“You will not be punished for your anger, You will be punished by your anger.” The Buddha
Today, is election day and this story will continue until the results are hopefully and expeditiously announced. These are times when I ever so briefly fantasize about being a monk in a monastery in a secluded, idyllic location. It doesn’t last long, but thinking about how I deal with the world stays with me in these moments.
It has come to mind a bit more recently, when I try and think how I could possibly deal with a Trump presidency. It is really hard and possibly dangerous to tell an angry person that they will be punished by their own anger. When it comes up, just letting it run its course is a great way to let it weaken of its own accord. There will be a lot of angry people if Trump wins.
Recently, I have been doing probably too many Zen related stories. I don’t want to piss anybody off, lest they think I have some kind of Zen agenda, because I don’t. I can share how I try and cope, but no way I am anyone’s spiritual pathfinder.
For the most part, we get angry about things we can do nothing about. To make matters even worse, we stay angry about these things. This is not a political indictment of the Left or the Right, especially these past months. Just in case you didn’t notice it, we have been masterfully manipulated by all media, from paper to electronica. Attracting eyeballs long ago surpassed unbiased reporting of what happened and/or what was said. Controversy draws eyeballs and eyeballs make money and that has devoured the truth.
I look at the Big Anger that moves millions and millions to support Trump and I wonder what’s behind it. He has been very clear that he will screw 99% of the people supporting him. The remainder are the narcissistic billionaires that have enabled him financially. Virtually everyone expects someone else to be responsible for their happiness. “Making you great again” is medicine for the junkies of jargon. Some of us are so desperate, we think this ugly, little man is going to make us feel bigger than our small, victimized angry selves.
It’s the everyday, little anger I am really talking about. That’s the anger you can do something about. Not only that, no one else can help you with it. Allowing it to fester breeds contagion and here we are.
I feel like I am cheating just a little, sitting in this vacuum of results, but it is not really true. I am trying to imagine what my everyday life will be like with Trump as president and how it will challenge so much of what I have been working on personally for a bunch of decades now.
It is like the idea of standing on a beach, grabbing fistfuls of sand, one at a time, knowing it won’t make a damn bit of difference in my lifetime. All that effort is just wasted, when it can be so much better spent, admiring the sheer beauty of the scenery.
The transitory nature of the above beach analogy is definitely not a reason for not giving a shit, quite the contrary. Being angry and being happy are two fistfuls of that beach sand and they have so much in common. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, both will slip through your grip in the same amount of time. There are no gods or superheroes that can do a damn thing about it either.
When we look to blame some outside force for how fragile moments of happiness are, we grab at the damn sand, fistful after fistful, an activity going by the name of anger. The futility of this effort causes many of us to look outside our lives, becoming unconscious victims to the nature of life. It is much harder to look inside for the answers. Enter the charlatan, who offers to not only share that burden, but to fix it.
Of course, I am still writing this in the blissful ignorance of not knowing the outcome of the election. No matter the results, my job is still pretty much the same. I have to strengthen the walls of my mind monastery, not only on the cushion, but in my word and deed. I think the smaller you can make your world, the clearer the vision. I do worry about getting lost in the crowd outside my invisible sanctuary. I am thinking about it today, more than usual.
Well, you’ll never guess what happened yesterday? Personally, I am now working on a way to cope going forward. I know grabbing the sand is not the way. I have a lot to think about what Thich Nhat Hahn said regarding the futility of anger and I would include sadness, its internalized twin. In the midst of the slaughter of the Vietnam War, he spoke of love and peace as the only way forward. There was no way that could possibly be an answer, just platitudes from some monk. Today, his voice sounds so much louder to me.
I think driving a wedge between us is much easier than trying to bring us together, certainly a foreign idea to those of us in this country. When you have sides, taking advantage of one against the other is a banquet for those feeding off division. By the way, I also think those late-night, elitist comedians have helped to widen the left wedge, pissing off the people, who elected our 21st century Fuhrer. In fairness, it is their job to entertain and not placate. God knows, the guy is hysterically funny, if he wasn’t so dangerous.
There is an endless amount of sand available and it is only one grasp away. Funny, you’d think it would require so much less effort to find a nice shady spot on the beach, take a seat and enjoy the perfect rhythm of time’s ocean. This too shall pass.
Maybe the fact that I am aware of my own life’s chronological contraction has caused me to think about the utter futility of continually grasping at that anger and sadness, having learned it passes. You know, if we all thought a bit smaller, just about the quality of our own lives and how we want to spend today, the world out there will hurt a lot less. It requires effort to do that and you need to think about it. While some of you will likely be around longer than myself, the value of today is the same for both of us.
Fill your day with love and compassion. We all have that gift. For those of you, who think I am full of shit, I’m just looking for a way forward for you, too.
LISTEN TO THE STORY HERE:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/16073358-sewing-my-imaginary-robe