How Can We Let Go of Anger? | Thich Nhat Hanh

Thu Thay, Oprah Magazine is asking, how can we let go of anger? Whether it's directed at family members or someone who's robbed us in the past, it's easy to let anger consume us. So how can we move past it and move on in our lives? It's not quite the same as forgiving and forgetting, Oprah Magazine is speaking about the anger vis-à-vis the members of the family or someone who has robbed us in the past. They want to know whether there is anything we can do in order to transform that anger, to let go of that anger. Forgiving does not seem to be enough. This is very important. I think the first thing we do when anger is about to come up is to go back to our breath and breathe in mindfully. Because anger is like a storm. It comes. There are symptoms. We feel that anger is coming up. It's coming up from down there, in the bottom of our consciousness. So when the storm is about to break out, we know. We feel signs of the storm. So we have to prepare in order to be able to resist or to deal with the storm. So when anger is about to come up, it might take two or three seconds to come up. So during that time we have enough occasion in order to go back to our breathing and breathe in. Instead of focusing our mind on anger, we focus our mind on our breath. We are not afraid of anger because we know how to handle our anger. To deal with anger, first of all, we have to breathe in and focus our attention on our in-breath. When we focus our attention on our in-breath, we bring our mind home to our body. We are truly there. We are strong enough to take care of ourselves. Then we may look at the person whom we think to be the cause of our anger, whether that person is a member of our family or that person who is someone that has done us a lot of injustice. With that kind of mindfulness of breathing inside, we can look and see, look at the other person and see. What we see is that there is suffering in him or in her. That person is not happy. That person has violence in him or in her. That person has wrong perceptions in him or in her. Breathing in mindfully and looking at him or her, we can see that. We can see the wrong perception in him or her. We can see the suffering in him or her. We can see the violence in him or her. We can see that that person is not beautiful when she acts violently and she says things that are not kind. Looking like that, at the same time, we see that we don't want to be like that. We don't want to be a victim of anger and violence. We want only to be a flower. So looking at him or her, we see the suffering, we see the lack of beauty. And looking at ourselves, we know that we don't want to be like that. We don't want to be possessed by anger and wrong perceptions. We want to be a flower, fresh. So that one in-breath, taking mindfulness, can already help us to see things more clearly. And when you see things clearly, anger cannot take hold of you. And you are motivated by the desire to say something nice or to do something nice to help that person to suffer less. It means that you have been able to create compassion in you. Compassion is a kind of energy that can make us stop suffering right away. Compassion is the nectar of peace and happiness. Compassion is born when you see the suffering in him or her. And you want to help him or her. And every one of us is capable of doing so. Suppose we think that the other person does not like us. The other person is trying to do harm to us. That may be a wrong perception. The other person may not have that idea, that intention to harm you, to destroy you. But you still think that they have. But if you have that wrong perception, you will be angry. You want to punish him. You want to harm him before he can harm you. And that is why a wrong perception is something that can make a person violent, angry. A wrong perception is something that can bring anger and fear. That is the case of many terrorists. They have many wrong perceptions. They believe that the other people are trying to destroy them as a religion, as a way of life, as a culture, as a nation. While the fact is that they don't have that intention at all. So if you believe that someone is trying to kill you, to destroy you as a religion, as a culture, as a civilization, you get very angry at him. And you want to destroy them before they destroy you. That is the case of many terrorists. So if you look at the terrorist in that way, you feel that he is a victim of wrong perceptions. He is a victim of violence and anger. And you don't want to punish him or kill him anymore. You want to do something to help remove the wrong perception in him. And there are ways to do that, like compassionate listening or loving speech. Compassionate listening and loving speech can help a person to remove wrong perceptions. And that is the best way to deal with terrorism. You cannot remove terrorism with bombs and guns. You have to remove terrorism with loving speech and deep listening to help people to remove wrong perceptions. And that is why breathing in and look deeply to see that the other person is a victim of wrong perceptions, of violence, of suffering. That makes your compassion arise. And when compassion arises, anger is transformed. Anger is deleted. You don't suffer. Instead, you want to help him to help her. Whether that is a member of your family or someone that has made you suffer because of his or her wrong perception and suffering. And in a few days, you can practice. Sitting alone or walking alone, we can think of the person who has made us suffer. And looking deeply, we can see the suffering in him or in her, the wrong perception that he has, she has. And after having seen that, you are motivated by the desire to go back to him or her and try to help him or her to remove that kind of wrong perceptions, violence and anger, to make him or her suffer less. And if you have that intention, it means that compassion is already born in your heart. And when compassion is there, anger is no longer there. This is my question for Oprah Magazine. And the readers of Oprah Magazine. Do you think that's good enough? Thank you for asking the question.