t get what we desire…we get angry. See how it works? No, we don’t!
The third aspect to this equation is ignorance – not knowing.
We can get angry, without knowing what the real cause is. In spiritual terms, this anger relates to an “I”. In worldly terms, this “I” is being enhanced by marketeers to make you a better you! What you are now is unworthy! You must better yourself and show it off to the world! That is the vicious cycle of existence: samsara.
The hidden agenda is subtle childhood trauma. Putting pressure on children puts pressure on parents, which develops throughout the next generation or two. See how it works now?
Being caught in anger,
we lose our sanity.
Being caught in anger,
we lose natural our intelligence, empathy and compassion.
BUDDHA IN THE MUD is a blog - a living book based on the Dzogchen teachings. Our teacher is life, and life is karma. We are all Buddhas in the mud of concepts. 
Morning Tony!
Anger – you said, “Feel it but don’t become it”. That reminded me of a chat I once had with a lama, regarding the behaviour of some students. I’d spent a couple of days watching a few people going into the lecture hall, and deliberately moving other people’s cushions so that they could get a better seat! Unbelievable! I was pretty angry about this, and went to talk to him.
He seemed to understand the attitude behind this selfish behaviour, and coined the phrase, “Vigorous carelessness”, a concept I found fascinating.
We then talked about – if there is an occasion where one has to show anger in order to rectify a situation and restore balance – using the energy from the anger (that could be what you refer to as “mirror-like wisdom do you think?) but not acting out of anger, in an angry way.
Daisy
Hello – me again 😉
I’ve just heard an interview with Steven Pinker, the author of “The Better Angels of our Nature: the decline of violence in history, and it causes”. This book (I haven’t read it yet) maintains that we are getting less violent and gentler as a species. It does seem to correlate with your thoughts on how to cope with life in this world, and I thought you might be interested in it.
Here are a few random quotations from reviews and critiques that I’ve read:
“But for the first time we have a book that has compiled and interpreted the works of anthropologists, political scientists, historians, neuroscientists, psychologists and many others to tell a story that is as gripping as a murder-mystery, albeit one in which the mystery is why the bodies are not piling up.”
“We humans share a common nature, and that nature is partially given to violence. But that is not the entire story, as you can infer from the title of the book. We have the power of reason, of sympathy, of being able to transcend our parochial tribal perspective and see things from a disinterested point of view, from the viewpoint of others, to assess and predict the consequences of our actions and reflect accordingly.”
“The discussions of the long peace, the decline of genocide, riots and terrorism, fascinating discussions about what actually occurs in the brain when we are in thrall to both our better and our worse angels, discussions as to why it is considered rude to eat off a knife at the dinner table, discussions of why democracies do not go to war with each other, discussions of how trade fosters peace. ”
“You may well recoil from a claim that violence is in decline. It certainly has not vanished. But, over the long term, it has declined. Whether this will carry on is, of course a moot point. This book tells us what has happened, but cannot tell us whether it will continue to happen. But, in the last analysis, the fundamental point of the book is to show that, despite our inherent propensity for violence, our better angels can and do get the upper hand over our inner demons.”
“Pinker’s core point is that much of the doom and gloom regarding the contemporary world is profoundly misplaced: the idea that the past was good (and the present bad) is inconsistent with the facts to the point of absurdity.”
Daisy
We needn’t feel guilty about anger arising, it’s a karmic reaction from the past. In that very moment NO KARMA is created, it is neutral. Karma only imprints on the mind if we act on that karmic habitual patterning.
As you say restoring balance is the key. The key can open or lock in a situation. This brings to mind the four enlightened activities to bring about balance:
PACIFYING, ENRICHING, MAGNETISING AND DESTROYING.
Pacifying accommodates everything. It reveals that there are no problems, and that aggression from the ego is unnecessary.
Enriching brings to light the process of growth, and allows the process of knowledge.
Magnetising bypasses the conventional reality. In conventional reality, we continually try to draw desired situations towards ourselves and fend off undesirable ones. A realised person simply remains as he or she is, without this ego intervention, attracting naturally.
Destroying is connected to compassion, aimed at ego’s manipulations.