Do not chase after the object of your anger – look at the angry mind,
Anger is self-arisen and self-liberated, clarity-emptiness by nature,
Clarity-emptiness is nothing other than mirror-like wisdom –
Within anger self-liberated, recite the six-syllable mantra.
– Paltrul Rinpoche
Commentary:
“Do not chase after the object of your anger – look at the angry mind”
Instead of getting caught in automatic reaction, impulsivety, and being over powered by the sensations of anger, experience it directly without concept in that moment. Instead of letting your attention go out to the person or situation, bring it back to your immediate experience. Simply, feel it, examine it, and inquire into the sensations in the body, see what it really is, instead of discharging it through reaction or stories. Experience the feeling-energy as deeply and as fully as you can (shamatha) and examine it (vipashyana).
“Anger is self-arisen and self-liberated, clarity-emptiness by nature”
By it nature, its actual reality before we assign conceptual labels and experience aversion or attachment to the experience of anger, before all that, it is naturally a clearly knowable and vivid, yet indefinable and transparent experience. This understanding is only experienced when we experience anger before the usual reactions and thought content that get immediately formed around it. It is a quick moment, needing concentration (shamatha) and penetrating investigation (vipashyana). We can also see from this nonconceptual experience that it arises without our involvement (self-arisen) and ceases without our involvement (self-liberated). We did not create it and we cannot make it stop, we can only experience it fully and directly, or react and express it to discharge it.
“Clarity-emptiness is nothing other than mirror-like wisdom”
In Vajrayana, different emotional experiences are said to clearly reveal specific aspects of Buddha nature (clarity-emptiness) when experienced directly without concept. Anger is said to show us mirror-like wisdom. Our fundamental awareness, our basic capacity to simply know things, is never changed by the things it knows. The knowing (awareness) and the vivid experience arise simultaneously. The different vivid qualities of experience change and are infinite, the knowing never changes and is never impacted by what is known. Your awareness is like a mirror, reflecting the infinite images that arise in it, but remains free, untouched, and clear.
“Within anger self-liberated, recite the six-syllable mantra.”
When experiencing anger in the ways described above, continue to walk your path of waking up.The six-syllable mantra refers to the six practices from generosity to wisdom of the paramita Buddhist path, but here, we can simply reaolve to walk our path to realization and the expression of compassion and love.
