Non violence and self defense

[OriginalSource]

Loving kindness does not mean that a person become a door mat.
Take necessary action to protect your welfare.

^^^This.

I certainly won't stand there and recite someone's doctrine while being clubbed over the head.

[SarathW]

Fight without anger but with compassion.
Be nonviolent all the time.
Fight the way Buddha did for Angulimala.

[OriginalSource]

I disregard any doctrine which instructs me to bottle up and suppress my emotions.

[SarathW]

I understand.
Through meditation (Metta meditation) you gradually eliminate anger (emotions).

Metta

[OriginalSource]

I understand.
Through meditation (Metta meditation) you gradually eliminate anger (emotions).

Metta

If eliminating human emotions works for you go for it!

[culaavuso]

If eliminating human emotions works for you go for it!

Monks, even if bandits were to carve you up savagely, limb by limb, with a two-handled saw, he among you who let his heart get angered even at that would not be doing my bidding. Even then you should train yourselves: 'Our minds will be unaffected and we will say no evil words. We will remain sympathetic, with a mind of good will, and with no inner hate. We will keep pervading these people with an awareness imbued with good will and, beginning with them, we will keep pervading the all-encompassing world with an awareness imbued with good will — abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.' That's how you should train yourselves.

An angry person is ugly & sleeps poorly.
Gaining a profit, he turns it into a loss,
having done damage with word & deed.
A person overwhelmed with anger
destroys his wealth.
Maddened with anger,
he destroys his status.
Relatives, friends, & colleagues avoid him.
Anger brings loss.
Anger inflames the mind.
He doesn't realize
that his danger is born from within.
An angry person doesn't know his own benefit.
An angry person doesn't see the Dhamma.
A man conquered by anger is in a mass of darkness.
He takes pleasure in bad deeds as if they were good,
but later, when his anger is gone,
he suffers as if burned with fire.
He is spoiled, blotted out,
like fire enveloped in smoke.

When anger spreads,
when a man becomes angry,
he has no shame, no fear of evil,
is not respectful in speech.
For a person overcome with anger,
nothing gives light.

I'll list the deeds that bring remorse,
that are far from the teachings.
Listen!
An angry person kills his father,
kills his mother,
kills Brahmans
& people run-of-the-mill.
It's because of a mother's devotion
that one sees the world,
yet an angry run-of-the-mill person
can kill this giver of life.
Like oneself, all beings hold themselves most dear,
yet an angry person, deranged,
can kill himself in many ways:
with a sword, taking poison,
hanging himself by a rope in a mountain glen.

Doing these deeds
that kill beings and do violence to himself,
the angry person doesn't realize that he's ruined.

This snare of Mara, in the form of anger,
dwelling in the cave of the heart:
cut it out with self-control,
discernment, persistence, right view.
The wise man would cut out
each & every form of unskillfulness.
Train yourselves:
'May we not be blotted out.'

Free from anger & untroubled,
free from greed, without longing,
tamed, your anger abandoned,
free from fermentation,
you will be unbound.

Having killed what
do you sleep in ease?
Having killed what
do you not grieve?
Of the slaying
of what one thing
does Gotama approve?

[The Buddha:]
Having killed anger
you sleep in ease.
Having killed anger
you do not grieve.
The noble ones praise
the slaying of anger
— with its honeyed crest
& poison root —
for having killed it
you do not grieve.

[Modus.Ponens]

I understand.
Through meditation (Metta meditation) you gradually eliminate anger (emotions).

Metta

If eliminating human emotions works for you go for it!

You only let go of the things you see as destructive. If you see nothing destructive with smoking, or with eating hamburgers, then why would you let it go? You can only drop anger if you understand that it brings no bennefit. It's not possible to eliminate anger by force. The practice of metta is to change the habits of the mind. And those habits only end if you want them to end.