paul wrote: ↑Fri Nov 17, 2017 7:46 am
Saengnapha wrote: ↑Thu Nov 16, 2017 10:33 am
Any emotion or thought that comes up, if seen as impermanent, dissatisfying, and not self, doesn't harm anyone. There is no need to transform anger. We need to transform our view. Right view is the first step. It is a condition which allows harmony to unfold in all aspects of one's life. It leads to Right Intention and so forth, to Right Effort, Mindfulness, and Concentration. This is not a sectarian issue where you decide which school has the right tools. Anger comes about through causes. It is not difficult to see what those causes are if you are ready to look.
The above statement is opposed to the transcendent Theravada view. The aim is to actively work towards the eradication of anger (ill-will) which task is accomplished in the third stage of holiness, non-returner.
2. ILL-WILL
A. Nourishment of Ill-Will
There are objects causing aversion; frequently giving unwise attention to them — this is the nourishment for the arising of ill-will that has not yet arisen, and for the increase and strengthening of ill-will that has already arisen.
— SN 46:51
B. Denourishing of Ill-Will
There is the liberation of the heart by loving-kindness; frequently giving wise attention to it — this is the denourishing of the arising of ill-will that has not yet arisen, and the decrease and weakening of ill-will that has already arisen.
— SN 46:51
Cultivate the meditation on loving-kindness! For by cultivating the meditation on loving-kindness, ill-will disappears.
Cultivate the meditation on compassion! For by cultivating the meditation on compassion, cruelty disappears.
Cultivate the meditation on sympathetic joy! For by cultivating the meditation on sympathetic joy, listlessness disappears.
Cultivate the meditation on equanimity! For by cultivating the meditation on equanimity, anger disappears.
— MN 62
Six things are helpful in conquering ill-will:
Learning how to meditate on loving-kindness;
Devoting oneself to the meditation of loving-kindness;
Considering that one is the owner and heir of one's actions (kamma);
Frequent reflection on it (in the following way):
Thus one should consider: "Being angry with another person, what can you do to him? Can you destroy his virtue and his other good qualities? Have you not come to your present state by your own actions, and will also go hence according to your own actions? Anger towards another is just as if someone wishing to hit another person takes hold of glowing coals, or a heated iron-rod, or of excrement. And, in the same way, if the other person is angry with you, what can he do to you? Can he destroy your virtue and your other good qualities? He too has come to his present state by his own actions and will go hence according to his own actions. Like an unaccepted gift or like a handful of dirt thrown against the wind, his anger will fall back on his own head."
Noble friendship;
Suitable conversation.
— Commentary to Satipatthana Sutta
These things, too, are helpful in conquering ill-will:
Rapture, of the factors of absorption (jhananga);
Faith, of the spiritual faculties (indriya);
Rapture and equanimity, of the factors of enlightenment (bojjhanga).
C. Simile
If there is a pot of water heated on the fire, the water seething and boiling, a man with a normal faculty of sight, looking into it, could not properly recognize and see the image of his own face. In the same way, when one's mind is possessed by ill-will, overpowered by ill-will, one cannot properly see the escape from the ill-will which has arisen; then one does not properly understand and see one's own welfare, nor that of another, nor that of both; and also texts memorized a long time ago do not come into one's mind, not to speak of those not memorized.
— SN 46:55
"
The Five Mental Hindrances and Their Conquest", Nyanaponika Thera.